Like most large cities with mild climates, Barcelona has its share of street people and beggars, though the two are dissimilar, since street people basically set up enclaves in the squares and streets where they live, and beggars come to their various posts for the day and beg for money. Both are amazingly well behaved according to San Francisco standards. I dropped a euro in an old plastic Coke container for the man who opened the door of the church for me on Sunday. It was funny. I didn’t want to, but he encouraged me in such a cool way that I couldn’t resist. It’s very cold now and often rains, so it’s a hard life. Of course, there are the usual buskers in the subways, whom I love. As in Paris, some are very talented. At Sans Station, one was singing and playing John Lennon songs with such interesting interpretations that I couldn’t help stop and listen. Then there was a guy at Park Güell who was playing something that resembled a lute with twelve strings whose music literally made me sit in awe. My “bravo” at the end escaped my lips without my being aware of it until he nodded in my direction.

(Photograph © Rebecca Alm, distributed via Creative Commons)

Today we made the trek to Park Güell, which was designed by Gaudí and built between the years 1900 to 1914. The park was originally part of a commercially unsuccessful housing estate and has since been converted to a municipal garden. It is perched on a hill overlooking the city and has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Like everything Gaudí, it grows on you until you can’t imagine a world without curved lines, ceramics, and wonderful enclosed spaces of wood, stone, and concrete. Vale la pena.