Sonar is the biggest electronic music festival in Europe and brings people from all over the world who love electronic music. And guess what, i'm american, so one of those people are not me. But everyone was going so I went anyway. You can go in the daytime or nighttime, day is cheaper. It was weird to party in the day so i couldn't get into it. Electronic music is huge here. For me I just can't get down with it. Maybe you could say the same of hip hop, that it is the simplest music in the world but at least it has lyrics, substance, and is rooted in a distinctly unique culture. Hip Hop to europeans is a joke and they dance to it all weird and in joke fashion and it's not their fault, it's unique to america because that's where the culture is and where all the ingredients for it are. I guess it would be hard to bump to music and a message that doesn't exist in your world. There was one hip hop act we saw and i never heard of them before.
forgot who this spanish joke band was but they're famous.
caught you promo girl!
this dude played/pre programmed some experimental music on sewing machines. I thought it was pretty cool.
There were tons and tons and tons of parties that weekend, all electronic music, all more beats per minute that i usually prefer. here is one secret party on someones rooftop.
The African guys have their counterfeit products rigged with a rope for when the police come.
Viena bocadillo shop on las ramblas was in the NY Times as highly recommended by the author. this is the famous bocadillo from there, forgot what it was. It was OK.
I saw this lady pushing one of those living statue things over to la ramblas and thought she was the owner and performer but then she crossed the street to get another one. Is there a company that rents these out to the performers for an expensive rate per day?
Montjuic. There is a cable car that goes not that far up to the castle. It looks like it's definitely not worth it.
Fundacio Miro, the Joan Miro Museum. Joan Miro influenced everyone from Mark Rothko and Alexander Calder to Jim Flora and Tim Biskup. He was Catalan, and I love his work.
terrace at fundacio miro
the giant cat statue
we went to a show called "WTF Jam sessions" at Jamboree in placa reial. It was billed at funk, hip hop, jazz. when we first got there they were playing traditional jazz and then 10 min later the lights came down and a very big boy started beat boxing and it lulled into beatboxing instrumental jazz and story rapping and was actually pretty cool. they brought on various rappers most of which sucked to different degrees. there were different drummers and instrumentalists too.
and then it was over, and immediately, i mean 2 seconds later the staff started collapsing the 4 to a row connected and collapsible chairs and the place turned into a hip hop club for mostly south americans and 18 year olds. I don't know how they flooded the dance floor area so quickly but they must have been waiting in the bullpen bucking and snorting and ready to go because it wasn't like a place that is slow and people gradually dance, they went for the gold immediately. seconds ago it was a jazz club and now it's the last place i want to be on earth (well if they were playing electronic music that would be the last place i want to be on earth). I guess being in placa reial you have to make revenue anyway you can.
Palau de la musica is a concert hall that is supposed to be super beautiful and it was but we soon found out there was no photography allowed for real, not even in this waiting area lobby. This angered me extremely as many things do, and it was especially sh!t for us photography enthusiasts. You have to go on a tour and it costs like 13 euros or something i think, or you can watch a concert which costs more. so p!ssed.
this is what it looks like in the main concert hall. natural light comes in from the sides and the sun stained glass skylight. sure i could have snapped sneaky shots but at that point i didn't want anything to do with it. photo taken from beyondthepale-dvora.blogspot.com but i suspect he got it from somewhere else.
oh no am i going to spread photos of your beautiful concert hall on the internet sparking interest and tourism for you? picasaweb.google.com/RaymondHW.Hsu Hsiang-wei Hsu
me punching the palau de la musica in the stomach. do not go on the tour for 13 euros it sucks. you might as well go to a concert for 20 euros and get something out of it.
if you go to boqueria in the late hours before it closes you can get awesome deals on the fresh fruit drinks that are usually 3 euros each. Marco and his classmates usually get 12 for 4 euros.
the indignants caused the park we wanted to go to to be closed by the police because of their shenanigans.
some small bar near escola massana, marco's school. we went there after their class one night and they had live jazz. cool
the door to the pipa club previously blogged about here.
a view of plaza reial from the 2nd floor of the pipa club makes you feel like you're in a secret bar, and you kind of are since most people don't know about it and could never find it.
The End of Nublowski
Tibidabo
Tibidabo is the tallest mountain in Barcelona at 512 meters. It has the oldest amusement park and the best view of Barcelona.
this was a funny photo because we were eating the menu of the day on my street and this girl paused while her dogs were snooting about. It doesn't look like it here but she had a proper plump bottom and was wearing short shorts so every male sitting in this terraza was starring at it. by the time i got my camera out those dudes in the back weren't leering anymore but all 6-8 of us unrelated dudes followed our instincts for a few long moments and basked in the glorious sights of Barcelona.
getting to tibidabo is kind of a pain. first you have to take the subway to the tibidao stop, then you have to take this tram that does super slow and doesn't even go that far. on the way home we just walked it and beat the tram because it only leaves so often so you're just sitting on an unmoving tram. and it's like 2 euros. so if you have time and money and feeling old timey then ride it.
next you have to ride this funicular railway to the top, or walk up but if its summer......
it was kinda cool inside
some catholic cathedral.
by the time we got to the top the weather turned to caca and it was super cold and started to rain.
a random pocket of sun before it started raining.
we ran like two little sinners to the cathedral for shelter from the rain and cold and it turned out to be beautiful inside.
i thought these light up signs were a bit out of place and gave it a kind of Vegas feel
elevator. you have to pay 2 euros to go up in it but i think it was determined that you can just walk up the exterior stairs outside and end up in the same place because we did.
next we went to Las Arenas, a converted bull fighting arena that is now a shopping mall. The attraction for us photography enthusiasts was that it has a viewing platform at the top.
a small side viewing platform. Plaza espanya and montjuic is in the back.
3 long exposure shots combined with HDR
That thing on the mountain is the cathedral we took shelter in earlier that day on Tibidabo. Below is Miro Park i believe.
while i was taking photos i saw this really old woman fall on her face and there was blood everywhere. Her party picked her up and she appeared to be ok.
we rode over to the magic fountain and nublowski shot some photos. This is from the camera of Norman Nublawski and processed by me. Originally it was white-ish but I like how processed it into a scene from an orange juice commercial. Imagine swimming in this fountain of pure fresh squeezed organic orange juice.....it would sting so bad but it would be a delicious and nutritious sting.
catalan food. a lot of it is based on putting stuff on huge toast. this is tuna, roasted red peppers, and some other stuff.
more catalan food, sausage and beans. This place is in Gracia on calle verdi and is good but again not as good as La Taverna Llesca.
Gracia night photoshoot session yielded almost nothing. I need to become a better photographer soon
