4/12 (sabado)

I have a sore throat.

I wonder if it was because I was only wearing light clothing while sketching and drinking beer in the cold. Maybe I caught a cold.

Perhaps my body has gotten weak.

I wanted to make sketches of people, so I’ve been drawing people since yesterday. Not the large number of tourists here (myself included), but searching out the natives.

I thought that because Gaudi was an architect, I should make sketches of architecture to understand him better. So I tried, but something didn’t feel right.

I got some satisfiaction from drawing people for the whole day today.

120 push-ups. 40 sit-ups (really fallen off).

4/13 (domingo)

I have a sore through this morning too.

The day before yesterday I went to visit the address of where Gaudi lived after he entered society. I’ve now gone there 3 days in a row.

The first day I was heading for the address, but not the other two. Instead, I was going to the old city on bicycle when I got lost. Wandering around I came across a street I thought I recognized. Lo and behold it was the corner with the unfriendly old man’s stationary store and the delicious looking bakery.

I bought moleskin notebooks 2 days in a row. I even saw the old man smile.

“Moleskin?” he asked.

The street level floor of the building at the address Gaudi lived at had a really small cafe/bar. I thought about going in to get some coffee as I passed it by, but I couldn’t work up the courage. It was always empty, and it looked rather gloomy inside, so I decided against it.

So.

Today is Sunday so I think I’ll take it easy. Leave the appartment a little late, study some introductory Spanish at a cafe, draw some sketches if I feel like it. That’s the day I’ll have.

I went to the cathedral by bicycle. I made it there without getting lost today. There was a group of what appeared to be a Japanese elementary school soccer team wearing near perfect Barcelona uniforms and their entourage. It sounded like they were a team from Fukuoka.

Not surprisingly, many stores wore closed. With so many less people around than normal, mostly tourists, I couldn’t work up the desire to sketch. So I get on my bicycle to go somewhere else. I just ride along without any particular destination and I end up along that same street where Gaudi lived.

The stationary store and bakery were both closed for the Sunday holiday. That cafe/bar was open and there were people in the dingy (sorry) terrace, but I decided against it after passing by it twice. I end up in a restaurant a block way havng one of their (looked like it on the menu) lunch sets. It was lunch time and it was bustling next door, but nobody else besides me came in for two hours. But it was delicious. The standard paella around these parts is not made with rice, but short rice noodles instead and has shrimp, squid and shelled mussels. It also isn’t a yellow saffron color, but is brown. It looks like festival yakisoba at first glance, but it’s good. The main course was some type of catfish, and I also had white wine. I tried to order the white wine with my beginner level Spanish, but I was disappointed when I was answered in English. They taught me how to say “dry” in Spanish. “Seco”. Dry white whine is “vino blanco seco”.

With a full stomatch, I get on my bike and just ride around until I pass by a door that looks familiar. I hurry back. It was the Casa Calvet.

The use of this building is the most pedestrian of all that Gaudi designed. I had been planning to visit it, but it kept getting put off, due in part to the fact that I had forgotten where it was. I think it caught my eye because I had eaten at the restaurant there before and the door knocker had left an impression on me.

The iron knocker, used to loudly send peals of sound, is a stunning piece. When you take hold of it to knock, you find a louse underneath it. A black iron louse. If it was Gaudi’s idea to put a louse underneath the pounding tool, I wonder why he did it. Was he troubled by lice and hated them? Or was it for some other reason?

I get a picture of the knocker, but when I pull back to get the entire building, I find that my memory is full so I can’t take any more pictures.

I think I’m being told that I don’t have to take the picture.

I got a picture of the big iron louse that I can’t forget. That’s good enough.

I’m not an architect.

Is it ok to take a picture of archticture whenever you feel like it sir?

That’s how I rationalize it.

On the way home, I stop and have a seat on a park bench, and draw some sketches with a ballpoint pen. Of the water fountains sprinkled here and there in the park, of the parked bicycles, of the pigeons in the area, etc.

I just drew what I saw.

120 push-ups. 100 sit-ups.

Takehiko Inoue