Welcome Apartments

The Blog Returns From A Country Sojourn

After avocadoes and bread dipped in orange juice the Blog strolled to a café where he likes to work on his laptop. In the falafel palace next door was Django the donut-seller, with three little Finnish girls. They had a beer and a Moroccan shook a blue bucket in Django’s face while he played his pennywhistle tunelessly. Another Moroccan appeared. The first one told him to leave and called him a zemil, Arabic for a ‘non-man’..

‘Where have you been?’ an old Catalan friend asked.
‘In the countryside,’ The Blog replied.
‘The countryside?’ he said ‘Sounds familiar. What’s that?’

Fingertips fell on the Blog’s shoulder. It was Francesc, in a pair of black RayBans.
‘Holy wafer, son! What are you doing here?’
‘Been in the country. How’s your daughter?’
‘Not bad, not bad…’ he said and quickly changed the subject.

A haggard old lady stopped and asked about Daniel.
‘Who shall I say called?’ The Blog asked.
‘His wife,’ she said.
Wife! Could it be that for the past four years Daniel had kept a wife secret from his friends?

For information about Barcelona don’t hesitate to get in touch. If you’ve got any travel experiences write and tell us!

What’s On, Barcelona: Seminars at CCCB, Barcelona’s Contemporary Culture Centre

Emerging left wing forces in Latin America.

It falls like a teardrop from its northern neighbour, and throughout the 20th Century was a victim to its neo liberalism, but now after endless wars, coup d’etats and military dictatorships Latin America is seeing a new generation of left wing politicians determined to bring about change. 20th and 27th September, 7 pm. €4 admission.

Global lies, local violence. The world post 9/11.

The current environment of paranoia concerning terrorism has altered our lives on many levels. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, new legislation concerning rights and privacy, new safety mechanisms…an international panel explore the impact on ordinary life of the West’s struggle to contain terrorism. 20th November (4.30pm) and 21st November, (midday or 5pm). Free admission (with prior registration).

Past Presents

French colonization, German Nazism, the Spanish Civil War; modern European countries still bear the scars of their past conflicts. The Institut Francais, Goethe Institut and CCCB join forces to analyse. 20th and 21st November, 7.30pm. Free admission (with prior registration).

For more information about exhibitions or other events around Barcelona don’t hesitate to get in touch. Welcome Apartments offers an affordable home away from home in splendid locations for your stay in Barcelona.

Christmas in Barcelona

Judging by the festive traditions of the Barcelonese, they’re generally dreaming of a brown Christmas, as opposed to a white one. For hidden in the nativity scene there is often a surprise in store beside the figures of Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus; a little figurine of a man having a cheeky dump.

He goes by the name of el caganer, or ‘the shitter’, and dates back as far as the 18th Century. Firmly on the heels of the ‘the shitter’ in terms of yuletide popularity is the caga tio, or ’shit log’. This delightful creation is a log which children beat and throw on the fire before chanting ’shit some presents’ at it.

Beginning at Portal de la Pau and finishing at Montjuic is the colourful and hectic Procession of the Three Kings on Christmas Eve. In the squares of La Seu and Plaza Nova, are vibrant markets selling Christmas gifts and objects, including the usual caga-related merchandise.

Christmas treats for the palate include roast suckling, lobster and bacalao (cod) as well as dozens of sweet fancies such as turron, marzipan and polvoron (powder cake).

For more information about exhibitions or other events around Barcelona don’t hesitate to get in touch. Welcome Apartments offer an affordable home from home in splendid locations for your stay in Barcelona.

The Blog Stars in an Advert

The Blog met Nubi doing an advert for Telefonica, possibly the worst company in Iberia. We had to walk around in the streets of Puerto del Angel in black tee shirts. Nubi was the production assistant and marched round saying ‘Configuration!’ into a walkie talkie.

The Blog’s task was to greet a Norwegian lady and an Irishman in black tee shirts and meander through the crowd in a black tee-shirt formation. All the film people stood around with shaggy hair and three days’ stubble and removed and replaced gadgets in the utility pockets of their multi-purpose trouser wear.

The film people lost their cool with the non-film people. One family of tourists stopped dead in front of the camera and stared at it halfway through a ten-minute cut. There they stood, a unit, gaping at the camera. The Director yelled at them from only meters away; ‘Get out! Get out of the way!’ The family continued to stare gormlessly at the camera, fixated. The director’s face contorted into several realms or rage, his eyes bulged and his neck veins filled up like straws. ‘Get OUT OF THE WAY!’ he shouted, ‘LEAVE!’

‘Do you think he wants us to move out the way?’ said the sandaled, capped father to the sandaled, capped mother.

For information about Barcelona don’t hesitate to get in touch. Welcome Apartments offer an affordable home awat from home experience in splendid locations for your stay in Barcelona.

If you’ve got any travel experiences write and tell us!

The Blog Plays Football

The Blog Plays Football

The Ciutadella Park has basketball and futbol sala courts. Futbol sala is one of the greatest things in creation. It’s played on a small court with hockey goals.

The Blog went down there one afternoon and climbed though the hole in the fence. Down there were Algerians and Morroccans, with a few Dominicans and South Americans too.

The court was right next to the bird-cages of the Zoo, so there was a strange rainforest soundtrack as he watched them play football, curse each other and smoke chocolate. The truth be told, none of the Moors was much interested in their team. All they did was argue and stand chest to chest with each other, no matter how petty the argument. Each one was a referee with his own set of rules.

There were four teams and one player said goodbye so The Blog asked to play in his place. ‘The first team to score two stays on and the other team goes off,’ said one of the Moors, a short, muscular man with skin the colour of the Sahara desert and shining black eyes.

‘Where are you from?’ The Blog asked him.

‘I am a Moor,’ the man said, ‘To you Spanish we are all just nothing more than Moors.’

‘I’m not Spanish,’ said The Blog.

‘We’re on!’ he said. The Blog looked at the court and the ball was trickling out of the goal on the right. He ran on with them and the Moors on his team started performing tricks, balancing the ball on their necks and flicking it to and fro. Then, everyone started shouting at each other. Fingers were being pointed. A stocky little man with a bandana marched up to the ball and grabbed it up. He was furious. ‘AGH MAGH MAGH MAGH UGHI MUCK!’ he screamed. ‘AGH MUCK MUCKY MUCK!’

‘MUCK MUCK!’ screamed the stocky one.

‘ARCK SIWILUCK UGHMUCKLA!’ Another joined the fray.

‘ZEMIL!’ screamed the bandana-d one and started walking away with the ball.

‘OYEEEE!’ shouted the floppy-haired one in Spanish. ‘Come back, uncle! That’s the only ball!’

‘No play football!’ said the bandanad one. ‘I go.’

‘What’s the problem?’ The Blog asked the floppy-haired one.

‘He doesn’t want to play to two goals, he says it should be three.’

‘So he’s going?’ asked The Blog.

‘With the ball!’ he said. ‘What a ZEMIL!’

‘What’s zemil?’

‘Zemil is a Non-man,’ replied the floppy-haired Moor. Then he shouted after the man in the bandana: ‘YELLAH! THREE

GOALS! LET’S PLAY!’

The man in the bandana u-turned and placed the ball in the centre circle. They were all set to play when another crisis struck. A skinny man with misty eyes began yelling at a big man. The big man was big enough to crush the skinny guy in his fist, but he looked at him as if he was a pesky insect and said nothing. The one with the red bandana stepped in and swatted the big man: ‘ARGH MUCK MUCK!’
When it got dark he hadn’t played much football. But The Blog had learned the word zemil and was pleased.

For information about Barcelona don’t hesitate to get in touch. If you’ve got any travel experiences write and tell us!

Barcelona Nightlife…Razzmatazz in November

Razzmatazz, Barcelona’s premiere alternative music showcase, is a must for any nightlifers coming to town. Located in the up and coming barrio of Poble Nou, the club is huge consisting of five different areas, the Razz Club, the Loft, Lolita, Pop bar and Rex Room, each with a sound and vibe of its own.

Tickets cost anything upwards of 5 EUROS and can be booked at the ticket office or on the website Salarazzmatazz

The line-up of bands for the rest of november looks like this:

• Friday 10–11-2006: SOUTH: Razz Club
• Saturday 11-11-06: THE KILLERS (+ unnamed support): Sala 1
• DORIAN: Pop Bar
• DIKERS: (+ unnamed support): Sala 1
• Wednesday 15-11-06: MIDLAKE (+ unnamed support): Sala 3
• Friday 17-11-06: Wintercase San Miguel 06: MAXIMO PARK + THE SPINTO BAND + THE MOTHERFUCKERS: Sala 2
• Friday 17-11-06: MOTORMARK: Pop Bar
• Friday 17-11-06: MAD: Sala 3
• Sunday 19-11-06: Wintercase San Miguel 06: VIOLENT FEMMES + ARAB STRAP: Sala 2
• Sunday 19-11-06: PROMOE: Sala 3
• Thursday 23-11-06: CRADLE OF FILTH + DEATHSTARS: Sala 2
• Thursday 23-11-06: PECKER: Sala 3
• Friday 24-11-06: Wintercase San Miguel 06: THE MAGIC NUMBERS + PETER BJORN AND JOHN + GOODBOOKS:Sala 1
• Friday 24-11-06: THE PIGEON DETECTIVES: Pop Bar
• Saturday 25-11-06: Wintercase San Miguel 06: SURFIN BICHOS + BRAKES
• Saturday 25-11-06: CLINIC: Pop Bar
• Monday 27-11-06: W.A.S.P. + JADED: Sala 2
• Wednesday 29-11-06: DESTRUCTION (+ unnamed artist): Sala 3

Welcome Apartments’ closest locations to Razzmatazz club is our Barcelona Triomf Series and Quatre Gats Series. Please do not hesitate to ask us any questions of you need any further information.

Barcelona What’s On: MACBA

Gego: Defying Structures (Cadaques Gallery) 08/11/2006 - 14/01/2007

Little is known in Europe about the German-born ‘Gego’, who emigrated to Venezuela at the outbreak of the Second World War and went on to become one of the most important South American artists of the second half of the 20th Century. She is often cited as an equal peer of the more widely known Lygia Clark and Mira Schendel.

Interestingly her career seems to have been evolved from the most abstract realms towards something more mundane and everyday and this exhibition reflects that evolution.

The most instantly recognisable of her works is ‘Reticularea’ (1969). It is a huge geometrics structure of lines suspended in space and connecting to each other via wire joints. A characteristic feature of Gego’s work is to give shape and form to the empty space between lines and it is in this piece which experts consider best exploits that goal. On view are several drawings, which show the development of her ideas.

Later on comes ‘Chorros’ (1970), a random chaos of vertical lines falling out of space and ‘Troncos’ (1974), concerned with triangular geometry in which Gego seems to be returning to rest her feet on the ground after her abstract exhortations.

For more information about exhibitions or other events around Barcelona don’t hesitate to get in touch. Welcome Apartments offer an affordable home from home in splendid locations for your stay in Barcelona.

Barcelona What’s On December: Art: MACBA

Palazuelo

15th November 2006 – 18th February 2007

Like Gego an important, yet neglected figure of the late 20th Century art scene. Pablo Palazuelo coined the term ‘non-figurative’ for his own work, as opposed to ‘abstract’, and it is judged against the conventional view of the evolution of abstract art- from

Picasso towards minimalism- that his work suffers. Like Gego, Palazuelo was obsessed with geometry. Inspired by Klee and the Russian constructivists, Gabo and Pevsner, he sought to evoke the hidden reality of the psyche through imagination and saw geometric systems as the way to achieve that.

A few words from the man himself: “Geometry is at the origin of life, which is the most inventive and endless thing we know. To have a vision of the structures that are contained in other structures, to see the new forms in potential, to see the possibilities of generating forms, to experience the passage of forms into others through metamorphosis, to see what grows like a plant. The geometrical forms I work with also develop through a very long metamorphic process or movement, and for that reason we can say that those forms are open and remain open and predisposed to transformation.”

For more information about exhibitions or other events around Barcelona don’t hesitate to get in touch. Welcome Apartments offer an affordable home from home in splendid locations for your stay in Barcelona.

Barcelona What’s On December: MACBA

Capitalism, Work Forces, Politics, Antisystematic Movements: Seminar
Monday 11th December 2006

The territory of this fascinating-sounding seminar is the post-modern political world. It seeks to explore capitalist society- how it absorbs and regurgitates anti-systematic antagonism, using it to supplement its domination of its subjects. The seminar is a part of the Program of Independent Studies’ Political Imagination series. More political fare is offered at the MACBA in the form of the following seminars:

Capitalism, Social Hegemonies, Politics: Monday, 11.12.06 with Giovanni Arrighi and Mario Tronti

Workforces and Transformations of Productive Paradigms in Contemporary Capitalism: Tuesday 12.12.06

With the interestingly named pair, Sergio Bologna and Beverley J. Silver

At the end of the series on Wednesday December 13th there is a debate focussing on all the issues with each contributor participating.

For more information about exhibitions or other events around Barcelona don’t hesitate to get in touch. Welcome Apartments offer an affordable home from home in splendid locations for your stay in Barcelona.