About that amazing dinner in Barcelona

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I had eaten a wonderful, world-class dinner in Barcelona, and I promised to tell you more about it.  I'm writing now to fulfill that promise.

The meal was at Enigma, a new restaurant from Alber Adria (with some input from his brother, the famed Ferran Adria, ex of El Bulli).  Though Adria's name is on the restaurant, its lead chef, Oliver Pena, and his team do the cooking, and they do it extraordinarily well.

As the name suggests, Adria's concept is to lead you from one mystery to another.  For example, they call each of the multiple separate dining rooms an enigma, and you move among them in the course of your meal.  To help with the illusion, they ask that guests not reveal the menu or show any photos of the food, so I cannot do either.

I can show you the imposing door

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and its keypad,

on which you have to enter a special code, which varies from person to person and which they supply only when you've paid your reservation's deposit.

The many, many courses are all remarkable, each one a blend of largely local ingredients and the sort of modernist cuisine cooking techniques for which El Bulli was justly famous.

I can't say more without violating my agreement with the folks there, so let me just suggest that if you are ever in Barcelona and can get into Enigma--it's perpetually sold out, and I ate there only by being on the waiting list--you should.  It is a wonderful, delicious experience.

Seriously, I was trying to look happy

about having my photo taken at a very wonderful dinner the other night in Barcelona (about which I will tell you more later), but I clearly didn't manage it.

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So, what do you think:  serial killer, occasional killer, first-time killer, or new author bookjacket photo?

Moving on in the morning

I really do owe you a lot, including some thoughts on Mobile World Congress, all the wonderful Gaudi installations I had the privilege to tour, and my world-class meal at...that would be telling too early.

Instead, because I'm moving on to London in the morning and will be spending much of tomorrow traveling, I'm shutting down all electronics, packing, and trying to grab some shut-eye.

More from London.

Common sense scores a rare victory over obligation

It's well after three in the morning here.  Two significant work tasks await me, and I owe this blog reports on two remarkable aspects of today.

I also have to get up reasonably early for work.

So, I'm bowing for a change to common sense and heading to bed.  Sorry about that.

I miss common courtesy

I miss it most days, but I particularly long for it when spending hours walking the floor of a massive trade show, such as the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where I am now.  My mom brought me up to believe that when you're in a crowd, you have certain responsibilities, including to be aware of your surroundings, to be considerate of others in the crowd, to watch where you're going, to apologize when you bump into someone, and so on.

Either my mom was unusual in teaching these lessons, or the people at this trade show have decided the rules simply do not apply here.  People stop in the middle of busy walkways to stare at their phones.  They smash into you while staring at their phones or in conversation, and then they glare at you or curse at you.  Each person acts as if they are alone in the world, with their decisions having no effect on others.

As you might imagine, I hate this behavior.  At times, I get so frustrated that I have to find a wall to lean against for a short break in a tiny zone of personal space.

It strikes me that if we all were more considerate of others in every way, including these small ways, we might all be better off.

La Sagrada Familia continues to humble and inspire me

I spent hours there today, walking the available spaces and frequently sitting to ponder both the feelings the magnificent cathedral inspires in me and the astonishing genius of Antoni Gaudi.  From this soaring section

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to the breathtaking main chamber

Sagrada Familia makes me feel as if I am in the body of something at once both part of the Earth and entwined with the divine.

I sit in the sections reserved for prayer and look around me and sometimes close my eyes, and I cannot escape the power of the biology, mathematics, and devotion that Gaudi blended to create the plans for this amazing structure.  The contemplation both energizes and exhausts me; though that combination should be impossible, it is not.

I owe a huge debt to Scott, who turned me on to Gaudi and who led us to Barcelona for a magical week together seven years ago.  With him, I first saw Sagrada Familia, and without him, I may never have learned how much I love it and Barcelona.  Thanks, Scott, and I love you.

Barcelona and the late dinner

When I went down for dinner a bit before ten p.m., the plaza was still hopping, with petite squads of men and women crossing to and fro, guitarists and squeezebox players working far enough apart that they didn't hurt one another, and every restaurant open and barking for business.  

The tables glow oddly from the light of the heat lamps under every table's umbrella.  

My meal was good, the people-watching superb, and the music so-so, with one of the worst busker renditions of Hallelujah ever.  Still, on balance, it's fine to be in Barcelona, even on a winter night.

On to London

I flew from Barcelona to London today, thus making a one-hour shift closer to home time.  I'm here just to enjoy myself, which I intend to do--along with sleeping a very great deal.  As it turns out, working a show floor and keeping up with regular work, all while six hours ahead in time, is a rather demanding challenge.  I'm beyond tuckered.

When I wasn't traveling today, I was working, save for one meal--a fancy tea--and one incredibly fun play, Guys and Dolls.  The cast members were uniformly strong, and the actors who played Sky Masterson and Sister Sarah Brown were superb.  The staging was excellent, the dance numbers exuberant--this show was a winner from top to bottom.  If you're in London, I recommend it highly.

I then worked until late into the night, but now I'm crashing.

Hello, London!

Renewing acquaintances

Mobile World Congress wrapped up today, so though I spent some time there, I also took advantage of being in Barcelona to renew a few acquaintances.

For lunch, I strolled through the Boqueria Market, a treat for anyone who likes food.

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In the course of my brief tour of the market, I passed by the stand where Scott once bought more gummi products than I knew existed.

Across the street from the market is a place I did not visit, an "erotic museum."  The only aspect of it externally visible was rather more sad than erotic:  a woman tasked with the unenviable job of portraying Marilyn Monroe while standing on a balcony and entreating passersby to enter the shop.

I kept my distance and felt only sad for her.

From the profane I now take us to the sacred, one of my all-time favorite churches, Gaudi's Sagrada Familia.  The exterior is breathtaking and mesmerizing, weirder and yet more powerful the longer you study it.

They've finished a great deal more of it since I was last here, and supposedly they are on track to complete the construction by 2026.  I do hope to see it then, and I encourage you to visit it at any time.

The inside is grand, humbling, and holy, a feeling that I could not escape as I sat in the quiet area today and contemplated the things that are troubling me.

When I was finished in the cathedral, I indulged in further sentiment and stopped at Farggi, a shop across the street where Scott and I had grabbed a snack during our visit here.

Dinner gave me a chance to renew my acquaintance with the food of the Adria brothers, Alber and his far more famous brother, Ferran, at their Mexican restaurant, Nino Viejo.  The setting was amazingly informal,

but the food was as fantastic as you'd expect from these two.  My pork and pineapple taco, for example, tasted rich and tangy and was entirely delicious.

Tomorrow, I head to London.

Another MWC day

Get up.  Work.  Shower.  Grab lunch.  Cab to MWC.  Walk the show floor, talking to companies when possible.  Cab back to the hotel.  Work.  Walk somewhere for dinner.  Eat.  Walk back to the hotel.  Work.  Sleep.

That's my entire rhythm right now, days built around the show, whose last day is tomorrow.

I hope to break the rhythm tomorrow and see a bit of the city, ideally La Sagrada Familia, but we shall see what tomorrow brings.

I made it three days in Europe

without having gelato, but today my will caved, and I had a small cup after walking the Mobile World Congress show floor.

Wow, is that thing huge!  With eight halls, nine if you count halls 8.0 and 8.1 as separate, and about a quarter of a million attendees, this is by far the largest trade show I've ever attended.  I'm tweeting bits of the show via the PT Twitter feed, so head over there if you want to catch my take on it.

The six-hour time difference between here and home means I tend to work very late before going out for dinner, which fortunately works in Barcelona.  I was in the mood for pasta tonight, so I went walking up the street until I found a serviceable Italian restaurant.

I sat facing the front of the store and could see a bit of the entrance to the justly famous Boqueria market.

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After a slightly too large Caesar salad, my rigatoni alla carbonara arrived.

Though it wasn't great, it was tasty, full of meat and warm sauce, and just the right thing on a cold Barcelona night.

I hope to get a bit more time this trip to see some of the city--beyond the conference, that is.

Might as well be Newark

My mission for this trip is both simple and daunting:  walk the enormous trade-show floor, stop at lots of booths, and try to have some conversations with marketing folks there.  The work is in a good cause, and some people do take the time to talk, but it's also exhausting.  Add to it the job of keeping up with my daily work, throw in a little sleep, and you have a more than full day.  That means that so far, I'm wasting the fact that I'm in Barcelona.

I honestly don't know if I'll be able to change that.  It will all depend on the work.

I do enjoy the bits I can:  the cab rides to and from the MWC venue, the different food, the ability to walk down the street and pick up a ham and cheese baguette for five euro, and so on.  Of course, last night that same sandwich, which I grabbed as a snack, ended up being dinner, and I never left my room once I returned to it after the show.

Normally, I would have planned to stay longer on one end or the other of this trip, but between TED prefacing it and my holiday in London following it, Barcelona is getting short shrift from me.

I know, pity me, for I have it so rough.  I know I don't, but the fact remains that I'm wasting Barcelona.

Perhaps tomorrow I will do better.

Sunday, sleepy Sunday

I finally fell asleep around two a.m. Barcelona time.  I got up in the mid-morning to try the hotel's breakfast, then slept until the early evening.  I clearly needed the rest.

After work and final unpacking and writing down expenses and so on, I showered and went walking in search of dinner.  Had I done this at ten-thirty local time in Raleigh, I would have been out of luck or seeking fast food.  In Barcelona, though, dinner is just getting into full swing at that hour.  I ended up at one of the restaurants on the square I can see from my hotel window, where I enjoyed jamon iberico and pan con tomate

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as starters (there's way less ham there than it appears, because they so thinly slice the meat) and a chicken paella as a main.

I ate all the ham, a third of the bread, and a third of the paella, but these were the smallest portions I could order.

Eating alone as a sixty-year-old man, I am practically invisible.  I thus was privy--whether I wanted to be or not--to intimate details from people at all the tables around me.  All spoke English, all were in town for Mobile World Congress (MWC, which is also the reason I am here), and all were discussing their various indiscretions or plans to commit indiscretions.  I was quite amazed at the amount of information people were willing to share, though I expect they also thought I did not speak English.

No one was discussing a fact that is likely to make all of our lives worse:  the metro and bus workers have chosen to strike during MWC.  Oh, boy.

MWC's effects have spread to my small hotel, where the bandwidth has gone from quite good as hotels go (yesterday) to positively painful (this evening).  I have no real choices here, but wow is my hotel overloaded.

Taking a brief stroll on La Rambla after dinner, I couldn't help but recall the night when Scott and I walked its length and then walked, at my insistence, all the way back to our hotel.  The journey proved to be way longer than I had thought, and we spent much of it joking about how long it was taking, even as we were both suffering a bit.  I worried that I never gave Scott enough time or enough love, and that now I won't have the chance to make it up to him--can we really ever make up anything to anyone?--and so I fell into a bit of melancholy.  I love my son very much, and I do miss him.  I hope we get the chance for many more good times together.

It's going on two a.m. here, so it's time for more sleep.  Tomorrow, I do work email and hit the show floor!

The Saturday that barely was

Friday night about nine, I settled into my British Airways business-class cocoon.  In this photo, you can see the one ahead of mine and to my left across the aisle.

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Barely as wide as my shoulders, it was nonetheless a reasonably comfortable place to spend the next nearly ten hours.

Free headphones, a video screen that swiveled to face me, and the usual food and beverage amenities made the long overnight flight (we left Vancouver in the late evening and arrived in London in the middle of the afternoon) tolerable enough that I arrived feeling merely stoned and not in any sort of bodily pain.

After the usual Heathrow flight-change security dance, working for four hours in the Admirals Club, and a lot of walking, I boarded the flight to Barcelona.  I had a great conversation with my row-mate, a fellow Mobile World Congress traveler (almost everyone on that flight was), and landed in Barcelona.

The passage through immigration and customs there was straightforward and hassle-free, better than I had dared hope.  My bag showed up, and I was even able to pick up my conference badge at the airport.

One expensive cab ride and some bellman tips later, and I was settled into a generally lovely room in my hotel.  That said, I could have done without this artwork, which sits on a wall in the entry alcove.

My hotel is just off Las Ramblas, and my room faces onto a nifty square.  Standing on my bathroom balcony--yes, I have a balcony off that room--at nearly one in the morning, the typical Barcelona late-night activity was much in evidence.

I was strongly tempted to join the fun, but I was so exhausted from lack of real sleep that I unpacked and then fell into bed sometime after one a.m. local time.

It's good to be done traveling for a bit.

Heading out soon

Saturday morning, I begin a three-week trip to some interesting places and events.

First up is TED in Vancouver.  If you don't know about TED, you need to; check out its site and the amazing talks on it.  I've gone to a satellite show, TEDActive, for many years, but this marks my first time at the main event.  I'm quite excited to be going, and I expect to have a mind-blowing time there.

From Vancouver, I head to a very different type of show, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.  Barcelona is a fantastic city that I first visited with Scott, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again.  The show itself promises to be interesting, educational, and tiring--it's rather large.  I do love tech gadgets, though, so it should be fun.

I then jump over to London, where I plan to spend a week doing, well, whatever looks good.  I'm probably going to eat at a few fantastic places, take in some great live theater, renew my love affair with Pre-Raphaelite art at the Tate, visit other museums, and generally enjoy one of the world's greatest cities.

If you're going to be in any of these places at the same time and want to get together, drop me a note, and maybe we can work it out.  I'm certainly up for unexpected adventure of the fun kind (as opposed to, oh, losing my baggage).

Three weeks is a long time on the road, and a long time away from home, but I'm still excited at all that's ahead of me.

On the road again: Barcelona, day 7

Wow did my flight from BCN to JFK suck. Whatever I caught--my current best guess is the ill-advised hot-and-sour-cat soup at the Chinese place in Figueres--hit me hard last night and then today as well. I've been able to get down maybe 150 calories--and then only for a few minutes; you don't want the details.

My fever comes and goes, I shake periodically, and my stomach constricts in pain frequently. So, I'm writing this entry from a JFK Admirals Club, and I'll be crawling into bed as soon as I can after I get home.

I'm sure I'll be fine in a day or two, with luck even tomorrow, but right now I feel as bad as I've felt in a very long time.

No more cat soup for me.

On the road again: Barcelona, day 6

A very late bedtime and a very gray morning and early afternoon led to a very lazy final full day here, and that was just fine with me.

The middle of the day included a long time roaming Gaudi's Casa Batllo, which was simply amazing.

Dinner was at ABaC, a Michelin two-star restaurant. The food was excellent, but more on that later.

The reason for the short entry is that I have felt sick all day and now have a rather noticeable fever, so I'm going to crash. More later, when, with any luck at all, I will be back to normal.

On the road again: Barcelona, day 5

I'm still processing the elBulli meal, but here are a few key tidbits to tide over those interested in it:

* They served 38 courses, most of which were just a few bites.

* The restaurant seats 40 guests; 45 chefs were working in the kitchen.

* Ferran Adria was supervising.

* I couldn't get a firm handle on the size of the wait staff, but in the room where I was, 20 guests were eating, and at least ten servers were working.

* My first and second favorite dishes were his first and second favorites, as I learned after the meal.

* No music was ever playing. The sounds were of people talking, laughing, gasping, exclaiming, and generally being amazed and amused.

* When I told Adria, via the interpreter, that the meal had touched both my heart and my mind, he smiled, bowed slightly, and in English said, "Good. Correct."

More will undoubtedly follow.

Roses, the closest town, was insanely beautiful, a place straight out of a James Bond movie. How pretty, you might ask? Check out these shots from the room's two balconies. (As always, you can click on a picture to see a bigger version.)











The rest of the day went to a strange Chinese lunch and then multiple hours at the Dali museum (excellent!) in Figueres, a lot of work, and a very fine dinner at Alkimia.

Now, more work.

On the road again: Barcelona, day 4

Behind me in the blackness in the photo is the Mediterranean, its waves beating a slow rhythm on the shore.

My sense of luck and of somehow not quite deserving to be there, as well as my dislike of having my picture taken, account for the expression on my face.

To my left stands the door inside El Bulli.

Inside was the most amazing meal I've ever eaten. I'll write more on it in other times, but as I said to Chef Adria after dinner--yes, I got to chat briefly, via an interpreter, with Ferran Adria--the meal touched both my heart and my mind. I have a lot to process--and not just in my stomach.

I feel very, very lucky for having been able to eat there before Adria closes the deservedly famous institution.

On the road again: Barcelona, day 2

I wish I could sleep well on planes. I really do. I can't manage it, though. The best I can do is awkward, uncomfortable, and unsatisfying dozing. Thus, when we landed this morning, I'd eaten the dinner and breakfast (both serviceable), watched a movie (the recent remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, which I didn't hate the way most critics did), read (Matt Hilton's latest novel), and done some work.

To my great happiness, customs and luggage pick-up and immigration and the cab ride all proceeded without a hitch, so in relatively short order I was in my hotel, the W Barcelona. It and the lovely Hotel Arts Barcelona, where Scott and I stayed, stare at each other across the water like two champions preparing for battle. I love them both. From the outside, the W, with its amazing architecture and isolated location, exudes the rock-star-hotel vibe. It continues that feeling when you get inside, with a stunning lobby, bordello-red hallways, and impeccably designed and outfitted rooms.

After a nap and some work, we headed into the city for a long stroll down Las Ramblas and dinner at a restaurant we chose at random for its menu and look. Our choice proved to be wise, as the meal was very good. Highlights included the Iberico Bellota ham and the thin bread with brushings of oil and tomatoes that I've come to love, wonderful croquetas, and the cheesiest risotto I've ever tasted.

Tomorrow, some research, some work, some touristing, but now, some sleep.