Day 6

Sightseeing in Barcelona...

We must have walked 10 miles yesterday...but it was awesome! Really nice to see some of the very famous and historic sights around the city.

Our first stop was La Sagrada Familia, a cathedral designed by the architect Antoni Gaudi. In many of the pictures that you see of it, it doesn't really look beautiful. Hopefully these pics will make it look more so. What an experience. The architecture is absolutely stunning ... somewhat of a neo-gothic style. The detail is incredible. I will post more pics to my fb page, but here are a few. The first is the outside of the cathedral.

The next one is a view from the "catwalk" the connects the bell towers. The view over the city is amazing!

After that we walked to a well-known apartment building that Gaudi also designed. Notice the roof and the lack of straight walls...

Next we visited the Bouqueria (market) one of the most famous stops in downtown Barcelona. It is teeming with fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh fish, candies, and meats. Here is a shot of some of the fresh seafood and candy.

I couldn't resist snapping a shot of the chocolate breasts, and yep, that's pretty much the whole octopus there for sale.

Next we visited the Catedral de Barcelona, the largest church in the city. What a spectacular place. We also made it to the roof where the views of the city were simply breathtaking. This was worth the 5 euro admission price alone.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped by the Arc de Triomf. Pretty impressive.

After that, we headed back to the hotel to change and get ready for the percussion chamber concert at the school of music. Check out this program!!

Varese - Ionisation

Xenakis - Okho

Histoire du soldat - Stravinsky

Bartok - Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion

Polymorphismes - Nuria Jimenez (new work by a student composer)

Pretty damn impressive for students!

Day 5

I'm posting about yesterday (Day 5).

Yesterday morning, we hopped on the train very early to get to Barcelona (see above). We arrived around 9:00 am and took a cab to our hotel where we left our bags. Two students from the conservatory met us and took us to the school. We warmed up and played our concert - it went quite well. Again it was a small audience of saxophone and percussion students, but nevertheless, they enjoyed it! This is a special building close to the school of music....no dirty thoughts, now....

Afterwards we had lunch at a Japanese buffet, then headed back to the school for a three-hour clinic/masterclass. I presented some material about marimba performance and then students from the conservatory played for me and I made comments about their playing. It was a talented group of students! I struggled at times to get across my points to them, though they understood most of what I said. My Catalunyian is not very good!

After the clinic/masterclass we went to a nearby bar/cafe and had a few beers. Then we went to an Italian place for dinner and had some pretty nice pizza! I had the Dia

blo with spicy meats - yummy!

We were pretty tired, so we came back to the hotel and crashed!

Barcelona sightseeing for the next two days! Stay tuned....

Day 4

Concert #1 (of 4) was today at the Conservatory in Zaragoza. We had a small, but enthusiastic crowd of saxophone and percussion students. The hall is beautiful and a wonderful place to play. All in all, the concert went very well and the students were very appreciative of our efforts.

Following the concert we had a late lunch in the square outside of Zaragoza's La Seo Cathedral. What a neat place to be! For lunch we had paella for starters and a meat dish with french fries (who knew they would be so popular in Spain!). Delicious food.

Over the course of the afternoon we visited the Bacilica or annex of the the Cathedral, and the Cathedral itself. Both places are indescribably beautiful. The architecture, sculptures, and artwork throughout both were really breathtaking! It is humbling to stand inside a Cathedral that was built in the 1400's! There was also a museum of tapestries (assuming from the cathedral) that also dated back to the 1400's.

We also visited Aljaferia, which is an ancient castle that serves as the home of the government of Aragon. Also very beautiful and parts of it were built in the 800 B.C. Most amazing were some of the ceilings - hard to believe that could have been accomplished in the 9th Century!

Later we went to dinner and are turning in for an early evening. Very early day tomorrow with lots to do! Catch a train for Barcelona at 7:00 am (yikes). Arrive in Barcelona around 9:00 am. Warm up at 10:30 am and concert at 2:00. Quick lunch, then a masterclass with the students from 4-7:00 pm. No doubt we will be sufficiently tired tomorrow evening!

Regarding the music here in Spain...you wouldn't believe it, but I have heard everything from Shania Twain, Dire Straits, Madonna and WHAM! It's like the music is stuck in the 1980's here - pretty bizarre!

Day 3

Yesterday was not quite the same adventure as the long travel day, but still a great day. While Cliff had to teach all morning and part of the afternoon, the start to my day was leisurely. Woke around 8:00, went for a run around this part of the city, breakfast, then created the blog.

Around noon, I decided to visit Bar Jameson, just down from my hotel. I enjoyed a great Cafe Americano and sat at one of the outdoor tables reading my book. Gradually the tables filled with groups of younger and older women, all socializing and having lunch. I just couldn't resist the La Estrella Damm beer they were all drinking, so I had to sample a few myself.

Later I walked to the conservatory to meet the Leamans and Mariano. We had lunch at the conservatory cafeteria (yes inside the music building!) and they even have an espresso bar! I may be moving to Europe!

One of the highlights of my day was talking with two of the percussion students from the Conservatory. They told my about their recent percussion ensemble concert and the guest artists they have had. As they helped me get the marimba set up, they were very interested in my mallets, so I let them try them out. I guess Innovative Percussion mallets are not widely used here, so they were fascinated! They began playing pieces they are working on....Two Movements for Marimba by Tanaka, Caritas by Michael Burritt, Four Rotations by Eric Sammut. It was just like being at home! I also took some pictures of some of their percussion set ups for the multi pieces. I'll post those later as I'm in a hurry this morning.

Cliff and I rehearsed, then off to Mariano's house for a wonderful dinner he cooked for us. A rich chicken dish in a tomato, red pepper sauce with a fried egg on top. Delicious! Also he brought out some VERY expensive cheese to go with the terrific wine we had.

Then back to the hotel for some sleep....didn't really sleep all that well.

Concert today at Noon. I'll post some pics from yesterday later.

Adios!

Day 1 & 2

Well....we made it to Spain! It was a long first day and a half, but here is the way it went...

We left Columbia, flew to Charlotte, hung out in the airport for a while, flew to Philly. Plane was a little late getting into Philly, so our layover there was quite short. We waited just a few minutes and were able to board our flight for Barcelona.

The flight was great - all in all a pretty smooth ride. The dinner was just so-so, a warm salad, pasta and a decent desert. Had a few drinks to try to help me sleep a little - that didn't really work! I have a hard time sleeping on planes, trains, buses, etc. but probably slept for two hours.

Upon arriving in Barcelona, we immediately exchanged some currency and hopped aboard a bus to the train station.

We took a short train ride to what amounts to Grand Central Station in Barcelona. After a 2 hour layover in the train station, we hopped aboard a really nice bullet train to head to Zaragoza.

This train was AWESOME - very comfortable and spacious. There was a staff that had a beverage and snack service. And man was it fast!!!! There is a display that shows the speed - at one point we were going 303 km/hour - for those of you who don't convert fast that's 188 miles per hour!

So the train ride was about two hours to Zaragoza. Upon arriving, Mariano picked us up, dropped some things at my hotel and then went to his home for some tapas! Mussels and a spicy tuna concoction that was very tasty! And of course beer!

The landscape here is very interesting - much like a desert, but with pretty substantial foothills that dot the landscape. Here are some pics from the window of the train. The red flower is from Mariano's back yard. It was a little ironic to me that in such a barren landscape, such a beautiful flower can emerge.

We went to the conservatory for a while and practiced/rehearsed, then went for dinner - more Tapas that were awesome! We had calamari, a tasty pork dish, some really tasty garlicky fried baby squid, a potato dish, a mushroom dish (which I politely passed on) and some really nice beer! After that, we had some ice cream on the way back to the hotel.

Here's a couple of views from my hotel room.

At this point, it is roughly 9:00 pm local time (3:00 EST) and I still haven't slept for real. Even though I was tired, I forced myself to stay up a few extra hours so that I could get a really good night's sleep. So, I went out and took a walk and explored a little bit of Zaragoza for a while. Then, I skyped with my wife and son, then skyped with mom and dad, and finally headed off to bed. Man did I sleep good!