NEIGHBORHOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

               The name of our neighborhood is Poble Sec. It’s in a busy part of Barcelona. We live in the southwest part of town, at the bottom of Montjuïc, a famous park on a hill. The neighborhood has a lot of parks nearby, so you always have something to do. Our apartment has a metro stop 20 feet from our front door. This top 10 list describes what our neighborhood looks like.

           

#1• TALL DOORS ON MY APARTMENT BUILDING!

            I have tall doors on my apartment building and something funny is, tall doors are not uncommon in Barcelona and the keys almost look unreal! They look like the keys you would have in a fairy tale! We live 3 levels up and we don’t have an elevator so it is like P.E. for me every time we go up to our door!  

#2•DUDE PLAYING MUSIC INSTRUMENT 

            He’s amazing! He just sits there all day, turning the crank on some cool instrument, and I can hear it in the apartment. It’s red and is a big box about 2 feet tall. It looks very complex, with toys hanging off of it and umbrellas attached on the instrument if it rains.  

#3• DOGS

            There are so many dogs I can’t believe it! Whenever I turn around there’s a dog sniffing this or that. There are big dogs and small dogs, nosy dogs and mind-your-own-beeswax dogs.

#4• LOCAL FRUIT

            It’s neat because in Portland the local fruit is apples and in Barcelona the local fruit is oranges. In Portland I eat endless apples but now, here in Barcelona, I eat endless oranges!

#5• TOY STORES

            There are so many small, cozy toy stores it is amazing!  They are closed during the afternoon because during 2-4 PM everything is closed because it is a time to relax and eat a very long lunch called a “siesta.”  Then they open back up in the evening. Now I know why there are so many kids around!

#6• MARKET 

          

  Right now they’re repairing the place for the market but until it is finished it is in a big tent that sells fish, meat, fruit, vegetables, nuts and more. We buy brussel sprouts, apples, oranges and potatoes. Each person at the stalls selling the stuff gets to keep their money because the stalls are not owned by a big company. It’s a farmers  market! You can smell the fish, freshly cut, and the fruit and drinks wafting up to the ceiling.

#7• El Café del Barri

            This café is very cozy and there’s a T.V. in front so you can go there and watch soccer games if you get there early enough to get a seat! It is almost always packed on days when there are games on the road, you can barely get a seat! Everybody yells and shouts when Barcelona scores. You can drink anything on the menu and I usually get steamed milk and a croissant with warm, melted chocolate spilling out of the sides. We go there so often that now whenever I go in, José, the guy who works there, says, “leche? (milk?)” and I say, “sí. (yes.)”  Surprisingly, he is a Real Madrid fan! Boooooooooooooooooooo!!!! So we give each other a hard time whenever he sees me wearing my Barcelona shirt.

#8•BELLA PAN

            Bella Pan is a bread shop around the corner, where you can sit around and have something to eat or drink and get bread. It is there because the people in Barcelona seemingly eat a lot of bread. There are a lot of bakeries around. There is basically a bakery on every corner! They sell bread, croissants, donuts, and drinks. Mwahahahahaaaa!!!!!

            The money people use to buy this stuff is different than in Portland. The basic difference is that people in Barcelona use money called Euros whereas in Portland they use dollars. They have a 2 Euro coin. The edges are rough and have little ridges on them and the 2 Euro has the outside rim silver and the inside rim copper.  Also they have more copper coins. In some ways they are the same because they have 1, 5, and 10 cent coins. But instead of being called cents they are called Centavos.

#9• THEATER AND MY TREE

            There’s a grand outside theater called “Teatre Grec” with fountains and gardens and a stone orchestra pit that has stone lions on the sides. There is this one tree that looks over the theater and it has a branch that I like where I can lean my head on it. You can walk there from our apartment. Wild cats live there in the theater and mind their own beeswax eating mice and wet-food given to them by this one person who seemingly comes there every day and feeds them. You can hear the birds chirping their heads off. 

#10• LIBRARY

            This public library is where I publish my blog posts. There are always a lot of people there and the bottom level is a museum-ish thing. There is a park in the back, which is unique because not many libraries have their own playground. I have become a sort of local because I now have my own library card!  The library was built imbedded in a wall and is all black on the outside.

            There’s 10 things about my neighborhood, folks! And coincidence! I’m going to be 10 in a few months!