I found work teaching English

I found work teaching English. I studied at the city’s university and at the Brazilian Institute on the top floor of the Casa Ametller – a beautiful modernist building on the Paseo de Gràcia. Looking out of the window I could gaze upon what some Catalans would describe as further evidence of their ?difference’ . Paseo de Gràcia is home to some of the best work of Barcelona’s emblematic architect, the turn of the century modernist Antoni Gaudí. I could see the strange organic forms and Darth Vader – shaped chimneys above the sculpted, soot-encrusted stone façade of Gaudís Casa Milà –long ago dubbed La Pedrera, the Stone Quarry. Gaudí’ s Casa Batlló was next door. Its scaly, undulating, ceramic tiled roof represents the dragon slain by Catalonia’s patron saint, Sant Jordi. It was, and is, breathtaking stuff – a lesson in how adventurous and imaginative the Catalan mind could be.
I walked everywhere. Stepping on Gaudí’s jellyfish, conch shell and starfish decorated hexagonal tiles on the Paseo de Gràcia, gravity pulled me down to the Ramblas. It was a short hop from there to the narrow, dark medieval, washing adorned streets, tiny squares and austere, voluminous stone churches of the Gothic Quarter.
From the book ‘Ghosts of Spain’ By Giles Tremet