Pie for breakfast, Barcelona. (Alimentos para el alma #8)

Location: Barcelona, Catalunya, España (Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain)

Soul Site: Basilica de La Sagrada Familia

Alimento: Marta’s Lemon Pie

Highlight: Diada de Sant Jordi (Day of Saint George / Día de San Jorge)

Disclaimer: This post takes two parts. You should probably skip the first part, because it's about a phone, and they are not meaningful. Or you can read it. The regularly scheduled programming begins here.

The Phone Update

Hey, team. Here's the update. I had my brand-new iPhone stolen on the metro in Barcelona Friday night.

I tried to be upset–granted, I was irritated, but I couldn't get mad. It happened in a two-minute span when I was actively standing there clutching my bag with one hand and my phone inside my coat pocket with the other, scanning the people around me like a little searchlight, thinking these very thoughts:

• I need to be extra-careful in this city. Everyone’s told me stories of pickpocketing in crowded areas–I’ve heard taxi drivers can’t even keep their windows cracked open because people will reach into moving vehicles and swipe unsuspecting tourists’ phones right from their grasps as they browse for dinner reservations–but especially here on public transport.

• I remember how spooked I was (but grateful) for the light chastising from my own brother a few weeks ago–we were a few stops apart on the subway and planned to meet up for breakfast; however, while my car whooshed to the stop where he planned to hop on, he’d somehow spotted me and dashed inside, dropping down into the seat beside me. Totally engrossed in a book, I ignored the “random guy” now sitting right next to me in a pretty empty car until he shouted, “Hey, what’s up, what are you reading?” in my ear. I was taken aback until I actually peeled my eyes off the page, realized who it was, and gave him a good whack. But I admitted agreement to his urging that I be more attentive to my surroundings.

• I wonder, what’s the higher priority? The phone or the cards?

• Despite its unsightliness, I should definitely switch to my sling belt bag tomorrow.

• This metro is a lot joltier than some of the other ones I’ve been on this year.

Somewhere in that pile of thoughts, we jolted to a halt one stop before we planned to jump off. I vaguely remember a couple of young guys getting up from a group that’d been seated and, snickering a bit, walking through the doors right by me (I was holding onto a yellow pole near the doors), an older gentleman strolling onto the bus, a woman and a stroller behind him. I think I, for just one moment, let go of my phone during that stop to brush aside some wind-blown pieces of hair. Then, returning my hand to my pocket, I registered: it was empty. Within another breath, we’d reached our stop–the two must have been very close together. Sure of what had just happened, I scanned the floor, the seats, the cracks between the doors and the tracks, incredulous. Confident I hadn’t heard any sort of sound that could remotely resemble a phone falling to its demise, I patted down my other pockets, held my bag even tighter, started laughing-huffing to myself, and stepped out of the car after my friends, already accepting that my phone was gone for good.

The next thirty minutes were spent between the street and an adjacent McDonald’s, shutting everything down and blocking access to my online banking accounts (thanks for picking up, Dad), feeling irked but not surprised in the slightest. Thankfully, something had compelled me to detach my phone wallet with all of my identification cards, physical cards, bus card, and Carrefour Joven membership card (thank GOODNESS that one’s safe) earlier that day, so they were all safe with me. That was a plus. And, I had a group of friends with me. This could have happened to me on multiple solo trips or afternoons in places much more unfamiliar-feeling than Barcelona (and it hadn’t). And, too, I was physically safe. In myriad ways, this situation could have been much (much, much) worse. I had a quick choice to make: let this sour our weekend and darken my mood, or realize that though this was unfortunate, this was so not an important problem, and it was better to keep my head straight and deal with it rationally over the following few days.

So after hanging up with my bank and deciding there was nothing else worth doing other than start mentally budgeting for a replacement device, I gave the signal and we continued on, sliding out of our McDonald’s booth and straight to a bouncing cocktail bar where I enjoyed a very strong espresso martini (delicious, though I of course have no pictures). Well, that disproves your little superstition, I thought between sips, recalling hundreds of times I’d assured myself that forcing myself to think about a car slamming into mine or visualizing a plane crash during takeoff would surely keep these accidents from becoming my reality. Thinking about the bad thing happening won’t actually keep it from happening. This wasn’t an example of bad luck–this was just life.

But here’s the embarrassing thing.

I think might’ve been better for it.

The Barcelona Blog

I wanted to spend this post flexing my descriptive language muscles to their quivering limits trying to paint a picture for you of what it feels like to be inside the Sagrada Familia, how I tried to pinpoint a good comparison:

• The entrance hall to Heaven, and they’re throwing a party because you’ve made it inside

• Swimming around the floor of an underwater mermaid forest

• Looking at a large rainbow through a kaleidoscope while you are physically standing in an otherwise normal (but gigantic) basilica

• A whimsical architectural translation of the familial symbolism of Scripture, maybe ideated while drinking hot cocoa and/or eating a fruit salad?

• How I would imagine a Grand Central Station to look connecting this world to the next, if the angels were having a particularly creative streak when they designed it

Because it was incredible. Every detail, every figure carved into the exterior, the intentionality of the coloring of the stained glass on the Nativity Façade, the Passion Façade, and the Glory Façade; the necessity of the central columns to support the jaw-dropping immensity of the structure (information on the history and current state of the still-a-work-in-progress Basilica here). My visit on Friday evening just before dusk meant Isabel (the same Isabel from Seville and La Palma–hello again!) and I were met with a softer light and crowds that were moving slowly, likely tired from hours of trekking through Barcelona’s streets. Just like us. A murmur equally gentle and excited floated through the towering space, clicks of cameras and low chords of an organ rehearsal bubbling off the walls.

The Sagrada Familia was absolutely not overrated. It was different from any other sacred space I have visited. Really, unlike anything I’d ever seen (and we had visited Park Güell just hours before).

I tried to drink it all in, and I had my phone camera capture everything I couldn’t absorb.

Inside view of the Nativity Façade.

The captivating warm light reaches all the way across the nave. Read more here.

So, back to Friday evening and beyond.

I think the last time I went more than a couple of hours without my phone, especially after I got a smart watch during my sophomore year, was spring break of 2019 (my freshman year) when I went to Bethlehem Farm through Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns. We (voluntarily) zipped our phones and watches into a duffel bag for about six days while we helped with farm work, took one singular bucket shower under the stars, literally watched bread rise by a furnace for hours to decide when it was ready to bake, and made friends with that West Virginia community. I have no idea what time we woke up or shut off the lights. The clock in our minivan was covered with a sheet of loose leaf paper scrawled with “10:10,” so we were unaware of the hour even driving to and from our work sites that week.

Being suddenly forced to go phone-less in a big city isn’t quite so dramatic as a farm week, but it feels equally awakening. Every other week, hour, minute of my life tends to be either carefully scheduled or consciously ignored. I set alarms to wake up on weekends. I feel guilty waiting to respond to text messages if I see them pop up on my screen. My phone has grown into not just a social crutch but an extension of my sanity. Am I known as an organized, “on top of it” kind of person only because I have unique haptic notifications set for key contacts, my calendar on “quick access,” and fifteen to-do lists reminding me to set reminders for other reminders? I wonder. But that’s some self-searching to save for another time.

Awakening, for being just a girl in a big city with no phone meant the only place to look was up and around. The only music to listen to was the conversation passing me on the street, the scratch of dogs’ nails on the cobblestones in the Gothic Quarter, the Bad Bunny blasting through the speaker of a group of study abroad guys who’d agreed to foot massages on the beach (???). Standing in Casa Batlló, one of architect Antoni Gaudí’s houses, every time I felt the urge to snap a photo of something, I observed myself just squinting at it for an extra second. Then I’d move on. I found myself mentally storing away little comments I might normally text to my mom, praying I remembered them a few days later when I’d be able to call. Instead of depending on Google recommendations to inform my opinion of where to stop for coffees, I was noting lines, baristas’ expressions, dare I say vibes? of various shops we passed by. I felt a little less antsy while waiting in lines. I watched an entire sunset without framing the view for an Instagram story (okay, except when my friend mercifully handed me her phone to snap a scenery shot or two). I remember more of how it felt, rather than the palette the sun chose for that evening.

Could that be...better?

Casa Batlló with roses (I swear they were scented...) for Sant Jordi.

Sunday was the Day of Sant Jordi (Saint George), patron saint of Catalonia, and also el Día del Libro (World Book Day). Students and nonprofit groups proffered roses from little stands and local booksellers had set out piles of their wares in tents, which made the city’s streets feel like a vast fairytale outdoor hybrid flower-and-book shop. (Traditionally on this day, women and men would exchange roses and books, respectively–like Valentine’s Day in the U.S. But today, everything’s fair game for everyone). In my memory lies nothing of this atmosphere except feeling books' edges under my fingertips, squinting in the white sunlight, wistfully admiring the thousand casually chic-looking couples with hands intertwined among multigenerational families strolling to lunch with red roses in hand, and the colors blue, green, white, the golden yellow and crimson red of Catalonia's flag, all of this blending together in a scene that itself needed sunglasses. These are not memories I write of while reviewing a hundred photographs in my camera roll but they are still, in a different way, quite a lot. They feel blurry and precious. They are plenty.

And what about the alimento? This piece is quite a production. My late godmother, Molly, had a few exchange students / au pairs come to live with the family in Chicago over the years. During a visit to Chicago in 2015, I had the chance to meet one, Blanca, who’d come from Barcelona. It was her first of two consecutive summers in Chicago with my family. Along with my sweet cousin, mother, and godmother, I promised that when I someday traveled to Barcelona (I was already enamored with the idea of either living or traveling to Spain), I would come visit her and try her mother’s famous lemon pie. We’ve followed each other on social media since then, so we’d seen bits and pieces of each other’s lives over these years. We hadn’t been in touch, however, until late this summer when my godmother gracefully passed after nearly a decade of quiet yet determined war against cancer. So a little before the weekend of our trip, I reached out, hoping to connect once I was in town. For whatever reason, it felt especially important to pay a visit. Blanca was pleased to show us some cool places in her hometown, maybe even take us to an amusement park–and best of all, welcome us into her very own passion project, the newly-opened life of Marta’s Lemon Pie as a brick and mortar neighborhood café!

After the phone mishap, through much coordination, my mother and friends had kindly gotten in touch again with my old acquaintance and arranged that we would swing by the café Sunday morning for a late breakfast. After a sunny walk, we came upon the shop. Situated on a corner in a quiet neighborhood, this was unmistakably the place: bright, big windows, swathed in lemon yellow, pairs of neighbors chatting in its doorway and families with young children in tow on their way inside. We stepped in, too. Staff buzzed around, delivering coffees. Light streamed through those windows onto bookshelves and a creamy stone floor. A woman was hard at work behind the side counter, symphonically piping cream onto pastries arranged beside her. A couple of skyscraper-esque lemon meringue pies were displayed behind a long glass case on the long side of the café. That must be Marta, I whispered to my friends, hushed in awe as she placed rose petals with a scientific precision to crown the pastries. I inched toward her and introduced myself; I was correct–this was Blanca’s mom, the Marta.

My hola got me a huge hug and an urging to wait on a nice table in the middle of the floor. After a few minutes, we sat down and Blanca herself whirled in, every bit as effortlessly cool as I remembered, somehow simultaneously paying her good mornings to every one of the staff, checking on the kitchen, ringing up a few customers, and fixing the handheld card machine for her mom while she grinned, hugged, and greeted us all. As we dug into our pie (yes, we each ordered either a slice of lemon pie or carrot cake with a cappuccino for breakfast, and the consensus was that this was exactly what was needed), she eventually joined us at our table. We dished on the tragicomedy of the stolen phone, the sights we’d seen, our opinion of the nightclub situation at Opium, wondered what it was like growing up in such a whirlwind of a city, and heard the story of how Marta’s longtime dessert catering business had, just five months ago, birthed this sunny café at Blanca’s insistence that it totally would be possible. “I wanted it to feel like a home, like sitting in a living room,” she replied, when I commented on how inviting the space felt. Chic, trendy, photogenic, but not overly so–sundrenched but a little rustic, summoning a good long catch-up with friends or a perusal of the Sunday papers. If the Sagrada Familia was whimsical in a Grand Central Station sort of way, this was full of whimsy, too, but in a Central Perk sort of sense. Clearly already beloved by the neighborhood based on the packed space and the people popping in and out to check on the wait for a table. A place for family.

As I couldn’t take my own photos, I tried to savor every last crumb of the pie, which was puckeringly tart and therefore winning in my book (it makes total sense why the place is named just for this pie), not to mention its very thick graham crust and sturdy layer of meringue. Before we knew it, it was time to give up our table–on our slow way out, we met both Blanca’s youngest sister and one of her brothers. This really was a place for family. I could imagine and almost feel my mom, cousin Caroline, and godmother sitting next to me relishing the same Sunday morning if we’d taken a trip to Barcelona together, passing around different cakes and pies to sample them all. Less a photograph, more another sunglass scene, like the Sant Jordi setup: a deep-rooted sensation that this was a place we might find and would most definitely choose, even if the sweet connection that brought me and my friends there this day hadn’t preceded our discovery. It wouldn’t be good luck–it would just be life. Sweet and sacred in its own way, though.

So, thank you, Barcelona. How arrogant of me to say I’d drop my things at the chance to visit you again–and hopefully soon. Yet I know it is good to return to things that feel holy, and things that feel like family. How surely I know this city felt just like both.

With love and lemons,

Ellie

For obvious reasons, except for the three from inside the Sagrada Familia, all photo credits for this post go to my pro photog friends, Emily and Isabel. Editing is my own.

(Thank you for capturing these moments and keeping me smiling.)