Arts and Humanities Commons^™

"The flight from Palma, Mallorca, Spain, to San Francisco, California, includes a long layover in the city of Gaudi. I land in Barcelona at 6 P.M. and will be on another plane from the same airport at dawn. I can easily “kill time” at the huge airport: shop, eat, read, sleep in uncomfortable chairs. I consider dropping some Euros on a hotel in town. But why kill time, when time is all I have? I place my luggage in a large airport locker and get on a bus to the center of the city. No plan, except to see …

"Continuity

Roosters crow and the plaza comes to life every morning with newsboys, tourists, pigeons and grackles, prayers of the pilgrims, the balloon man, the cigarette lady, the horse with his blinders. Men stride through dressed for business in fresh-shined shoes. Cement façades are yellow gold, burnt red/orange, and keep still as clouds drift across the sun and shadows hover, persist. Rays of light fall from the sky, which is deep blue where it is not white with giant cumulus puffs. Black rain clouds move in, threatening, wind blows balloon streamers, smoke rises from tortilla barbecues, heads turn upward. The …