Assignment 2: The Guilds

1. "Els gremis", the guilds, were at the center of the economy in medieval times in Barcelona.  Each guild was an organized group of craftsmen and artisans who practiced a trade, and the guilds regulated workers' rights, quality control, prices and exerted other types of influence even outside of this work sphere.  Several of the streets and plazas in the area of old Barcelona are named after these guilds.  For example:

Carrer de Semoleres - the "cous cous" vendors (as Xavi calls them), this was one of the first streets dedicated to the guilds!
Placa de la Llana - named after the wool vendors
Carrer dels Escudellers - where shields were made and sold
Carrer dels Carders - where rope was made and sold
Carrer dels Cotoners - where the cotton weavers were located

Placa de la Llana

2.  The casa-taller was a house and workshop set-up.  The bottom floor, called "principal", was where the workshop was located, usually with 1 single door.  The corner casa-tallers had 2 doorways, and were the bigger workshops.  The master/owner of the shop lived on the first floor, right above the workshop.  Those who lived in the apartments above him were lower class, and the lowest lived at the top where the smallest windows were (i.e. skilled workers would be above the owner, then servants above that level).  It is very interesting that all of these social classes lived together in the same neighborhoods!

This one was a corner workshop with 2 doors

3. There are many architectural aspects that distinguish these older buildings from the more recent buildings in this area.  The most obvious one to see is the materials that the buildings are made of.  Today, most new buildings are created using steel, glass, plastic and other modern materials, but in the Middle Ages stone and iron were mainly used.  Before the Middle Ages, iron wasn't used, so the buildings with only stone were most likely built even earlier.  One good example of a strange mix between super contemporary and old architecture is the Mercat de Santa Caterina, with its crazy wavy roof and its mainly iron structure (will explain more later, in 4B). 

4. Find the cultural relation of these 5 places to Catalan culture:

A. Santa Maria del Mar is a grand church in El Born that was built from 1329 - 1383.  It was built primarily by the Catalan working citizens of the neighborhood, not by royalty or the wealthy.  The craftsmen, artisans and guilds paid for the construction of this church all on their own, without the help of the king or government, so it is a very important and emblematic symbol of the middle class. In fact, even today many middle-class Catalans enter onto a waiting list to get married inside the beautiful church.  Additionally, there are many funeral stones inside below which people are buried (generally the families of those who worked on the church).

This plaque on the door shows a Catalan man carrying heavy stones from Montjuic on his back to help build the church

B. El Mercat del Born, or El Mercat de Santa Caterina, is the neighborhood's market.  It was built in 1878 and has been used as one type of market or another since then.  It's structure is a very good example of 19th century Catalan modernist architecture - iron was a really important material during that time and very important to the region.  The roof on top of the market was added in 2005.

 
C. El Fossa de les Moreres is located just next to the Santa Maria del Mar.  It is a plaza with an ever-burning flame, trees, and a large red statue.  The plaza is a memorial to the people who lost their lives in the fight for Catalonian independence up until 1714.  "Fossa" means "hole" and "moreres" refers to the trees in the square.

D. Ciutadella Park is where the Citadel built by Felipe V to keep the city very controlled was located.  This Citadel was obviously a very sore point for Catalans, who did not want to be controlled at all by Madrid, much less have a gigantic war-related structure overlooking their city.  Eventually, the Citadel was demolished and the space was used for the Universal Exhibit and the World's Fair, which highlighted Catalan culture.  Today, this space is used as a green park, with lots of people running, doing yoga, walking their dogs and participating in many other outdoor activities.  The Barcelona Zoo is also located here.

Castle of Three Dragons in Ciutadella

Pathways near an entrance to Ciutadella Park filled with people during La Diada de Catalunya

Zebras in the Barcelona Zoo

Giraffes in the Barcelona Zoo

A baby chimp in the Barcelona Zoo

5. After September 11, 1714, the decrees of Nova Planta were proclaimed in Catalonia by Felipe V.  These decrees suppressed the people previously ruled under the Aragon crown by demolishing their institutions and taking away all of their privileges.  They specifically imposed a new tax system on the Catalan people, repressed the Catalan culture and language, and abolished the Diputacio and Council of One Hundred.  With these decrees, Spain was supposed to become a unified and centralized nation, but it was essentially a punishment to the Catalan people and caused a huge fury.

6. El Consolat de Mar, or La Llotja, was the last stop on our field trip today. In the Middle Ages time period, this space was used as a crossing point between merchants coming from the sea to buy and sell goods and the people in the city. It was here that people could buy permits to sell their goods in the city and could exchange their currency into Catalan money.  The organization in this building was also responsible for making many of the laws that governed the sea and port.  Also, if big disputes arose between merchants/artisans/etc. they could be tried and judged here instead of getting the government in Madrid involved.

Trip to Istanbul, Turkey!

I woke up to my alarm on Saturday morning at 3:30 am, and headed out the front door to go to the airport at 4. Everything went smoothly and I slept for a little while on the plane ride, and got to watch as we flew into the sunrise. It was gorgeous! I got into Turkey at 10:25 (they’re one hour ahead of Barcelona) and waited in the customs line for a while before I realized I had to buy a Turkish visa - even for my 3 day trip! I re-waited in the line after buying that, then made it through no problem. I took a taxi to the hostel, and the taxi driver was this cute old man who sang Turkish songs under his breath the whole ride. The hostel was homey and pretty good-looking as hostels go. Free wifi and free breakfast, so I was perfectly content. I put my bags up in our room (I had a double bed somehow!!) and waited for my friend and travel partner, Caroline, in the lobby. We met up around 1 and headed straight for the Hagia Sophia. She’d been there since late Thursday night, so she already knew her way around and had seen a couple of the sights.

The Hagia Sofia was absolutely stunning. The outside was nice but the inside was amazing. Pictures will do it better justice than my descriptions will. That goes for everything we saw this trip - Istanbul is BEAUTIFUL!











The Spice Bazaar was our next stop. We walked down by the Bosphorus to get there; yet another gorgeous sight. There were seagulls everywhere, which made me super homesick for the summer. In the bazaar, we found one shop with an older owner who took a liking toward us and gave us a lot of free samples. Turkish delight was surprisingly better than I expected. Gooey kind of like a stale gumdrop, but with really delicious nutty flavors. I got a small bag of dried pineapple and papaya slices (delicious) and a couple little gifts. The smells, colors and sounds of the whole place were overwhelming, but I loved it. I doubt I could’ve spent any more time in the bazaar than we did though.





Around the Sultahnamet square, back near the Hagia Sofia, we’d been heckled and catcalled a bunch by the super creepy Turkish men, but one guy actually was selling fairly inexpensive tickets to a sunset boat tour that night. We took him up on his offer, but only after he took us to the company’s official stand so we knew we weren’t being scammed. A little while later, after showering back at the hostel, we met up again at the booth to walk toward the ship. It was a small ferry boat full of tourists but that was to be expected. Unfortunately it was a cloudy and chilly night so we didn’t get to see much of any sunset and it wasn’t light for long, but we did see a lot of cool old buildings lit up for the nighttime! We traveled up the Golden Horn, then turned back around at the second bridge and went up around Beyoglu toward Kabatas, then turned again and headed back to the terminal along the Asian side. The whole journey took about 2 hours, which was just enough.



We went to dinner afterwards at an “original Turkish” restaurant (made for tourists) called Capadoccia. We sat on couches in this lavishly decorated area and shared a lamb dish in broth served on a hot plate - SO good.

After we finished, we headed back to the hostel totally exhausted and fell asleep quickly
Sunday morning, we woke up bright and early and indulged in the yummy free breakfast they provided. Traditional Turkish breakfast includes hard boiled eggs, cucumbers, tomatoes, bread and cheese, but the hostel also added fresh sliced fruit. I filled my plate with eggs, cheese, apples, amaaaazing juicy orange slices, and green grapes. We ate quickly and took the above-ground tram to the grounds of Dolmabahce Palace. We got a guided tour of the facilities, which included many of the palace’s grand rooms and most of the harem. We weren’t allowed to take any photos inside so I’m just going to steal a couple from Google images for you guys to see. The whole palace was awesome though! Very European, which took me by surprise a little bit, but apparently it was designed because they wanted to have a European palace.





(The above photos are mine, and the ones below are Google’s.)





We had a little bit of extra time after we finished, so we went to the Palace Collections Museum a little ways down the road. We were the only people in the place, but it was only one big room, and we hadn’t heard about it until that day, so I wasn’t too shocked. It had a ton of cool artifacts that had once been in the palace, from children’s writing practice books, to clothing, to kitchenware.

We grabbed the tram back toward Sultanahmet and headed to the rooftop terrace restaurant of the Armada Hotel, a recommendation I’d found online. It wasn’t as overpriced as we’d thought it would be, and since it was 2:30 already, we were the only ones eating up there - it turned out to be the best lunch (and arguably the best meal!) we had he whole trip. The 360 view was stunning, and the seafood dish we both ordered was just as amazing. It had tuna, squid, shrimp and a lot of lemon - deeelish. I had chocolate fondue for dessert too, which didn’t hurt.










After we’d finished eating and had filled up on the free water (a surprisingly hard thing to come by), we went to the Blue Mosque. Carol had already been before I got here, but she was willing to go again with me. Sort of the opposite of the Hagia Sofia, it was more beautiful on the outside than on the inside, but still great of course! It was really cool to go inside a mosque, just as an overall experience. I’d been in one before with NCCS on a field trip in 8th grade but I didn’t even remember doing that until going into the Blue Mosque. I have a funny picture somewhere of Caroline and I in our head covers… I’ll find that for you.






From there, we went straight to the Cemberlitas Hammam, one of the Turkish baths that’s most welcoming to tourists. We changed into our bikinis, received a scrub mitt and a thin towel and were told to lay down on this big marble slab in the middle of the circular steam room with our towels and wait until an attendant called us. The slab was huge - I’m talking maybe 20 women laying on this thing, probably 90% of them topless, young and old. Very interesting… When it was our turn to be scrubbed, we each moved in front of an attendant woman and were lathered down in soap and exfoliated - it felt so nice and like the Moroccan bath you could literally see the dead skin coming off. Nasty. We stayed in the sauna for a little while longer, then sat on couches in the lounge in big comfy towels and drank Turkish apple tea. I wish there were spas like this in the US - who needs an expensive massage??

We started overheating at one point and decided to go back to the hostel to shower and change. When we were done there, we walked to another place I had Googled, called the Mesale Cafe, which was situated behind the Arasta Bazaar. It had a Whirling Dervish guy who danced on stage with the Turkish 4-man band. Not entirely authentic, but it was a cool place with low tables and lots of nargile smokers and Turkish old men playing backgammon. Reminded me of my dad and grandpa. We had lamb sis (shish) kebab and ate so much we thought we were going to explode. Then we had chocolate ice cream, so I guess we weren’t close enough to explosion mode.

(Apple tea!)


Again, after dinner, we went right back to the hostel and passed out.

We woke up early on Monday morning - yes I skipped your class for this, I sincerely apologize (a little…) - to go to Topkapi Palace in Sultahnamet. The grounds were beautiful, and we arrived early enough to get in with a very short line. We weren’t allowed to take pictures in any of the palace rooms that housed the artifacts and relics, but we saw the Imperial Council Hall, the arms and weaponry room, a room full of old watches and clocks, a room full of clothing and jewelry (how someone saved a sultan’s clothes from the 16th century is totally beyond me), religious relics (which really made me think - they claim they have Moses’s staff?), the beautiful gardens and balconies overlooking the Bosphorus, and the circumcision room. For some reason that is one of the most visited rooms in the whole palace.













I ducked out of the palace early to go to the Grand Bazaar because Carol didn’t want to go there again since she’d already been. I took the tram from Topkapi and easily found my way into the bazaar. Getting out of it was a different story, but it wasn’t terrible. Inside, there were so many knockoffs of purses, shoes and jackets, and a bunch of trinket shops. I made the mistake of stopping in a jewelry store, instead of a cheaper trinket shop, with semi-nice jewelry, but I found two really cute things for my sister Sarah and me. I didn’t have much time or money to spend so I got out of there as fast as I could after that one store. It took a little while to find my way back to the tram track but I made it in time to meet Carol back at the Eminonu tram stop at 1:30.


We took the ferry from Eminonu to Kadikoy on the Asian side of Istanbul to try to get lunch and wander. It was a lot harder than we expected to find a lunch spot and we eventually just sat down somewhere totally random and had mediocre salads because we were so starved. We didn’t really see any cool shops, but I did lose my favorite black sweater somewhere along the walk (TRAGEDY!) and ended up finding something similar and warm enough to get me through.







When we felt like we were done wandering, we hopped back on the ferry, which was yet another thing there that reminded me of home, and headed back to Sultanahmet. We got to our hostel around 5, took advantage of the wifi for a little bit, and left for the airport at 5:45.

Good thing we left obnoxiously early, as I usually insist on doing and don’t usually need to do, because there were a ton of complications. First, the first tram we tried to get on was so packed that the 20 seconds of time that the doors are open wasn’t nearly enough. We managed to shove our way onto the next tram that showed up, and stood in a cramped corner while the stop-and-start jerkiness of the tram lasted for half an hour. During that time, the whole car reeked of BO and a fight broke out between two guys right next to us. So that was exciting. But mostly terrifying. We made it to the train station eventually, where we switched to the roomier train that would take us to the airport. We got to Ataturk around 7, and headed straight for the check-in counter. Of course, as I’d predicted with my overpreparedness, something was bound to screw me up. They told me that since I hadn’t made my original flight (I had missed my flight to Istanbul and had to rebook another), nor had I been able to cancel or change it since my phone bill would’ve run sky high, I was put on the No Show list and removed from the return flight. I of course argued this since I had paid for both legs, so this was ridiculous… Eventually they gave me a seat on the flight, and I ended up in 7C, so I’m not sure how it took them so long to figure it out. I really do like Turkish Airlines though! I just wish their website would’ve been more accessible when I needed it. That took a while to sort out, and dinner took another while to find and eat, so we made it to the gate just in time to join the last 10 people in the line. Cutting it close!

Overall, my trip to Istanbul was one of the best I've ever had.  Such a cool city.