Well, a few musical moments to pass along. On Tuesday evening, we went to see Marlango (a Spanish group fronted by singer Leonor Watling which — for some reason — performs mostly in English!) at the beautiful Palau de la Música Catalana. I’ve wanted to see inside that UNESCO World Heritage Site for a while, so it was great to finally see it…even better, the concert was full of energy and humour (and they just wouldn’t stop playing!). It was much more than just an excuse to see the interior of a beautiful building! (-;
Secondly, I wanted to have a guitar to practice while I was here, and had been looking into renting one. I thought that since it is quite easy to rent instruments in Canadian cities, it likely would be here. Well, you can rent guitars and such, but to rent a flamenco guitar, and one that is strung for “zurdos” (lefties), is a bit trickier. So I thought I could buy a super-cheap (crappy) one, just to use here. But I knew I wanted a “real” flamenco guitar at some point… Okay, so the end of this story is predictable: I went to this great classical and flamenco guitar shop in Barcelona, Casa Luthier, and was easily convinced (or rather, convinced myself) to buy a nice (not too expensive but also definitely not the cheapest one you can get!) flamenco guitar. I ended up with an Alhambra, model 3F. To transport it, I “splurged” and got an estuche duro (aka flight case), which I hope will protect this investment for years — and trips — to come.
The service at Casa Luthier was excellent, and I managed just fine in Castellano for the hour or more that I was there, discussing, learning, trying, hemming and hawing — and eventually purchasing.