Illustration © Sonia Alins
Landings

1. At the crack of dawn, when I go out on my motorbike, a long tailback forms at the exit to my town, between the Citroën garage and the motorway’s incline, but it...

Illustration © Eva Vázquez. A fish looks at its reflection in a fish tank from the outside. The inside the fish bowl features a cityscape and a boy on a bicycle.
Debbie and Humbert

Debbie and Humbert got married on the same day that Ibiza died. Carla found the turtle with her head inside her shell and her legs stretched out. Her friends...

Il·lustració d'uns micos en un parc vestits com científics © Ana Yael Zareceansky
The hundredth monkey effect

Similar: we see the little hands and little fingers (oh, the defining opposable thumb) and they seem so human. Then we look them in the eyes and the familiarity is...

Il·lustració d'una moto
Murmurs

Often the things we will remember all our lives creep up on us like that, halfway between the murmur of intuition and the yearning of a wish. There was a time when I...

Sant Pau, part of our history and part of our soul

“If the hospital were taken away, it’d change Barcelona’s soul.” The first time I read those words, written by Doctor Josep Cornudella about the Hospital de la Santa...

Il·lustració © Mireia Zantop
Barcelona Lolita Casa

The clinic where I was born was turned into an old people’s home, then it became an empty space and finally it was squatted in and then cleared. But it hasn’t been...

Il·lustració © Oriol Malet
The underground district

Under the Eixample there are the same streets as on the surface, though much narrower, and they reflect the life outside and that of the houses above.

Il·lustració © Lapin
El Poblenou, from grey to blue

These days, not even the neighbourhood’s own mother would recognize it. Still, it’s worth saying that the change has been for the better.

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