Present Perfect

Sometimes I take the architectural marvels of this city too much for granted. But recently I've been reminded of them frequently. I had a nice Flemish dentist working from a dental clinic here in Barcelona. When I suddenly found myself in heaps of pain around the end of August, I first found out that my nice speaking-my-language doctor had left for Valencia, and that there was no way to get treatment from my clinic during August.

I ended up going to a dental clinic on Paseig de Gracia, and they fixed me up with some antibiotics and a string of four extra visits to remove the nerves from one of my molar (I don't think I'll ever get lucky at a dentist, but I digress).

Anyway, all four of my visits so far (still on the same molar, impressive) have ended with me walking down Passeig de Gracia and taking a stroll past my favourite, Casa Batllo, the house with no straight corners. I've been in that house a few times, even though it's relatively expensive, but it's worth every euro.

But it's even better if you pass by one of these marvels completely unexpected. You're just riding around town, coming back from an excellent free Travis concert on a streetcorner near the old beer factory, you turn a corner, and all of a sudden you realize that that big spire of stone you're about to ride past is the Sagrada Familia. Its massive beauty is all the more impressing when it jumps at you unexpectedly.

Sometimes I take the architectural marvels of this city too much for granted. But recently I've been reminded of them frequently. I had a nice Flemish dentist working from a...