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Tag Archives: Barcelona

Hola….. George.

26 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by Leah in TRAVEL, TV / POP CULTURE

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Barcelona, El Xampanyet, George Costanza, Gothic Quarter, Jason Alexander, Picasso Museum, Seinfeld

el-xampanyet-1-c-jul

El Xampanyet

Hello… Newman.  Hola … George?  What would you do if one of the most iconic of TV characters worked at a bar near you?  Go there almost every night, like I did?!  I truly think that when I lived in Barcelona for a year, I chose an apartment in the Barrio Gotico, or Gothic Quarter, to be near the bar Xampanyet, where the spitting image of George Costanza, the curmudgeon from the TV classic “Seinfeld,” worked.  El Xampanyet (pronounced sham-pan-YET) is a small, traditional tapas bar across the street from Barcelona’s famed Picasso Museum, and two things make it a local favorite: the homemade cava they serve, and its decidedly unhip vibe in a neighborhood bursting with trendy, modern hot spots. But what made me return to it night after night was the owner’s uncanny resemblance to grumpy, jumpy George, aka Jason Alexander, Jerry Seinfeld’s not-so-loveable sidekick.  Same smile, same stature, same bald head. The cava-serving Signor doesn’t speak English, but in my barely there Spanish I’m pretty sure he told me that he heard that a lot. Not from the locals, of course, but from the tourists visiting the museum and then taking his picture afterwards. So why not stop in, try the bubbly cava and some delicious Catalan anchovies or Pa amb tomàquet (tomato bread) and do your best Elaine dance outside, just like I did!

El Xampanyet
Calle Montcada
Barcelona, Spain
 
Bar Xampanyet . Tapas . Barcelona

George Costanza doppelgänger?

Seinfeld-Cast-Jason-Alexander-16x9-1

Jason Alexander as George Costanza

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(Holy Sh*t!) It can not be!

24 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by Leah in MUSIC

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Barcelona, Costa Brava, It can not be, No Puedo Ser, Placido Domingo, Spain, The Three Tenors, Zarzuela, Zubin Mehta

Costa Brava, Spain, September, 1990 

I was about to suffer sun stroke on a sweltering bus trip from Barcelona to a tiny town up the coast, sticking to my vinyl seat and gulping at my agua con gas.  What saved me?  A voice from above, or actually, my Sony Walkman (1990!) in the form of The Three Tenors recording.  Sure there was plenty of fun stuff from the other two, but it was Placido Domingo singing a song that I had never heard that made me forget my woes and the smelly guy next to me. The song was “No Puede Ser,” a popular Zarzuela, or Spanish operetta, aria.  It’s a big, schmaltzy love song for tenor and orchestra meaning “It can not be,” but that doesn’t matter.  What does matter is the last three notes of the song, which so floored me I stared dumbfounded at my Walkman before rewinding again and again.  The video was released a few months later and lo and behold, the conductor Zubin Mehta does the same thing!  He literally stares at Domingo when he finishes, almost shaking his head in disbelief at what he’s just heard, and bows down to him as they shake hands.

The Three Tenors (Domingo, Carreras, Pavarotti) and conductor Zubin Mehta

It’s that good.  Domingo in his prime, not in “Tosca” at the Met, but in a knock-em-dead performance of a lovely little ditty.

No Puede Ser
Performed by Placido Domingo

Listen first:

Then watch:

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