On my first day in Spain:

If you're organized enough, Spain's transportation system is just as easily accessible by English speakers as Spanish speakers, and you can get through the system crazy fast.  

I made it all the way to Avenue Diagonal, where my rental apartment is located,  much faster than I predicted-- then turned the wrong way down the Avenue, twice, and it took me an extra hour to find the apartment.  I suppose this means I was almost organized enough.


A portion of Barcelona, developed during the 1860's under the guidance of Ildefons Cerda, has unique chamfered corners at every intersection that help you turn your horse and carriage around a corner. 



These neatly sliced corners help make almost every intersection a nice public space by offering a sense of enclosure.  The problems, however, are thus: the very small street signs, mounted onto each building, are already difficult to see without setting them another fifty feet back from the intersection.  The pedestrians are required to follow the chamfers in order to cross the street, which is not only annoying as it makes the walk longer, but in an intersection of more than two streets it's even more difficult to get around AND it's far too easy to turn down the wrong street if you get distracted ogling the Art Nouveau architecture sitting on nearly every block.   


With that said, I've walked a lot of miles so far and frankly there is always something interesting to look at along the way.  The people are quirky and pretty and the buildings match the people.  The brilliant minds behind Avenue Diagonal decided to plow a pedestrian path right down the middle of the Avenue-- a great way to avoid the in-out-in-out of the chamfered sidewalks.  Which, as it turns out, are not quite as big a deal on the small, close side streets.