In which the topic of cigarettes leads to some seriously dark thoughts -- be warned before reading.

I was at the gym yesterday, talking to a Spaniard who had come over to help me finish off a set on the bench press. I told him that I loved la vida aquí -- the life here -- in part because people are so friendly, amable. I've never once had a stranger come over to help me push out the final few reps of a set in the United States, but here it's happened three times in as many months.

As we got to talking, it turned out that my new friend was a doctor at a nearby hospital, and had grown up here in Córdoba. As I've noticed that every Spaniard and their mother smokes cigarettes, I asked him if the habit was popular even among doctors. His response was telling, though unspecific -- ''si, casi la mayoría'', he said -- ''yeah, almost the majority of them.''

And yet in terms of European life expectancy rates, Spain (79.78 year avg to the U.S.' 78.06) is right there at 19th with the leaders: Italy (a Mediterranean companion), France (another country heavy on the smoking), Switzerland (yeah, we know about your health care system) and Sweden (ditto on the system; the leader in Europe, at 80.63, only 8th worldwide).

I know the two or three people who will ever read this are curious to know which country heads the list. That would be Macau, a southeastern province-city of China which officially loses its semi-autonomy to the Big Red in 2049. Why? Macau was both the first and last Chinese city to be colonized by a European country. Portugal originally settled there in the 16th century, but in 1999 agreed to officially bequeath Macau to the people of Macau, with the stipulation that fifty years later it would be swallowed up by China. How did we get here again? Oh yeah, Macau's average life expectancy -- 84.38 years -- leads the world. I wonder how popular tobacco is there.

I hate to end this on a down note, but it must be noted that Swaziland has the worst average life expectancy in the world, and is the only country in which one is not expected to live past forty. Their average is 39.6. A tiny former colony of the UK in southeastern Africa, Swaziland also, not coincidentally, has the highest rate of AIDS in the world. In 2004, a study found that 38.8% of pregnant women tested positive for the merciless disease. Please, someone throw them a frickin' bone.

Of the forty countries between 155th and 195th at the bottom of the life expectancy rankings, thirty eight are in Africa. That stretch runs the hellish gamut from Madagascar, at an average of 59.4 years, down to the inferno of misery that Swaziland must be. The notable non-African outlyer is Afghanistan, 188th on the list with an average life expectancy of 43.8 years.

This global tragedy reminds me of a strangely lucid dream I had last night, in which an anonymous, legless, wheelchair-bound man was pleading with his family members to undergo some kind of fantastical operation which would give him legs at the cost of a few inches of height from each of them. With little pretense of remorse, the fully endowed humans stood around the desperate man as the fireplace lit the room with flickers of a dim, frigid glow. I can still hear his tearful wails as they faded away into the night.

Religion, Culture and History -- Put on Your Hardhat

I searched long and hard for a picture to lead off this post, one that could capture the essence of Barcelona, or even just the essence of its crowning architectural achievement. But the Sagrada Familia is too big to be confined in one photo without melding into obscurity its cacophony of meaningful details. I'd been to the architecturally exuberant cathedral twice already, but I'd never taken the time to notice its most subtle features. That's the trouble with the 150-year work-in-progress -- the approaching viewer finds himself so overwhelmed by the grand scale of the building, then by the stark creativity of its facades, that he's liable to stroll, jaw slacked in awe, right by some of its most expressive details.

For instance, try taking your eyes off the climactic scenes of the storybook Passion façade,

or dropping your gaze from this neck-cranking view,

to attempt reading some holy ramblings in a language -- Catalan -- you've probably never seen:


This time around, what I realized upon closer inspection was that Gaudí may be recognized most for his flamboyance, but that his workmanlike commitment and pious devotion give meaning to his shapes and colors. Tidbits of mystique abound in his masterpiece cathedral. For example, in the picture above, if you zoom in on the two highlighted phrases above the door on the right, you read, ''Que es la veritat?'' and ''Jesús d Natzaret, rei dels Jueus'' -- Catalan for ''What is the truth?'' and ''Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews''. The latter phrase seems strange to find at a church; what follows may give it some context.

Yet more obscure was a Catalan poem engraved on one of the main entrance doors. The door opposite it featured the same poem engraved backwards, and accompanied by an abstraction of symbols that seemed Dali-like in their apparent randomness.

Notice the end of the poem written in backwards Catalan, at the top of the picture. This is an excerpt of a stirring poem written by famous Catalan poet Salvador Espriu. In Catalan, it goes:

De vegades és necessari i forçós
que un home mori per un poble,
però mai no ha de morir tot un poble
per un home sol:
recorda sempre això, Sepharad.

Fortunately I was able to find a Spanish translation online. Notice the similarities in word and sentence structure:

A veces es necesario y forzoso
que un hombre muera por un pueblo,
pero jamás ha de morir
todo un pueblo por un hombre solo:
recuerda siempre esto, Sepharad.

In English that translates to:

Sometimes it's necessary
That a man die for his people,
Though a people has never died
For a man alone:
Always remember this, Sepharad.

Who is Sepharad? I wondered the same. It turns out that Sefarad was the name assumed by the Jewish diaspora in Spain -- known to us as the Sephardics. In fact the man who is arguably the most famous and impactful Sephardic Jew, Maimonides, was born right here in Córdoba. I walk by a commemorative statue of the twelfth-century philosopher, doctor, and rabbi almost every day. Spain has seen great religious diversity over the last two thousand years, but recent studies show that only 1.7% of its present-day population identifies with a religion other than Catholicism (77.3%) or atheism/agnosticism (18.9%).

I'm intrigued, and continue translating the poem:

You must secure the bridges of dialogue
and try to understand and respect
the diverse opinions of your children.
That the rain falls little by little over your fields
and the air passes like an extended hand,
smooth and gentle over the vast countryside.
That Sepharad lives forever
in order and in peace, in work,
in the difficult and deserved
freedom.


Passing through either of the Sagrada Familia's gloriously cluttered façades, one suddenly finds oneself in an airy, spacious temple of tranquility.


The organic shapes of Gaudí's tree-inspired pillars soar overhead, with the carpentry camp at their feet the necessary reminder that this holy monument was indeed built by man.


There's something about the stained glass windows in the Sagrada Familia -- perhaps it's their youth -- which gives their colors an exuberant clarity unlike any I've seen before. My camera can't hope to do it justice, but here's a taste:


But, like most cultural icons in Spain, the Sagrada Familia isn't all beauty and sacrament. Gaudí's legacy has left a trail of political baggage. The pride of Catalunya, a region of Spain with sentiments of separatism, and a man known by some as 'God's Architect', he is a polarizing figure for much of Spain. I had read a lot about the existence of 'many Spains' -- that the country is a simmering pot of regional differences trying to turn the page on a polemical twentieth century history which lurks in its collective subconscious. In the Sagrada Familia's basement museum I found definitive proof of this dynamic.

I was reading the Spanish section of a sign explaining that many of Gaudí's sketches and models are no longer available since being destroyed when his office caught on fire. Strange, I thought, I wonder how that happened? I looked over to the English translation to make sure I had understood everything, and my heart jumped. There I saw the same sentence in English, but with a little extra information: all of Gaudi's works were destroyed ''when his office was set on fire during the Civil War.'' I looked back to the Spanish to make sure I hadn't missed anything. Nope. The Catalan translation also conspicuously lacked the decisive detail.

How sensitive must this society be about its own history, that it avoids discussing such undisputable details? The Civil War happened in the 1930's -- surely we're past the era of ''it's too soon''. We've all been told in elementary school that it's important to learn history so we don't repeat the mistakes of the past. Is Spain sabotaging its future generations by turning away from the lessons of its painful past? Or is this forced ignorance necessary to maintain peace in such a fragmented country?

I met two German girls in Lisbon who told me that their school system was very forthright when it came to teaching the history of World War II. The Spaniards have taken the opposite approach by dancing around controversial issues the way their flamenco dancers dance tantalizingly around each other, staring down each other's souls. This dance, though outwardly beautiful, is one of willful ignorance and self-containment. Can it ever be productive to ignore history?