Watertown, MA. January, 2021

Happy New Year, everyone. This is the last daily entry in my blog, which I began exactly ten years ago today. (Just about when this photo was taken.) You can always scroll down to access the archive of past postings in the bottom right-hand corner of any page (web, not mobile, version only.) Please do. I hope you've enjoyed Sandy Leonard Snaps as much as I have during its double-digit run. Thank you for your kind words and readership over the past decade. Much appreciated.

Barcelona. November, 2010

Our favorite hotel in Barcelona is the Hotel Jardi just off Las Ramblas, near the opera house and the city’s central market, in the oldest part of town. The rooms are small, but the location can’t be beat. Also the prices. Here’s a look from our room down into the Plaza del Pi and the outdoor tables where cafe patrons while away an evening, chatting, nibbling, sometimes picking at a quiet guitar. [And here we are, another year, mercifully come to an end. Happy New Year.]

Barcelona. November, 2010

From our hotel room in the oldest section of Barcelona, we could look down on plazas, along alleyways, even into apartments. Like this one. I am reminded of a line in a Mark Doty poem in which he describes looking from a window of a NYC YMCA into other windows and likening the vista to “a voyeur’s Advent calendar.”

Springfield, NJ. Spring, 1956

Hard to imagine that this sweet little boy would grow up to be an old man. Better than the alternative, I guess. Happy birthday to me.

Barcelona. November, 2011

Barcelona’s central market, known familiarly as La Boqueria, is a visual treat as well as a gastronomic one. Look at the variety of fruits and vegetables offered by just this one vendor alone. Doesn’t this look festive?

Barcelona. November, 2010

We in the US of A are so used to buying shrimp, clams and such at the same places we buy haddock, salmon and other fin fish. Not so in Europe, especially not here in La Boqueria, the central market of Barcelona. Seafood (shellfish) in one place. Fin fish in another. You can see which type of vendor this is.

Barcelona. November, 2010

Whenever I return from a trip, friends ask me what was the best part of it. And the answer is always the same: the people. Here, two waiters at a Barcelona tapas bar who’ve stepped outside for a break from the lunchtime crush. The guy on the left has a girlfriend in Washington, DC, not to mention the best eyeglasses in town. And they both were so gracious when I asked to take their photo. As always, a little bit of Spanish goes a long, long way.