Espania
Can you spot the tourist?
Welcome back to the decaying first class cabin of the Spanish Talgo train, where a passenger across the aisle from me just had her seat back completely collapse backwards. Behind me is a lady who is trying very hard to delay the slow but inevitable emotional collapse of her young child. The train is jerking and creaking along, shedding pieces with every bounce and corner. I am very glad to be here. In a reprise of my old role of playing the photo finish, I boarded the train and sat down exactly 2 minutes before it started moving. And it left 2 minutes late. It all started with loitering another 5 minutes in bed after my alarm went off this morning. Next was a very late metro train to bring me to the Drassanes station. Realizing how late things were getting, I wisely chose to hop in a taxi rather than walk the last mile to the Estacio de Franca. By now I had less than 10 minutes before my train was scheduled to depart. I made the mistake of just saying “stacion tren” and noticed the driver heading the wrong way up the traffic circle. Fortunately I got out the words “de Franca” in time for him to recover and head down the Passeig del Colom. On the ride over I checked my ticket for the train number and my cabin and seat number. Dashing into the station with a backpack on either shoulder, I quickly misread the monitor and ran to the wrong platform. Noticing that the train marquee said “aeroporte” I ran back and read the monitor again, noticing that my train’s designation was flashing, indicating imminent departure. But here I am, and all is well.
First Class?
My ride to Barcelona two days ago was no less remarkable. I was in the same 60s-era train, but the story is with my cabin mates. Unlike this morning, I was on the train with plenty of time to spare. As I waited for our departure, a group of four came aboard and with great effort and confusion, figured out where to sit. There were two brothers in their early teens, their aunt, and their grandmother. The grandmother was quite the character, herding her family around with all the racket of a barnyard hen. Really, she made me think of someone I’d expect to find in Italy. She asked me to help hoist their bags up to the overhead shelf and finally settled everyone into their seats. Later, as I filmed myself for my video journal, one of the boys started waving at the camera, eyes sparkling with friendly mischief. I hadn’t reserved any lodging yet for the night, so as I looked hostels up on my phone, I decided to ask the family where the one I had found was located in relation to the station. They spoke only a few words of English, but were very eager to help. They solicited the help of other people on the train and pretty soon, I was squatting in the aisle as about 6 people around me looked at my phone discussing what I should do. Pretty soon I was confused enough to say “si, si! Gracias, ok!”
The most interesting character in our cabin was an older Jewish guy who was either crazy or drunk, perhaps a little of both. Plump and dressed in stereotypical black hat and black suit, he was on the train before I arrived, and greeted me and anyone else who came aboard. He kept mocking the train’s shoddy “first class” cabin. Once on our way, he kept getting bumped out of his seat as more people boarded the train. When the conductor came for our tickets, we all found out that he didn’t have a real reservation. There was a long, somewhat loud argument that ensued, but the conductor prevailed and the man coughed up €10. Throughout the long ride he would randomly get up and find some way to directly or indirectly bother passengers. At one point the was messing around with his luggage and lost a small screw from his luggage handle. Pretty soon he had all the luggage pulled out and the man sitting in the nearest seat helping him look on the floor and under his seat. At another point, when the aunt and boy sitting across from me were passing the time by arm wrestling, the Jewish man came over and insisted on joining. The family was from Barcelona, and though we could barely communicate with each other, we kept laughing and saying things like “usted estas loco.” Generally, everyone on the train had a good chuckle and took him in stride. The one exception was a very unhappy American couple who were, interestingly, sitting four rows apart. The lady in particular was whining about everything having to be so loud. As we finally neared Barcelona, the grandmother asked me if I could help get their bags again after we arrived. The man saw her gesturing to me and came over and started grabbing the luggage. We were still 15 minutes from the station, and we all told him to stop in every language we could think of. One of the boys put his arm up trying to hold the bags in the shelf, but the man kept saying, “no! is OK!” and as he finally dragged the bags off the shelf, the boy, laughing hysterically ducked his head out of the way. When he was done, he looked around with satisfaction. Finally, with a tip of his hat, he said goodbye and pulled his bags out to the vestibule for the last 10 minutes of our trip.
I chatted for a bit with the family from Barcelona. They spoke a little French and even less English. Mostly they spoke Catalan, the local dialect of Spanish. The grandmother, however, was fairly fluent in French, and she spoke with me for a while about Barcelona, warning me to “faire tres attention!” Apparently the city is notorious for pickpockets and bag snatching. I found it ironic that neither one of us were talking in our native tongue, but this sort of thing is extremely common in Europe.
The train was delayed for nearly an hour at the Spanish border as they changed staff, checked passports, and worked on adjusting the train’s wheels to Spain’s wider gauge track. We arrived in Barcelona about 45 minutes late. I had a fair bit of walking to do and then a ride on the metro. Finally, I found the basically completely unmarked hostel in a nondescript, empty street. It was 11:45, but fortunately the girl was still at the reception and checked me in. By the time I showered and did some work on my computer, it was nearly 3 am.
With 6 hours of sleep added to my meager inventory, I started my day in Barcelona by doing laundry and some more work on the computer. Sometime after noon, I began my tour of the city. Overall, I think the city is pretty nice. Fortunately, I felt no more threat of molestation than I would in most parts of Manhattan, and the city possessed a fascinating series of contrasts. The Barri Gòtic (Gothic Quarter) presented intriguing old-world charm mixed with a bit of graffiti and ghetto. Grand classical architecture stood side by side with bizarre modern structures. A high-tech, modern metro provided good mass transportation for the city, but none of the grand fountains I saw had any water in them. The faint smell of sewage was never far away.
Park Güell
The most notable feature of Barcelona, in my opinion, is the outlandish architecture. Starting with Park Güell, where the hilltop provided great views of the city below. Not really knowing what I was doing, I at first thought that though the climb to the top of the park gave some nice views, the park itself was rather unremarkable. The girl at the hostel said the park was quite unique though, and I’m glad that I happened to follow some of the paths down the back of the hillside, where I eventually came out on a series of fascinating plazas, stairs, benches, and buildings that looked like they belonged in a Dr. Seuss book. This area of the park was designed by Barcelona’s favorite and most famous architect, Gaudí. His work has left its mark all over the city in parks, cathedrals, concert halls, apartment buildings, and other places.
His structures are very organic, colorful, almost alien-looking. For me, the most fascinating structure in the city was La Sagrada Familia (The Sacred Family). This is the most bizarre cathedral I’ve ever seen. Still under construction, it is a combination of very old and Gaudi new. The only reasonable way for me to describe it is that it looks quite like one of the dribble sand castles I made as a child. Every square foot of it’s exterior is fascinating and demands examination. I didn’t want to shell out the €10 to tour the inside, but the outside provided enough fascination for me.
La Sagrada Familia Cathedral
Can you spot the tourist?
I stopped for “lunch” at an irresistible-looking Hagen Daaz. More than just a basic ice cream shop, this had a complete sidewalk café and a luxurious menu. Who says a Belgium waffle with scoops of apple crisp ice cream and lemon sorbet covered with raspberry coulis and garnished with sliced apples can’t be lunch? Washed down with a couple of sparkling lemonades, it was extremely refreshing on a hot day. Even more ambitiously-priced than the Hagen Daaz of America, this would turn out to be my only real meal of the day.
Gaudi architecture
I walked through town back towards the Mediterranean, stopping at the beautiful Palau de la Musica, where there were, unfortunately, ubiquitous signs forbidding photography. Needing more to drink but not wanting to pay café prices, I stopped at the large, downtown shopping superstore, El Corte Ingles. What a strange store. The first thing you come to are bonsai trees and cat food. I finally found the supermarket which featured multiple rows of wines and liquors, large odiferous hunks of hanging meat, and finally after much searching some water and soft drinks. From here I entered the Barri Gòtic (Gothic Quarter). This felt in many ways like some of the old sections of towns in France, with narrow, random streets and the patina of age. But it was different. The buildings were taller, darker, and in many places a bit more like slums. People looked down from balconies, laundry hung from lines between buildings, and the atmosphere felt a bit more like deep Spain (not exactly like I would know though). I actually had a bit of trouble finding my way back out of this sprawling maze of serpentine streets, but eventually found my way to La Rambla, where I joined the masses strolling this wide pedestrian promenade. Like in many tourist areas of large cities, this area had its share of street artists and performers, but the most notable novelty here were the people dressed as statues.
Human Statues: the fruit stand
I’ve seen this of course in places like New York City, but here in Barcelona they must have entire schools dedicated to the art. La Rambla had dozens of people dressed in all kinds of strange outfits. Most memorable were a lady dressed as an entire fruit stand, and a guy dressed as a Model T car.
Another diversion on La Rambla
The Real Fruit Stand
My final stop was in a street market where I bought a small cup of fruit and wandered its fascinating aisles with all kinds of very foreign fare. I contemplated stopping at a restaurant for some authentic Spanish tapas, but I remembered the miserable sandwich I had ordered on the train to Barcelona (so detestable, in fact that I only ate a few bites and threw it away, remaining hungry) and remembering that Spain is generally not known for its scintillating food, I decided to play it safe.
Passeig del Colom
Back at the hostel, I did some work and went to bed around 2, packed and ready for the train station rush I would be experiencing in a few hours.
And now, my laptop is nearly dead again as we’ve recently passed back into France. I take this train to Narbonne where I transfer to a train that will take me to Toulouse. Then it’s just a commuter train to Boussens where Tim Knickerbocker should be meeting me to bring me to camp arc-en-ciel. I’m not feeling terribly tired, in spite of meager sleep each night for the past week. It’s amazing how much less sleep I need when I’m not working with my brain every day. Still, I think I’ll try to catch some sleep.
Dunkin Coffee? Looks vaguely familiar...
