Getting up early was a problem but after a hearty breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant, we jumped into our little cutie of a car which I have dubbed Claudette and zoomed off to the local train station. After lots of stumbling around, wrong turns, screeching (mostly on my part as I tried to tell P which way to go as he inevitably went in the exact opposite direction) and swearing (again mostly on my part) we arrived at the platform where a very lovely man told us which platform to wait at and that we had till midnight to make the last train back.
We met a lovely (I will over-use this word throughout my blog entries, I assure you) woman in the train who told us that she was from Denmark, that her husband and her lived in Sitges (the city we were staying in and pronounced ‘sit-gees’) and gently advised us as to exactly where we should exit in order to be in the center of the city. Calling out grateful Gracias’s (btw, P and I are absolutely ignorant of the Spanish language therefore the little we know is rather astonishing and laughable. Still we made do with an overuse of the following words: ‘hola!’ ‘Gracias!’ ‘Buenos dias!’ and so on and so forth. P loved saying ‘poquito’. Why? I don’t know, I supposed that being able to say just that one little (pardon the pun) word made him feel as if he knew something I didn’t.) we headed off in the general direction which she pointed us towards.
We were on Pl. De Catalunya which is overwhelming for anyone who has no clue of the language, the city or anything else for that matter. Our adviser had told us to walk north till we saw the Gaudi house. Thankfully this structure is super easy to find, just look for the weird building and you’re there! Spotting the tourist on-off buses and hastily scrambled aboard despondent that we were unable to score a seats on the top deck (for those who maybe grimacing that P and I would do such a thing as join the scores of tourists being bused around the city instead of making our way around independently, well get over yourselves. We are not ashamed that we are tourists, nor that we look like them. No one knows us here, and we’re not liable to run across these schmoes ever again so why do we give a damn? Besides considering we had one real day in Barcelona, we wanted to shove in all the adventure we could.) The first, of about 50, was La Sagrada Familia. I won’t tell you every single stop, no that would be ridiculous, but this one just blew our minds. The fact that this large stone edifice was smack dab in a hectic crazy city was simply mind-boggling.
Here’s what I learned. Antoni Gaudi, whose architectural influence is present in almost all parts of Barcelona, started to build the church but only completed one part of it, the “Nativity Façade”, the last 15 years of his life was completely dedicated to the building of the church. The other three parts of the façade is still under construction and a mere 8 of the 18 towers which will eventually be constructed have been completed. This makes the Sagrada Familia the world’s most visited construction site. The construction is due to be completed in 2026. The construction of the church began in 1882. The church is being built by anonymous donations only and therefore it stops and starts depending on the coiffures it has from year to year. When asked Gaudi if he wasn’t worried about the completion, his reply “my client has all the time in the world.” Of course he was speaking of God.
As we waited in a mile long line for the next bus to come around and scoop us up from the church we witnessed the exact reason as to why people caution out-of-towners not to drive in the cities. As we stood gawking a motorcycle and a moped got into an accident, right there, smack dab in front of our noses. The two yelled in Spanish making gregarious hand gestures then wandered off. P and I looked at each other, shrugged and perused the maps handed to us by the bus company happy that we hadn’t even considered driving into town.
Lunch was a simple affair ala Burger King (again stop sneering). After more busing around we found ourselves wandering down Las Ramblas, a lovely maze of small streets that screamed Barcelona. We went to Spain’s largest outdoor food market (La Boqueria, Marcat De Sant Josep), took pictures of the food, bought a small bag of roasted nuts for almost 20 bucks, did a bit more wandering and then ran for the last bus.
Once we were back at Pl De Catalunya, close to the metro, P kept commenting on how I hadn’t purchased anything for myself as of yet. Shockingly enough this was true but for some reason I felt rather listless. I loved Barcelona and maybe it was because we were only staying for one day (not counting the day we arrived and the day we were leaving for France) made me sad. But my sadness evaporated when (ya’ll who were with me in HK and those who read my blog entries from back then can appreciate this) I spotted three men in a row with white bed sheets tethered at the 4 ends with cords which were bunched in their hands. In the middle of the sheets, glorious knock-off Prada purses sat smiling up at me serenely. I nearly drooled. P saw the shimmer in my eyes and insisted that I purchase one. He didn’t have to ask twice. After the quickest transaction of my life (where I got the 35 euro price tag down to 15 in the span of 5 seconds) I strode off with a bounce to my step possessing my metallic grey beauty.
Finding ourselves famished, we parked our asses outside a small café where we gorged ourselves of paella. Eventually making our way back to the train station which was absolutely stuffed to the gills, P and I scrambled onto the top deck of a train and were click-clacking our way home when a skeezy looking kid sat in the seat right in front of me (the seats faced each other). He proceeded to stare at either my a) bosom or b) wedding ring. Him eyeing either of them wasn’t appreciated and even my glares didn’t deter the scalawag. Even though I was painfully uncomfortable, I did take note that every time we entered a tunnel where his reflection was absolutely crystal against the glass, the kid would check himself out, patting his hair, fixing his spikes, pulling a hoodie off for 15 minutes, then back on for another 15 and on it went. He even took apart his cigarette lighter, picked his teeth and then reassembled the damn thing! I was transfixed. Here’s the good thing about being bilingual, in particular knowing a language like Bangla, no one understood you. Of course if he had I wouldn’t have given a damn but still P and I proceeded to talk smack about him for at least 5 minutes.
Regardless of our mirth both of us were far too cautious after having read a lot of literature regarding young thugs that would target foreigners, scope the clueless out for their good’s, follow the dimwitted travelers to their car and rob them stupid, I had no interest in taking mini-punk lightly. Finally tired of having the kids avid interest mostly centered on my boobs, I insisted P and I move towards the doors (which was far away from lil Mc. Pervert).
After laying down about 40 bucks for parking (ugh) we got back to the hotel (which again can I say…omg!) no worse for the wear, P clutching his Barcelona football jersey, me my Prada and a camera absolutely full of pictures, we packed all that we could, pulled out what we would need for the morning and decided to hit the hay. P was asleep in two seconds. I, unfortunately, was distracted by how the full bright moon shone down upon the calm water. I was lulled by the distant crashing of the waves and the warm breeze that tickled my ears and blew against my skin.
I so wish we didn’t have to leave here.
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