Barcelona: Waiting for Eurail

Barcelona, Catalunya, with lisps and melting buildings and Las Ramblas.  I get lost in Barcelona and I'm stuck in this city for much longer than expected because I'm waiting for my Rail Pass, but I can't communicate with the Spanish Post Office to coordinate the retrieval of my Express package.

A chandelier swaying from a high ceiling

I remember being stuck in southern Spain six years before with my mom and sister, eating ketchup and water--- and Granada and Tariffa and Seville, then driving to Portugal (where we meet the Turnbulls)... and in Granada, sitting inside this old building of musk and straw and spit, on the second floor, with this rickety old ladder, drinking cream tea after seeing the Alhambra at night and the sky is black and all the stars are bright and bats fly overhead--- and the god damn gypsies, who chase you with bundles of rosemary and sage in each hand.

And now, six years later, I'm back in Spain, but this time in Barcelona.  For the first few days, I'm by myself, but then I stay with Nicola and Duncan and their giant two year old daughter who's awfully smart (and awfully cheeky).  In Barcelona, there's a beach, but all the sand is imported from Morocco, or so they say, and it's not really sand because it's not grainy, and it sticks to you like glitter.  Afterwards, we drink cerveza and eat seafood on the ocean-front as tanned limbs prance by.

I eat Mexican food in Spain and, to be completely honest, it's not that great, a bit bland, and I drink margarita with salt on the brim. 

One night, I sort of mingle with a bunch of English-teachers-in-training at the Stock Market Bar and the prices rise and lower every three minutes and the trick is to order the drinks that have crashed, highlighted in red, that are dirt cheap.  I find this out after I've ordered my two drinks.  I'm speaking to this guy with a goatee, curly brown hair, and an Irish accent.  He says, "Yeah, man," a lot and he's talking about his crazy Spanish ex girlfriend.  Yes, I'm sure he's Irish and I'm waiting for a pause in-between his crazy ex-girlfriend rant so I can interject, "And where in Ireland are you from?"  I want to impress him with my accent GPS skills.  "No," he says, "Toronto."  And I finish my Strongbow and get the hell out of there--- and, for some reason, I can't get my bearings in Barcelona.  And Toronto, what an asshole.

So, Spain is the gateway for me.  I walk a lot and I buy gogi berries at the candy shop, sitting on a bench at the Arc de Triomf, thinking about where to go next.  Pakistani men hug me at the zoo and I keep walking straight, trying to find the Picasso Museum, but I walk too far and reach the ocean and then get lost inside of a Catholic Church.  Spain's dirty and the people are dark and skinny.  And my last day in Barcelona, a drizzling Monday afternoon, I finally find the Picasso Museum after weeks of searching, which is apparently closed on Mondays, and it's down a narrow alley where the buildings are ancient and squeezed too tight and tapas are over-priced.

Around 4 PM, one early evening, I'm sitting in this posh restaurant, in the no-smoking section, in an isolated dark room with cracked red leather, next to two silver men, one German and one Spaniard, who are smoking it up, drinking cognac (probably...how typical) in wide, short glasses.  "Should we stop smoking?" they ask me as they exhale rings of smoke and the waiter, with his left arm bent forward, a towel hanging from it, and his right arm behind his back, looking like a caricature, stares right at me.  "No, please don't," I say and my voice sounds small.  They buy me a champagne, except it's not champagne because it's Spanish... and I'm already drinking a pequena jug of wine... but I'm too polite to say 'no.'  I'm eating salmon carpaccio and the slices are so thin that they're transparent, like fogged pink glass, and I'm getting drunk...too drunk and I don't want to be.  "On the house," they tell me and they serve me a shot glass of coffee "con whiskey," but I suck it back.