Barcelona- Catalonia

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We left Toulouse via a 7 hour bus journey headed for Barcelona. The driver was a slick looking guy, pair of Ray Bans, a no bullshit attitude. I knew he had an attitude when he yelled "what do you want, English, French Spanish?" to a frantic crowd trying to board the bus. I also got the impression he had had a rough day of driving when an American guy, goofy and loud asked him if he needed a second driver, to which the driver replied "I don't have time for you" Awkward. The crowd were frantic mainly because of the train strikes and the poor signage at the bus terminal, followed by the even poorer signage on the bus. Was this bus for Barcelona? We boarded and hoped for the best.

The first few hours were fine, packed lunch in hand we were excited to leave France for the much cheaper and down to earth Spain. On the 4th hour I was beginning to worry a little. The toilet seemed out of order, for a seven hour bus ride I had thought that there would surely be a stop somewhere along the line. I was hesitant to approach the driver whilst driving through the Pyrenees. Luckily the same American guy urgently did it first. He too was busting. I heard the driver shout "Soon" that wasn't the answer I had hoped for.

It was getting a little desperate by now, that half litre of water I had consumed before boarding the bus, was now causing some discomfort. The bus decided to finally turn off the highway and at last we were somewhere between France and Spain at a truck stop. Freedom. We were to stop here for an hour, I believe it was just outside Gerona - it was more like an hour 45. None the less we were half way there and happy to be in a random place in Europe once again. It's a great feeling being so free, not really constrained by time or deadlines. Of course we have to be in certain places for pre-booked flights at times but for the most part its get up whenever, see what you want when you want and go where you want when you want. It's ideal and I don't know why I never thought of doing this sooner - and for longer!

We arrived in Barcelona at around 10pm that night. We had booked a hostel called the Barcelona Rooms for two nights, only to discover that reception shuts at 9pm, a text message was sent to us in Toulouse notifying us our booking was Cancelled. Annoying but not a huge deal. We booked into a hostel for one night, called Barcelona Sound. We were in a mixed dorm but most beds were empty. This was the first stay in a dorm on our journey. I hadn't stayed in a dorm for quite some time but I was quickly reminded of what they were like. Noisy.

OUr first meeting with another guest was with a woman from Adelaide. She was nice but oh so 'occa' sounding, in that posh Adelaideian way. She had travelled all over, lived in Singapore and was now living in Holland teaching English. I was beat so stayed in the room while blake went to check out the hostel and his email. We exchanged travel stories with each other, mostly woes about visas, hers still pending. One of her stories topped most of mine though. She had been living in Singapore and was heading home for xmas on a midnight flight to Adelaide. Going through security she had been stopped and pulled to the side for a random bag search, thinking nothing of it she cooperated and opened her bag. Looking in and instantly realising what the fuss was about she gasped. She had bought her brother a novel pair of throwing ninja stars for xmas and instead of packing them in her checked baggage, had slipped them in her hand luggage by mistake. The police were called, the plane held up and her visa nearly revoked. Apparently if she hadn't been a teacher on a legit visa, she believed she would still be in prison, "once you are in that system it's tough to get out". Apparently teachers are well respected i Singapore - flying ninja stars are not.

The first day in Barcelona was an exciting one for me. I had never been and was anticipating the difference between it and madrid. They are polar opposites in my mind. Barcelona is new and shiny, with stacks of history to boot. It's cheap for the most part once you are off Las Ramblas - the main tourist street where all the street performers and pick-pocketers lurk. Firday morning, firs thing we had an appointment at the travel medical clinic to recive our last rabies shot. We had simply run out of time before leaving London - our 2nd shots were done the day after our leaving drinks, so there was no way they could possibly give us two in one day, hangover restricting. We set off for our appointment about 25 minutes before the time we were due to see the doc, enough time we thought but with usual bad timing we were late by about 5 minutes. This didn't seem to matter too much, pointing us to the waiting room we sat in what was a very nice reception, I felt comfortable. I had imagined a slightly backward doctors surgery one of those we take cash only type places. But being impressed with what little of Barcelona I had already seen, this place seemed fitting -it was modern and clean. There were two young families with three young boys about 2-4 years old. One of them was playing tag repeating a word which I could only guess was "gotcha". These guys were funny and passed the time quickly, they soon disappeared into the doctors room where screams of pain followed - they were in for needles too. They all scrambled back into the waiting room each with teared eyes and big smiles - lollipops will do that. We were next.

Needles done, we checked into Barcelona Rooms for one night. The rest of the day wasn't very eventful, mostly spent napping and eating. Those rabies shots will do that to you. We decided as it was friday we woud head out for a few cervecas and tapas - starting at a local chino bar, the beers were cheap and there was a tragic spanish soap playing in the background with some very Antonio Banderas type characters in it. Leaving this place, we went on a bit of a tapas bar hop, noticing that being seaside, Barcelona tapas consisted of a lot of seasfood but the old favs were still present - tortilla espanol, patatas alioli and those ham and cheese ball things - so good. Full and drunk we ended our night back at the chino bar near Barcelona rooms. Here the drunkest man in the world was also enjoying some final cervacas. This guy was on struggle street. He was talking to himself and breaking glasses, it was value for money. A video will shortly be uploaded so you can see for yourself, lets hope he doesn't have internet access so he cant google 'himself drunk at Chino bar'.

Next day I was totally hungover wrote off most of morning, Blake as usual swum through his hangover he must have a liver of champions or be actually immune to alcohol by this stage. We checked out from Barcelona Rooms, a suspiciously gay hostel and headed back to Barcelona Sound where we had crashed on our first night in Barca. I say 'gay' as we had been told of by Kyle and Tahlei, who had stayed there previously, that the place was a bit of a 'Gay Inn' if you will - nice but oh so flaming. We took our chances. I have to admit I didn't really see anyone else remotely straight looking, the guy in reception was a shade short of freddy mercury, talent pending. We had to walk to Barcelona sound our hostel for the night. I was in bad shape and crashed as soon as we arrived. The afternoon wasted by me, Blake took advantage and went to the post office to try and send some of our baggage that we had accumulated over the past four weeks. Mostly gifts we needed to abandon these as we couldn't really carry our bags with ease anymore. That night all I wanted was a hamburger, instead of the more generic takeaway we went to a Spanish restaurant that did hamberguesa completas - sold. It was no big mac but it washed away the final threads of my hangover.

The next day we did the tourist thing. Walk around took some happy snaps. Nothing recall that interesting to report here - just more beer, more tapas and more sites.
more tapas

Later that night we endeavored to make a couple of drinking friends, being in a fairly sociable hostel we thought we would kill it. turns out no one wants to hang out with a couple, fair dues I thought but seriously I wasn't too bothered. The prospect of drinking with bevan american guys ll chasing tail or some 'Daria-esque' Canadian girls was really not my cup of tea. Just when we thought our luck had run out we got to chatting to too nice Swedish guys. You can always count on the Swedes cant you. These guys were just doing the travel thing, 'exploring europe' as one of them put it. They were 20-something perfect english speaking...wait for it...lumberjacks. Yep I had them pinged all kinds of wrong. Funniest part was when they stumbled in from a late one at about 6am wearing what looked to be stolen Greenpeace vests. I thought that was most ironic - a nice touch.

We decided that instead of lurking around Barca on our own we would let someone with actual local knowledge guide us. We took a free walking tour, the idea being that you pay at the end, what you thought the tour was worth. OUr guide was a nervous small Spanish girl, the crowd took a while to warm up to her jokes, I sympathized and laughed along with her whenever I could. Several times she asked us if her english was OK. I just think her jokes weren't that good which is why the groups reaction time was off. Never the less I found her pretty entertaining and really informative. We took the old town tour, heading through the Jewish quarter and the palace - where Columbus apparently returned to be greeted by the king shortly after discovering the US. Barcelona is within the Catalan region in Spain. Basically Catalans are form the north and want to be separate from Spain. Spain has been forever fighting civil wars have peppered its history. I wanted to understand why the North of Spain was so eager to be a separate entity fro the rest of spain. In a nutshell Catalans feel that they make most of the countries money and none of it ever comes back to Catalonia, this is especially true for Barcelona apparently. There have been several referendums over the years to determine what the majority feeling of this separation of Spain was. In the north it always ends the same - Catalans are for a separate state. These referendums are now illegal, this is to stop the Catalonian movement from growing and people in the South from questioning government motives. During Franco's 40 odd year dictatorship in Spain, the Catalonian language (a dialect of Spanish) was banned and people subsequently killed, all remnants of their culture was disregarded and forbidden. I found all of this very interesting especially as this wasn't apart of the tour - more so the opinions of our guide whom I had asked questions of earlier in the tour. I was intrigued by the passion of the catalonians and would be interested to find out the opinions of some Southern Spaniards. Was this a mutual feeling, i guess not seeing as Barcelona plays a pivotal part in Spain's economic growth, tourist flick there so why would the rest of Spain want to lose that. Also interesting is that when something of national value happens to Spain, i.e the World Cup final, all unite and label themselves Spanish, what's so different in every day life. Its like Western Australia speaking a different kind of english and wanting to break away from the rest of Australia and become its own nation even though we share the same land mass and most of the same cultural aspects on a surface level. This was a brief lesson for us, so I still don't fully understand it all and my facts are probably bent.

All in all Barcelona was a great experience, its a fantastically welcoming place and I felt pretty safe there, contrary to popular belief. The sites are great and you can see how it is the jewel of Spain and why so many people flock here. I was even impressed by the airport, I have never seen so much glass and light.

Next stop Lisbon... where 6 digit ATM pin numbers exist.

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Photos

Columbus Stairs
Where Columbus was greeted after returning from the Americas!

Gaudi's unfinished creation
Stunning but too long a line to get in.