"Good" day in "Bad"-alona

---

At 4 AM, I woke up to thunder and lightning. I wasn´t about to miss it, so I got up and made my way to the living room. I opened the doors to the balcony and stood out there watching the sky. Magnificent streaks of lightning lit up the dark sky. It was glorious! Later, I fell asleep on the couch, thunder lulling me to dream land.

I woke up so late in the morning that didn´t actually get out of Badalona until 10:30 AM. No itinerary, but I knew I wanted to walk around and get situated. Took the train to Plaça Catalunya, the station just at the top of La Rambla, and took a detour to the west of La Rambla. I found two asian markets on my excursion. Extremo Oriente and Superstore Asia Food. I knew where I would be shopping at the end of the day. I was without a map, but had a compass. Sometimes I’m absolutely useless. So I wandered aimlessly and happily because Barcelona is beautiful. The architecture here is unique and I wasn´t even near anything Gaudi-ish. Lots of art nouveau influence, one of the styles I am most fond of. I did find the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) and being the lucky girl I am, it was visitor´s day (every Wednesday) and paid only 3 € for admission. I took the english, spanish, and catalan versions of the programs. The main exhibit is of the “works” of Stanley Brouwn. In my opinion, this is contemporary art at its most innovative. Okay, okay... I probably wouldn´t have been so kind if you had asked me about the exhibit as I was walking through it. Brouwn has cataloged lengths and distances from one to another in current, obsolete and self-invented measurements, written them on paper, represented them in aluminum strips, in book form as text. My first reaction was, this guy is certifiably insane! He´s dedicated over 40 years of his life to this “study” of distance. He even counted all his steps in countries and cities he´s visited. He takes the idea of awareness to the looney-bin level. But then, I gave myself some time to “marinate” on his exhibit as I walked through Barcelona. It wasn´t anymore crazy than me trying to write this journal, trying to convey to myself and readers what my experiences have been traveling. He´s just trying to do it in a different way.

After the museum, I found myself at La Boqueria Market near La Rambla. This is like a huge farmers market that happens everyday from early in the morning to around 3 or 4 PM. I bought some nice looking salmon at the market, but you can also get all kinds of seafood and meat there, all cuts, cured, cooked, etc. Stuff that’s not so popular in the U.S., like sepia, i.e. cuttlefish, looks like a squid on steroids... Gianluca cooked some for me in Milan. He boiled it then covered it in a cheesy, buttery, garlicky, parsley sauce... do I have to say it? YUM!!! You can also eat your fill of tapas there. There´s a vegetarian paella they sell at a stall called Organic that I´m dying to try, but it costs 8 €. Too rich for my blood, especially for something that has no meat in it. It was past 3 PM and I had to get dinner started. I have Antonio eating on American time. Back at Extremo Oriente (Balmes, 6 - 08007, tel. [phone]) I found decent soy milk, finally! At Superstore Asia Food (Tallers, 77 - 08000, tel. [phone]) not only did I find everything else I needed, but I found Aquafina water and Peter Pan peanut butter! I forgot to mention, peanut butter is scarce in Europe. Nutella is king. For three weeks I suffered without it... miserably (Antonio’s comment: that’s why I love Barcelona so much, indeed. Let alone hosts, Gaudi, storms and people). I also blame the ubiquity of mineral water as one of the contributing factors to my digestive problems (Antonio: and also me liking BCN, again). Yes, I know Aquafina is reverse-osmisized unnatural water.

Back in Badalona, the winds were blowing something fierce. It was a big effort to walk along the coast against the wind carrying two heavy bags of groceries. But the sea looked amazing! Three different colors. Daring windsurfers dotted the sea and there were a couple of boats on the shore that deserved a photo shoot later. I dropped off the groceries at Antonio´s place and made my way back to sea. The the raindrops felt like someone was flinging them onto my face with a slingshot. The wind was so forceful that sand from the ground pelted my calves and shins. But I was determined to get some good photos! Needless to say, I was soaked when I got back to Antonio´s place.

I cooked Thai food for dinner made with substandard green curry paste bought at the asian food market (everything is substandard now that I´ve learned how to cook Thai food in Thailand taught by Thai people). Antonio could not bear the heat of the curry which I estimated was at level 3 on a Thai-hot scale of 1 to 10. I told him to “suck it up and be a man”. I think that affected his machismo a little so he made a commendable effort to refrain from drinking water or milk or anything that would help dissipate the heat. To his credit, he ate everything. I felt sorry for the guy. Tomorrow´s dinner... something uncomplicated and basic for the wussy Catalan. After dinner, Antonio told me to grab my camera because we were going to take pictures near the sea. Yipee! He´s a good photographer. Has a good eye for things. We walked along the boardwalk and took a couple of shots. I had him walk home by himself because I wanted to climb the ropes that were in the shape of the Eiffel Tower. I´ll say one thing, three weeks of carrying around a heavy travelpack has done wonders for my arm strength.

In the evening, it was still raining and hard. A good thing, according to Antonio, because Barcelona and all of Catalonia was suffering from a severe drought. Hmm... sounds like San Diego again. Restrictions would soon be enforced. Thunder and lightning beckoned outside and I suggested we go out and watch. So we walked through pools of water through the streets of Badalona to find that the storm was already inland, but I wasn´t disappointed. It had been a “good” day in “Bad”alona.

---