Barcelona Day 6


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April 20th 2010
Published: April 20th 2010
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Today was my last day at Barcelona. It wasn´t very eventful, and probably for the best, because I am pretty travelled out at this point. I prepared for my 2 hr train ride to Figueres by going to a giant bookstore my old hostelmate told me about and buying Cathedral of the Sea, a historical novel about Barcelona by Ildefonso Falcones. Of course, after purchasing this book, I realized that I had missed the train I was preparing to take, meaning I would have to wait an hour at the train station... good thing I had the book!

The train ride there was terribly squished. I think it was packed with tourists from the UK and France going in the same direction to take another train to go home given how all planes and most trains are not functional. At least that is the gist of what I overheard as they shared their stories with one another.

After a brutal 2 hour train ride (which was only 20€ roundtrip! this is like a trip from washington dc to philadelphia!), I finally arrive at Figueres. It is the hometown of Salvador Dali. It certainly has less of the hustle and bustle of Barcelona, but otherwise, it is nothing special. I followed a maze of sign posts to find the Dali Museum. The museum itself is beautiful from the outside... representing Dali´s modernist style. I spent about 2 hours just wandering the halls. Good thing I arrived early, because in the afternoon, the place was packed with students!

I spend the rest of the day just wondering the streets of Figueres... then I missed my train again. I literally stood at the platform for 5 minutes before I realized that it was the train to Barcelona at which point is immediately closed its doors... I waited about 40 minutes this time and hopped on the next train.

At this point, I am a little more than 100 pages into the novel... it creates a very vivid representation of Barcelona´s brutal past. The tale is about a peasant from the countryside, who gets ruined by a dictorial landlord. At which point, he takes his son into Barcelona, which was like New York City back when Europeans were first immigrating into America. It was the city where dreams came true and men could be free... of course, the novel makes it clear that no one is actually free in this city with a strict caste code and the father and son go through one challenge after another. Quite a sad tale so far, but an interesting one as it talks about some of the places that I´ve been to thus far on my trip... amazing considering this book is written about places in the 1400s!

Tomorrow, I embark on my journey home. Wish me luck!

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