Advertisement
Published: January 4th 2007
Edit Blog Post
I’ve been in Barcelona for close to two weeks - drunk on the streets of Raval, knee-deep in tapas in the Barrio Gòtico, scooting to the top of Montjuïc on the back of Uri’s moped - so it’s only fitting that in my final days, I manage to see a few sights. There’s an embarrassing list of places that I haven’t found the time for - the Museu Picasso, in its sprawling compound; the hill-top perch of Tibidabo, where a giant statue of Christ the Redeemer bestows a blessing on the city - though there’ve been no shortage of
croquetas and
bocadillos to while away the afternoons.
On day twelve I pay a long-overdue visit to Sagrada Família. Until the glowing blue phallus of the Torre Agbar managed to upstage it, the Gaudí masterpiece had been the city’s defining icon. For decades it’s been a work-in-progress, a testament to the mad vision of the Modernistas - and, perhaps, to the fact that endless, ill-fated building projects aren’t always the work of construction crews on the FDR Drive.
It’s a few minutes shy of 11am and the crowds are already thick - snapping away at the façade, pushing
through the souvenir shop, lining up for the elevator ride to see Gaudí’s designs up-close. The outside is a bewildering blend of styles - as if a towering old cathedral had been squeezed through the wringer of some Dr. Seuss machine. Inside the place looks any old building site: the piles of cinderblocks, the dusty tarps, the scaffolding that soars above the cavernous empty spaces. I half expect a guy named Bruno to come over with square shoulders and a surly scowl, telling me to keep moving before he breaks my fucking face. Instead there are slow-moving crowds of Americans and Austrians, of Japanese who scurry to set up their tripods before every shot. It takes me all of an hour - most of that standing on line - to appreciate Gaudí’s work, wholly get the point, and make a bee-line for the exit.
I’ve given as much time to Barcelona as I’ll probably give certain countries in the months ahead, and despite the dizzying disappointment of New Year’s Eve, I’ve found a cozy little home for myself here. I know where to find a reliable
schwarma at almost any hour of the day; I know which gruff
little
cerviceria makes the best
ensaladilla. I’ve found the right café for a quiet morning with the paper, the right café to make eyes at the pretty waitress. How on earth to say goodbye to this place, to these sun-splashed
terazzas and these endless parades of Spanish women? Almost daily I’ve made it a point to walk past Casa Battló, to picture myself clinging to the elegant swoop of its dragon’s tail, holding on for dear life through another Barcelona night.
It’s also goodbye to Spain, a thought that gives me cold sweats under the flimsy little covers in my hostel. For most of the past four months, under the temperamental skies of Basque Country, beside the emerald hills of Galicia, in the orange-filled plazas of Andalucia, I’ve been ignoring the reality of this grim day - turning a monstrous giant into a harmless, spinning windmill. A bit melodramatic, I’ll be the first to admit, but the way this country’s gripped me has been - heartless cynic that I am - pretty improbable. How else to explain the feeling I had on that first night in Bilbao, trudging with 30 kilos on my shoulders, down a long promenade
of brightly lit fountains and façades, thinking for all the world that I’d come home?
So Spain will carry on without me, and I’ll carry that increasingly battered backpack to North Africa and the Middle East. Go figure. I’m looking back to my days in Morocco: the hustlers, the clamorous streets, the maze of the medinas, the smoky food stalls, the cheerless old men at the cafés, the bathroom floors that look like something out of Guernica. The barefoot kids tugging at your pant leg. The old squatting women sorting vegetables on a blanket by the side of the road. The pipes puffing
sheesha. The call to prayer thundering from the minarets.
In the bright mild air of my last day in Barcelona, it’s another afternoon in the city. The lunch crowds are puffing cigarettes over their
cortados. Nervous tourists are walking around with their knapsacks clutched close to their stomachs. Taxi drivers are honking and shaking their fists, as they do the world over. On my way to the airport, a pretty young girl who all but bursts from her tank-top blows me a kiss from the subway platform. Short of a nice rioja, a
couple of
croquetas and some fellatio, it’s as good a send-off as I could hope for. There’s a bit of debate at the airport over my carry-on, some shuffling between seats as we all look for more leg-room. Then the plane lifts off - the sunshine glinting off the wing-tips, the woman beside me frozen with terror - and it’s good-bye, good-bye to all of that.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.318s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 24; qc: 130; dbt: 0.1365s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.4mb