Discovering Barcelona

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Amanda and I finally found a cheap flight to Barcelona and decided to head up just the two of us. We arrived late Saturday night and had to take the night bus from the airport into the city. The one hour bus ride was spent listening to the other passengers on the bus and trying to understand what they were saying. Catalan is a different dialect of Spanish that is spoken in Barcelona and it's got some odd sounds. I was worried that everyone would speak to us in Catalan and I wouldn't be able to understand but once you approached someone speaking Spanish (castellano) they would reply in Spanish as well.

When we got to our stop, the center of the city, we realized the scale of the city. One of the main streets, La Rambla, is the one our hostel was on and we trudged down it at one o' clock in the morning with our stuffed packs on our backs like mules. We parted the sea of nightlife-loving Spaniards and tourists and tried our best to ignore the calls and whistles and move through the crowd without getting pick-pocketed. We finally got to the little side street our hostel was supposed to be on and realized it was a dark alleyway. We found the big, old heavy wooden door with the little buzzer that read "youth hostel" and entered the stuffy stairway. The building was old and the four flights of stairs up didn't make the best first impression. It's always a gamble with hostels so we held our breath until we reached the top and made it to the reception desk. But we were greeted by a nice older man who rang us up and gave us our keys. He was kind of mousy but the hostel was cute. It had at one time been painted by someone who thought they were artistic and made giant murals on every wall focusing around the theme of the sun, the earth, nature, and unity.

We snuck into the 18 bed dorm room, trying not to wake anyone up with our shuffling feet when we realized that another girl was sleeping in Amanda's bunk. The reception guy came in and turned on the glaring halogen overhead lights and showed us to free bunks and gave us our sheets. It felt a little like prison so we hurried to get ready for bed and turn off the bright lights and slip under our un-matching flowered sheets and blankets.

The next morning we took the train to Montserrat, which is a famous monastery nestled high in the mountains not far from Barcelona. We oriented ourselves and gazed in awe at the church and the grounds and then decided on a hiking path into the mountains. I chose the 2 hour hiking trail that went up along the ridge of the peaks and ended at the very top. Afterwards, Amanda confessed that she had her doubts not long into the steep incline, after intimidating sets of stairs after another. But we climbed the uneven stairs and hiked along the paths, saying "hola!" to every passing group of hikers as they glanced at our inappropriate hiking equipment: me in Birkenstocks and Amanda in flip-flops. But we kept pushing on, taking a breather to take in the views every once in a while. The mountain tops were rounded, giving the ridge a peculiar look. Just when we thought we were getting close to the top we entered some woods and the trail weaved around corners and after a while we felt like we were walking in one big circle, each new turn looking exactly the same as the one we just came from. And just when we thought we'd be stuck in the woods forever, hungry and panting, we came to a clearing where the little prayer house of one of the saints (Saint Jordi) sat. This meant that we had reached the top and we ecstatically ran up past the little church, hardly giving it a glance, to the edge of the cliff...and we saw nothing. We were completely engulfed in a cloud. White nothingness and a cold chill wrapped itself around us as we stood at the edge thinking we were at the top. So we sat and unpacked our picnic of peanut butter sandwiches and granola bars, giddily munching while our feet hung off the edge. We had kept a fast pace climbing up because it was cold and the clouds were rolling in, threatening to rain on us. And we were determined to make it to the top. So we were surprised to see the cloud that we had been encased by pass us by and a small patch of blue sky to open up. For a minute we could see the ground far below us and we realized how high up we were. Everything was so miniature, the people looked like ants that you could hardly make out, like the view from an airplane. We continued on and discovered that there were even more stairs leading to the very peak. The view was breathtaking. And we literally struggled to catch our breath, we were so high up and almost breathing water from the clouds.

The descent from the mountain went a thousand times faster and we had enough breath and strength to carry on a conversation. Talking about life and our experiences in Spain we marched down, one behind the other, proud of our determination and love for adventure and nature. For the rest of our time in Barcelona our legs regretted each set of stairs and our calves reminded us of our feat with each step. And we took a lot of steps. Amanda and I basically took a walking tour of the city, just heading out in the morning and walking on our own schedule, seeing what we wanted and staying as long as we wanted to. We walked clear across the city from our hostel by the port to the famous Gaudi cathedral "La Sagrada Familia" to his park called "Park Güell". We wanted to take it easy and rest our legs the day after the monastery mountain hike. But after putzing for miles and finally arriving at the park we were exhausted again, collapsing on a shaded patch of grass only to get whistled at by a park attendant. After lounging on a bench in the park we headed all the way back to our hostel and saw the port of Barcelona for the first time. I was content watching the sailing boats bobbing up and down at the harbor while Amanda was fascinated by the many large fish circling in the water below our dangling feet.

The next day we set out for another long walk down the beach, keeping up our theme for the trip. It was raining off and on but not heavy and never for very long at a time. We sat by the water watching the waves crash and feeling the wind against our faces. Bundled up and reading, with the hood of my jacket bunched around my face, I was at home there on that concrete chair facing the ocean. With the peculiar weather it reminded me of France, Brittany. And I assumed the UK must feel very much like that too. The cool, salty breeze tugging at your clothes and lightning far off in the distance... we continued on into the old part of the city which was so enchanting we immediately fell in love with it. As we were aimlessly exploring alley after alley, with the cutest iron-rod balconies above our heads, we ducked into a tea cafe just as it started to rain more heavily. We rested our legs and I buried my nose in my book (Sylvia Plath : The Bell Jar) and we must have been there for hours. Later on we discovered an open air market that was enchanting. We waddled through it in awe of all the fresh fruit, smelly cheeses, raw meat and peculiar delicatessen like sheep's head and pig's hoof, candied nuts and even several hot-serve stands. And we grew hungrier with each new row of stands. So we bought a box of what must have been a kilo of cherries and crouched out of the rain on the side of a building melting with each new cherry in our mouth.

Our last night in town we treated ourselves to a dinner out. We had successfully made pasta at our hostel the previous night, using only a microwave and plastic spoons. So we felt we deserved a nice meal at an actual sit-down restaurant. The night before we had stumbled across a restaurant with an impressive line of people waiting to get in. So we thought this place HAD to be good. We looked at the menu and realized it was actually quite affordable and congratulated ourselves on taking the back streets and finding this treasure. So we showed up early and were the second party in line for dinner. Once the doors were opened for us we were in heaven. Sipping on our first taste of Sangria and letting our spinach cannelloni appetizer melt in our mouths we discussed our academic plans and where we thought our lives were going. I of course had salmon and Amanda had chicken (the most tender chicken I have ever tasted) and we were utterly satisfied.

Amanda and I dragged our tired feet out for two of the nights to check out the nightlife. Even though it was Monday and Tuesday nights we found bars and clubs with plenty of people in them. There were a lot of futbol games on so all the irish bars were packed with fans from Holland, Italy or whatever other team was playing. We were handed a flyer to a bar that advertised 3 Euro champagne so we decided to check it out. After people watching in the dimly lit bar/club for a while we decided we would have more fun dancing the night away. The DJ played good music, mostly American tunes but also some Moroccan and random house beats. So we danced. It felt good to dance again, not a care in the world and only mildly aware of the girls sitting behind us, watching our every move. When we sat back down, no longer to move our legs anymore we were approached by two Englishmen. They turned out to be businessmen in town and quite the odd couple. One was in his thirties and the other only 21 but they were the heads of this new, thriving company and were not economically challenged by any means. The 21 year old was also a professional roller skater and the other guy had been a successful musician (playing backup bass or guitar for Madonna... true?). They bought a bottle of champagne and we had a good end to our evening chatting with them.

The next night, just as we were leaving the port to go home and to bed we met a group of fellow Americans who were going out. They convinced us to come have a drink and of course that turned into a live band show and the whole night out dancing again. They were students at West Point, where Phil's brother goes to school, but they didn't know him personally. So we watched the live music and met a really cool older lady who went up and danced and turned out to be a singer/performer/actress with so much life and spirit in her it was inspiring. She was keeping up with all the youths around her and more than that, showing them up with her wild dance moves and impressive agility. We moved on from that bar once the band finished and went to the club across the way. It was full on a Tuesday night and we danced and danced until our shirts were soaked with sweat. And even though I had to play "wingman" that night, seeing as how Amanda was quite smitten by one of the guys and his friend lingered and clung onto me, I really enjoyed myself. It was a good end to our wonderful time in Barcelona.

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