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Hola chicos,
We started off our expedition to Spain via the trains which always seem to promise one type of adventure or another. As we chugged along we passed by little inlets of villages by the Mediteranean. Just when we think we are getting used to our incredible surroundings, new and equally beautiful sights amaze us. Just to clarify the imagery: Sam and I are staring out the window crying (because everything is so overwhelming and we still can´t believe we´re here) and then the train shuts down. Used to the quirky train rides in Europe, we sat in our seats nonpulsed. Suddenly we heard the car door slam open and four men holding guns walk onto the train. They were all dressed like ordinary travellers minus one man standing at the back of the group who had a tattered, home-made wrist band in which he had written (with black marker) ¨Police¨. They sauntered from seat to seat holding their weapons, yelling and demanding to see the passengers passports.
When they reached us, we quickly obliged and were thankful when they moved on to harass the man in the seat behind us. They talked threateningly to him for
about 10 minutes before leaving the train altogether. The train remained stopped on the tracks for another twenty minutes before we started moving again. We never found out what the disturbance was all about. But we´ve come to expect the unexpected while travelling by rail...
We arrived in Barcelona - a vibrant city, found a fruit market and bought ourselves a feast. Then we went to a cafe to sit and watch the bustling traffic of people and bicycles. We took a taxi to our hostel but unbeknown to us, it was located in the mountains! As the taxi driver drove up the winding road and we succumbed to higher and higher altitudes she couldn´t contain her glee at our predicament.
We settled ourselves into our mountainous retreat and reliazed that everyone else who trudged up the mountain with their backpacks were also oblivious to our removed location.
While we were chatting in the common room that evening, we met two cousins from Russia and decided to spend our next couple days together exploring Barcelona.
Masha spoke English really well and Sacha was learning but nevertheless we had some hilarious miscommunication. On our first evening Sacha informed
us that in Russia it is common for sausages to fall from the sky. Sam and Larissa were both a little put out that in Canada such delicacies did not descend from the clouds until we learnt that he was actually talking about snow. There was also an awkward stage in our friendship when Sacha said he needed face cream (he meant shaving cream and we assumed sunscreen) so we informed the shocked Sacha that we had three bottles and we were more than willing to share them!
We spent the day exploring Barcelona together and we checked out the seafront Aquarium (the largest one in Europe) and some of Gaudi´s architectural designs. All of his creations were whimsicial and fantasy inspired. In the centre of the city there is a park he designed complete with undreground tunnels, fountains, labyrinths of coloumns and houses which look like they´ve been plucked out of the fairytale Hanzel and Gretel.
That night, Masha, Sacha and us shared a feast of Kielbasa, cheese and baguettes on the terrace adjacent to our hostel. As we were relaxing in the ebbing glow of the sunlight, we suddenly heard squealing noises emenating from the bushes.
To our horror the infamous boars emerged. Some boys from California had been out the night before and claimed to have seen a pack of boars and, following the typical horror movie plot, no one believed them and everyone scoffed at their claims. But suddenly the infamous family of wild boars were upon us. Drawn to the scent of our food they surrounded our table. As the gigantic mother boar and her eight boarlets(?) drew their prominent tusks and hairy bodies nearer to us, we anticipated them charging and were certain we´d end up in their hairy boar lair. (Which with our luck would be located even further up the mountain an even more inconvinient hike down). Luckily for us, the hostel cats came to the rescue and Mother Boar went off to chase down the frightened felines instead.
Recovering from our beastly shock, a group of us decided to go out into town. Dane Cook (who had the exact same sense of humour as the comedian and caused Sam and Larissa many fits of hysteria), California boy and Masha all tagged along. Because the metro at the bottom of the mountain stopped running at midnight we needed to
stay out in the city until seven the next morning when we would be able to return and scale the mountain back up to our hostel.
We left the following day for our next destination: San Sebastian. We made sure to arrive at the train station early in order to avoid any train mishaps which seem to plague us. No one at the station seemed to speak English and they directed us from line to line until with alarm we noted that there was one minute until our train was scheduled to leave. When we finally reached the front of the line an employee informed us that the next train was not until the next day. Because it was a Saturday night, absolutely everything in Barcelona was booked. Stranded in the train station, we contemplated our options before deciding to wander around the streets in search of an internet cafe. Lost, tired from lugging around our monster backpacks and in search of shelter we wandered down an alleyway. A woman in the street stopped us and asked us if we needed somewhere to stay. We explained ourselves and she informed us that she rented out apartments but unfortunately they
were all booked for tghat night. We thanked her and continued on our trek when she bumped into us again and offered us a place to sleep on her office floor at work. We were thrilled and readily accepted her kind offer.
The next day once again we made our way to the train station and once again were sent from line to line until we missed our train! Fortunately there was also a train that evening so we bought tickets for the sleeper.
San Sebastian was a gorgeous city craddling the ocean and surrounded by mountains. We spent the day walking up the mountain, on the beach and city. We topped off the night with some Paella and tried to drink in the unmatched beauty of San Sebastien before returning to Barcelona the next day, a pit stop on our way to Italy.
We´ve been meeting quite an array of interesting people from around the world and it is exhilarating sharing stories and memories with one another before moving on to our own seperate journeys.
Ciao amigos!
Sam, Larissa
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Kathie
non-member comment
Family gossip and gaudy architecture
[I sent this to your hotmail account just minutes before you sent your latest update, which refers to Gaudi. I'm not sure if you're checking your hotmail account so I am posting the email on your travelblog as well] First the family gossip. Soooooooo. Angie told me that Julie and Jason had broken up, but no one told me that they had gotten back together. Well, they’re back together AND engaged. Hey, did you see the Gaudi buildings or architecture in Barcelona? [Apparently you did:)] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Parcguell.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Casa_Milà.JPG Someone told me that Gaudi is the origin of the word ‘gaudy”. But apparently, that isn’t true. The explanation is below. Remember the Hundertwasser t-shirt that Basil gave you. I went to see Hundertwasser Haus while in Vienna. Some people believe that Hundertwasser was influenced by Gaudi. You be the judge. http://www.skyscrapers.cn/images/eu/aus/Hundertwasser_Haus.jpg http://mosaicartsource.wordpress.com/tag/mosaic/mosaic-masters/hundertwasser/ Oh yeah, and the Parliament in Vienna was spectacular. http://www.casayego.com/europeancities/vienna/vien-c.jpg Vienna is cherub city. Well, cherubs and women’s underwear. I have NEVER seen so many women’s underwear stores in my life. Miss you. Love you. Kathie Could you give me the origin of the word gaudy? Thank you. There are two schools of thought on this word, in addition to one erroneous explanation. First, it is thought that gaudy comes from a color term from Middle English, gaudy-green, which itself originated because the plant which produced the dye was once known as weld, and weld, when borrowed into Old French, became gaude - hence English gaudy-green. It is said that gaudy soon lost its specific color connotations and came to refer to anything 'bright.' The second explanation is that the term comes from English gaud 'joke, plaything.' That word was adapted from Old French gaudir 'rejoice,' a descendant of Latin gaudere 'delight in' (from which English gets joy). The word gaudy still serves as a noun in English which means "rejoicing, joy, merrymaking; a festival", though it has probably gained obsolete status these days. The erroneous explanation is that the term comes from the name of the Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi (1852-1926), whose architecture some believe today is gaudy. This suggestion can be discounted by virtue of the fact that gaudy dates back to the 16th century.