The snail and the rabbit

  Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain and Canary Islands
Tuesday, September 9, 2008

ĄHola de Espaņa!

Tonight is my last night in Barcelona.  Barcelona was one of the cities I was most looking forward to visiting, and it has definitely fulfilled and exceeded my expectations.  The city and I got off to a bit of a rough start, but itīs more than redeemed itself.

I traveled from Bath to Barcelona on Sunday evening.  I walked to the train station in Bath, took a train to Bristol (a bigger city near Bath with an airport), took a bus from the train station to the airport, and then flew from Bristol to Barcelona, and then took a train to an area closer to my hostel.  I think I only needed to have taken a boat and I would have fulfilled all possible modes of transportation to get here! 

I arrived in Barcelona pretty late on Sunday night.  I had what I thought were very specific directions on how to get to my hostel, particularly which direction on which street I needed to walk to find it.  Since I would be arriving at night and very obviously a foreigner with my giant backpack, I did as much as I could to memorize the directions so I wouldnīt have to look even more conspicuous with a map.  As you may have anticipated, I ended up getting flat out lost.  I knew I was close, but with no street signs I couldnīt get my bearings to straighten myself out.  I ended up wandering into a hotel to ask a very nice bellman who spoke absolutely no English to help me.  With his map and my teeny bit of Spanish, he was able to point me in the right direction.  The hostel door was literally a hole in the wall - just an iron gate with an itty bitty sign advertising it.  I rang the buzzer. And rang the buzzer. And rang the buzzer. And no one answered.  So there I stood all alone on a dark street with a giant backpack stuck on the wrong side of a metal door.  I was about to give up (and I have no idea what my next steps would have been) but finally someone on the intercom answered.  They opened the gate and up a little flight of stairs I had the choice of 4 wooden doors, all of which were unlabeled.  The directions said the hostel was on the first floor, but nothing on the first floor looked right.  At that point, I felt like a moron knowing that whoever buzzed me in was waiting for me behind one of the doors and I was taking a ridiculously long time to figure out which one to go through.  I trekked up another level, and I found it, buzzed that door and no one answered again.  Finally I got in, and checked in and everything was fine, but the hot and very sweaty endeavor just to find the place was pretty frustrating and an insult to my ability to navigate.

During all that, there was a small but very memorable interaction that I think might end up being one of the most memorable parts of the trip.  I was leaving the train that had taken me from the airport to downtown Barcelona and a fellow backpacker came up to me and said something in Catalan.  I told her I couldnīt understand, but through her creative sign language of an inch worm with antennas, she said that with our big backpacks we looked like snails.

Casa Battlo - Barcelona

To get my bearings the next day, I again booked another city-wide bus tour.  I got to see a great deal of the city in a short amount of time, but the best part of the tour was that I met a fellow solo traveler from New Zealand.  We took a break from the bus trip to have a tapas and seafood lunch together in the port overlooking the Mediterranean.  We met again for dinner that night where I tried rabbit (tastes kind of like dark meat chicken), and had a grand finale dinner this evening of paella and sangria.  Meeting fascinating new people is one of the biggest perks of traveling for me!  She had many great stories to share from her time traveling around the world when she was younger.

View of Barcelona

Paella - Barcelona

Though Iīve only been in Barcelona for two full days, Iīve squished a lot in.  The scenic highlights are absolutely the Parc Guell and La Sagrada Familia, two of Antoni Gaudiīs works.  Parc Guell is an area originally developed to be a garden city where people would buy plots (like a development) and live in a garden community within this park.  That never panned out in the long run, but the fourteen years of development that did happen are still amazing. I think the pictures speak for themselves.  Iīd venture to bet that Gaudi and Dr. Seuss would have gotten along very well!

Parc Guell - Barcelona

Dragon Fountain at Parc Guell - Barcelona

La Sagrada Familia (the cathedral Barcelona is famous for) was the main reason I wanted to visit this city, and today I got to soak it all up.  To say that it is breathtaking is an understatement.  Gaudiīs work was so innovative that when you look at it today, itīs hard to believe he worked at the turn of the last century.  His work is incredibly organic and itīs all inspired by nature, so itīs full of curves and just weird shapes youīd never think could structurally function to hold up a building.  Iīm still absolutely in awe.

La Sagrada Familia up close - Barcelona

The nave of La Sagrada Familia - Barcelona

View of La Sagrada Familia - Barcelona

With amazing memories from Barcelona, Iīm off to Paris tomorrow.  Iīm hoping the beautiful weather Iīve had here will follow me to France.  Itīs been nice to be able to leave the umbrella and jacket tucked away in my bag!

Thanks for all the comments youīve all been leaving!  I enjoy them very much and itīs great to know youīre reading and enjoying as well!

Amanda