Back to speaking and being understood...
Trip Start
Jun 05, 2006
1
25
33
Trip End
Aug 01, 2006
Barcelona,
Spain
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
All 8 of us (Jon, Jill, Anne-Elise, Drew, Kelly, Robert, Jenn and myself) are now in Barcelona. France lost the world cup final to champion Italy. We will spend one more day in Barcelona and then go to Madrid, where Jon and I will say goodbye to the other 6 and make our way to Vigo, Spain to meet with my friend Anton Garcia.
Long Story:
We were eating dinner at this Italian place in Nice Saturday night, watching Germany beat Portugal in the consolation match of the World Cup, when somebody suggested that instead of hanging around in Nice to watch the final the following day, I go to Paris and meet up with Adam
01-Gum busters
. The idea hit me so hard I was reeling from the shock it hadnīt ocurred to me before. And everybody else considered going with me, at least for a fleeting moment, but canceling plane tickets and hotel reservations made everybody but Robert and Kelly dismiss it, reluctantly. But Robert and Kelly decided to sleep on it and make up their minds in the morning. Rob decided Italy would probably win and he didnīt want to lose the money for his flight and pay for a train ticket just to be surrounded by a bunch of angry Frenchmen breaking shop windows after the game. Kelly made up her mind when Jon and Jill woke her up at 5:30 and asked her if she wanted to spend 12 hours traveling with them to Barcelona. So that was fairly obvious.We got to the train station at around 8:45 for the 9:20 train, and surprise! (should have seen this coming) A HUGE line at the ticket window mostly made up of people trying to get to Paris. But miraculously we made it to the front of the line with at least 5 or 6 minutes to spare to find (should have seen this coming)the trains to Paris were all booked until one arriving at 10:30, when the game would be mostly over. [sigh of defeat] So Kelly, the ticket lady, and a mass of sweaty, increasingly irritated backpackers behind me all looked at me expectantly while I came up with a Plan B city.
I chose Marseille, where we arrived 2 hours later
02-Biggest, best vending machine ever
. Itenerary: find a place to stay; site-see; eat; watch the game; witness mass shenaniganery after France trounces Italy; sleep; wake up, rejoin the others in Barcelona. So I chose a hostel which had a cheap bunk room scenario and seemed near the train station on the map, and we hiked it, backs full of packs toward this big square where we expected to find the place. We circled the block. We circled another block. We passed a group of homeless men getting fed some soup and I began to reconsider the (grimey) area I had chosen to stay in. In my desperation I went into a shop and asked in my best immitation of French how to get to this place I pointed to in the guidebook. The guy sort of sighed and grimaced, like this was going to be hard to explain, and started us off on what would be a two and a half hour meander through the neighborhoods of northeastern Marseille. When we found the place, indicated by the HI (Hostelling International) sign out front, it would be an old chateau on a hillside overlooking the city (from afar). And the vacant look of it, the sign on the door indicating the reception desk wouldnīt open for another three hours and a 10:30 curfew would apply, as well as the steady drone of cicadas, combined to give the place an altogether unwelcoming effect. So...we decided to make our way back the way we had come, and get some random hotel near the train station. Which we did, although I did get us lost again, as we were off my only map, and only found the bus after I stopped a car and asked something like--"Pardon, vou...sap- onde e-is bus (stop)?" To which he replied, "Where do you want to go?" And so, a bus ride, a metro ride, and some more hiking, tired, already sore, and in my case quietly fuming, we checked into a cheap hotel RIGHT across from the train station
03-Entrance of Parc Guell
. And I am still amazed that Kelly didnīt complain once during the whole thing. Iīm pretty sure I would have bludgeoned me and hid my body in the thick, insect-ridden bushes around that chateau place, had I been in her shoes. But she didnīt. And that enabled us to go the Port Vieux, where a big screen had already been set up and things were beginning to start up 4 hours in advance of game time, and take a bus to the top of the promontory overlooking the bay and the barrier islands, where we looked around the beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral (a different one) and just gaped at the hazy view of sprawling Marseille below. When we made it back down to the port, it was nearing game time and the plaza was really starting to fill up, kids already scaling walls and bus stops and street signs to get a good view of the screen. Later there would be fireworks, flares, burning of Italian flags, and tenuously controlled chaos. And Kelly befriended a 3 year old soccer fan and played a game of kick-the-spent-Roman-candle for almost the full hour and a half of the game. And after Zidane got booted for head butting an Italian player in the chest, Franceīs hope of glory instantly vanished. When the game went to penalty kicks, and Italy scored the last, winning goal, the several thousand people gathered in the plaza turned, as one, and flowed out, up the street, to their homes and shattered dreams of sports glory. And we headed back to the hotel because we had a 9am train and a long day of travel ahead of us. Plus, we were a bit tired anyway.So here we are in Barcelona for another day, and I am really enjoying using my Spanish again, and being back in this crazy, splendid city. So Iīm about to meet up with the others to take a picnic lunch to Parc Guell, so thatīll be it.
Bon dia,
Matt
