Barcelona-2003

Trip Start Dec 16, 2001

Trip End Ongoing

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Flag of Spain Barcelona, Spain
Tuesday, May 6, 2003

Approaching 18 months now in Europe, one of the many other Aussies taking advantage of a little stamp in my passport courtesy of England. Castles and cathedrals, more often just ruins, dot the countryside. The trees have no leaves and the sun scarpers in the middle of the afternoon for half the year. A warm winter it has been, or so the locals reckon! White as a ghost and a little stir crazy I turn my sights upon somewhere that has outdoor eating and only needs single glazed windows.....Spain

LP guide in hand I land in Barcelona. Parroting Spanish phrases out of the guide book for my 'one way ticket to Cataylan' is all well and good, but when they start chatting back to you things become a little difficult. No entiendo! (Huh?) So let the charades begin.

First thing is to find somewhere to sleep and having arrived on a Thursday this is not so hard, backpackers and pensions abound

Bullfighting in all its 'glory'

. I forgotten the scent of 10 backpackers crammed into a small room who have not had time to do laundry, and a window not much bigger than my guide book (looking out onto a brick wall). Come the weekend I find myself back on the street looking for somewhere else. Stag weekends and the footy clubs from all over descend on Barcelona for each weekend, you can paint your own picture there! Accomodation suddenly goes up in price and becomes a little more scarce. The Grand Prix the following weekend flooded the city with Ferrari red, could be an interesting mixture with the running of the bulls?

One man made Barcelona into the tourist magnet it is today. Gaudi. The city has some bizarre and unique architecture scattered throughout. La Sagrada Familia is his crowning achievement, and it's not finished yet! An enormous cathedral that he designed and began over 100 years ago, but then an unfortunate incident involving a tram and distracted genius left the project up in the air. Never fear though, the blueprints exist in a series of scale models and drawings. So the work continues and is expected to finish sometime before the end of this century.
Parc Guell is another must see, and a great place just to kick back and eat (Spanish food is very easy on the palate). there's a lot to be said for siestas! Not a straight line to be seen and more tiles than you can poke a stick at

La Sagrada Familia-detail

. Acres of parkland and terraces hide different monuments, a very easy place to forget about anything but the breeze.

The hub of tourism is La Rambla, a pedestrianised road lined with tacky souvenier shops and street performers every 20m. Performers are usally politcal or movie figures standing like statues, and will pose with you, for a price. Prices in the shops can be as much as double, and a wandering into a normal part of town can reveal more normal retail prices. A bit of haggling is always fun though and it is not much of a challenge to get prices down below the retail.
The undesirables are lured here like moths to a flame. Keep your hands on your wallet! Sitting down makes you a sitting duck too. One guy snuck up behind me and tried to drag my backpack away. The old marble and 3 cups trick was being played out by a group of 6 locals, including a rather attractive, woman posing as a tourist, who flirts with the prospective sucker. Watched one Dutch guy get stung and then a muscle head came and indicated in Spanish, but very clear body language, that it was time to move on-don't disturb the con!! Another stunt I heard about was people selling papers at cafes, lay the paper down on your valuables and then wlak away with the lot. A little book of scams has been gradually developing, look for it in stores soon

La Sagrada Familia-the new side

!

Now the controversal bit...yes I went to a bullfight. Had very mixed feelings about this, but went anyway and glad that I did. The whole event went for about 2 hours. Each 'fight' consists of a number of acts and is a lot more involved than I first thought. The matador seeks to proves his masculinity, difficult to do in knee high pink socks but there you go. With much pelvic thrusting and an occasional tantrum, they are a little highly strung, the matador plays to the crowd and endeavours to earn their praise. But the crowd is a fickle group and if he is not taking enough risks or does not make a clean kill at the end he will be harassed out of the arena. The kill at the end is the most important part of the entire ceremony and requires one direct stroke down into the aorta. This is a near religious ceremony and is important to its supporters. I can't see it ending anytime in the near future, with or without tourists going. Would I go again?? No.

Visiting attractions is all about timing though. Going up to the lookout is not the best on a hazy day. Going to see the 'wonderful music, light and water show' is no good when it is walled off for the motorshow and when going to the Olympic area now you are unlikely to find any international athletes. Getting up hills is much easier with the outdoor escalators!

Sitting in the airport surrounded by Brummie accents and a 3 hr delay to my flight, no mistaking where I am heading now!