Day Twenty Three (TR)

So I'm still flying solo. Barcelona has a lot to see, but first I try to call David Martinez, who I met in Scotland. A female voice answers


(In Spanish)
Voice: Hello?
TR: Hello, could I speak…
Voice: Hello?
TR: Hi, I am a friend of David’s…
Voice: Hello?
TR: Can you hear me…
Voice: Hello?
TR: (shouting) CAN YOU HEAR…
Voice: (mumbles)

Click

That exact exchange happened again half an hour later. So for now I have got to navigate an enjoy this city on my own. First stop: the Templo de la Sagrada Familia. I don’t quite know how to describe this thing. It is easily the most ridiculous basilica in the solar system. For the last hundred years or so the place has been a construction yard. They have completed two of three façades and eight of the eighteen spires that it will eventually have. Even unfinished, it is amazing. From far back it looks gothic, but as you get closer you can see that some of the stonework looks like shaving cream stalactites and that all of the statues and gargoyles are modern and abstract. It is a difficult place to describe, even for me to communicate its overwhelming size. I have no idea how they are funding it, because I only paid €3.50 to get in. Each of the spires is decorated on top with candy-colored tile mosaics. Basically I am saying that it is/was/will be amazing. I spent much longer than I intended here. They had a little museum in the basement and the Passion Façade was possibly my favorite part of the whole visit.

Wow, now I am hungry. There was a little sidewalk café with a cheap lunch special, so I sat down. The guy brings me paella, which was really good, and then some kinda pink fish and ham serrano. Also good. The whole time that I was eating he stood in front of the door to his café, blatantly looking up and down every woman that passed. I tried to imagine how he could be less subtle about it, and decided that the only way would be if he stepped in front of them.

Looking over my tourist map, there is a picture of some cool sculpture, and so I take the metro to it. It was easy to find, but then I realize that that’s all it is. I expected like a sculpture park or a museum but this was all. So I walk through the ordinary park and see some kids playing basketball, people playing tennis, and old men playing this weird game that I can only describe as a combination of horseshoes, bocce, and bowling. They had nine very tall and thin pins set up in a perfect square and would take turns throwing half-spheres at them. Strange. They didn’t seem to appreciate me watching them.

It was getting late now so I headed back to my hostel. Or tried to. I could not find it for like an hour. Finally I found a receipt in my pocket from the night before, and asked someone how to get there (thank goodness I was wearing recycled pants).

I sent some emails and talked to an Irishman. Eventually I went to bed, but I was in a different room this time. Since the beds were not labeled I chose one at random and went to sleep. This would last long, because a Europepean came in at about midnight and told me angrily that I was in his bed. I started getting up and he said to not bother. He got in the other bed, and finally all was right with the world. For about two hours. After that, a barely conscious drunken Canadian wandered into our room, started getting into an already occupied bed. Realizing his mistake, he stumbled across the room and collapsed onto the sleeping body of a now frightened Korean. The hostel staff came in and dragged him out. He didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he didn’t seem aware of anything at all.

During this episode, I resolve to change hostels.