Around The World – Barcelona, Spain
My goal on this leg of the trip is to cross over the border into Spain, my country #41, and visit the legendary city of Barcelona.
I woke up in Bordeaux and went to the train station about 10 AM to get my reservation for later today to Barcelona. I showed the lady the two-train route I wanted to take from the Eurail app on my phone and gave her my Eurail pass. She clicked and clicked on her computer and then another lady came over and they finally said “The train is full.” So I brought my second choice routing up on the app and showed her. More clicking, more talking. Finally she says “I can put you on another train, get there faster.” Great! I asked her why I couldn’t see this new route in the train system’s own app and she said “I can see more trains on my computer.” Great, I’ve been doing my planning with this app not knowing that other options were available. Never mind, my selections have been fine so far. She then asked for for 29 euros, which should only have been 18 (2 trains x 9). I asked why it was higher and she said when the train is almost full, price goes up. Damn. She printed out the passes and I walked away. Leaving the station I figured I should check, and guess what, the passes were for exactly the first train selection I asked her for. So she didn’t have access to any magic hidden trains and clearly didn’t look at my request carefully. Ugh.
I relaxed back at the Airbnb, then packed up my stuff. When it was time, I walked to the train station, bought a cheese and apple baguette and some Twix bars and boarded the train when it pulled in. No power plug but I think the laptop will survive until my connection in 3 hours. There were only 5 people in the whole car, with over 40 empty seats. OK, I figure people are going to pile in at one of the intermediate stops. Nope, it stays almost empty to the end of the line. Almost full my ass. You’re welcome to my extorted 11 euros.
I make the switch to a Spanish Renfe train in Narbonne and meet an American couple who live in Boca Raton, he’s in nursing home management and they have about 5 friends with Teslas. Woo hoo! We board the train, an S-100 with beautiful new-leather-smell chairs and a power plug! It also has an 8-seat cabin with two screens you can plug your device into for meetings, a dining car and screens on the ceiling showing a movie. It’s shaped like the French TGV and goes up to 300 kph / 188 mph. At an intermediate stop, 6 armed police just walked through the coach, luckily they didn’t look at me twice. At 188 mph I pass from France into Spain, and you know what that means, my SIM card stops working… Will need to get one for Spain when I arrive.
I arrive at the Barcelona station and find an Orange mobile phone shop like I had in France but of course my existing French Orange SIM card doesn’t work. I got a new one with an extra fee travel-Europe plan, 2.4 GB of data and some voice for 40 euros. The man swore up and down this will work anywhere in Europe and I can top up on the web site with my credit card. We’ll see.
I jumped on the L5 subway for 3 stops then 500m walk to the Airbnb. As soon as I got on the metro, a sketchy looking woman got up and stood right next to me. I had my back to the wall, phone and wallet and passport in front pockets and both hands wedged in my front pockets. I stared her right in the eyes for 10 seconds and she walked away. I’m an obvious target with a suitcase and backpack, but I did not just fall off the garlic truck lady.
When I got to the surface streets I found a sidewalk-clogging event going on. There were booths of all kinds and thousands of people milling around. There were food trucks, perfume sampling, fashion shoots, new car displays, autograph session by someone famous and badly dressed, and even a Romeo And Juliet-like play being performed on two balconies of a fancy hotel while people watch from below. I easily found the Airbnb and buzzed in the front gate. Before me sat one of those tiny metal-grillwork elevators you see in old movies and I didn’t trust it to not crash to the ground, so up three stories I walked.
The Airbnb host Montserrat’s place is simply amazing. Narrow and long, three bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, living room and office, wood floors and trim and all beautifully decorated. She speaks only Spanish and I was amazed at how quickly my high school Spanish burst forth from the depths of my memories, I did pretty well I thought. Big thanks to Señor McAuliffe! I kept looking for a chance to whip out “Juan y Elsa van al Bosque de Chapultepec”, but no opportunity so far.
After a while I went outside to wander and track down some dinner. I only put on my windbreaker because it’s 14C / 58F outside! This is the warmest I’ve been since I left Miami, I’ve had to wear 4 layers of clothes since I landed in Glasgow. The weather is supposed to be beautiful for the next 4 days, highs of 18C / 65F! Woo hoo! I’m going to go on my hop-on-hop-off bus tomorrow and I may just leave my jacket at home. I wandered back through the thongs of people and found a sandwich shop. I did pretty well until I had to remember ‘onion’ and it just popped into my head! Damn I’m muy bueno.
Back to the Airbnb, looked through some touristy brochures and then found the bus details for the morning. Turns out my bedroom is about 40 feet and many walls away from the Wifi router, so the Internet connection is not so good. Will have to do most surfing out in the living room.
In the morning, a quick breakfast of European-hard-toast-bread with jam and juice. Found the location of the hop-on-hop-off bus and hit the subway.
Got to the location just as the bus pulled up, bought a 2 day pass because there’s an east side tour and a west side tour. I did the east side today, which is shortened up during the winter by skipping the stops along the beach. I got off at the famous Gaudi church, Sagrada FamÃlia. It started construction in the late 1800s and they figure there’s at least 20 years more to go. The outside has different design styles everywhere you look, non-linear shapes, broken-glass-tiles laid on in places, carved faces, huge words sticking out of the stone, towers, stained glass… Looks like a big mish-mash but somehow it comes together. Going inside you get a completely different feel, very light and airy with natural light coming through holes in the roof and sides. The support columns are shaped like tree trunks and branches, quite an amazing effect I’ve never seen before. If you squint carefully downstairs through a glass window you can see Gaudi’s crypt. He died 3 days after he was hit by a tram at age 73. He left many drawings that they’ve been following and interpreting ever since.
I got back on the bus and continued through the city to the stop closest to the beach. I walked for miles along the beach road until I came to a shopping center. I went inside and ordered hot chocolate. The girl said ‘2’ and I said yes and got out some coins. She waved me to a table and brought out two cups of hot chocolate. I thought she was telling me the price, but I ended up with a lot of hot chocolate! I found a tech store called ‘fnac’ and bought a Wifi repeater for 25 euros. It’s a tiny unit that plugs into a wall socket and acts to boost the Wifi signal. I took a tram and a couple of subways home and configured the Wifi booster and it worked first time, I was shocked, normally home-grade networking equipment is crap. I now have 80% strength in the back room and can stream the NASA TV feed for the rocket launch tonight. And…. the launch was scrubbed, will try again tomorrow.
I met the other-room Airbnb lady tonight, Sabine from Taipei. She’s a tour guide and has been to Barcelona twice before with tours but this is her first time to come on a holiday, she likes it so much. We talked about our travels and she gave me some great tips on some of my upcoming locations.
I watched ‘Vicki Christina Barcelona’. I don’t like Woody Allen but I figured it would be good background for the city. And… no. I could see the self-doubt on the actor’s faces as they tried to say or make up the lines as they went along. Crazy Penelope Cruz was worth it though.
In the morning, I went out to catch the west-city bus tour today, and discovered a stop 5 minutes from my place, no need to walk 30 minutes like yesterday!
I stopped at the main cathedral, which had a Christmas market in the square of course, but all of the booths were tree decorations, nothing else. I watched an older man play beautiful classical guitar for about 10 minutes, really quite good, left him a nice tip in his hat. Back on the bus to the end, very cold from the wind in the open top, so had a panini and hot chocolate. Walked down through the marina area and saw a French warship docked. This thing was huge, looked like an aircraft carrier but the sailor said it was a helicopter carrier. Interesting place to dock a warship, you know, when your country is fighting a war with people who are on the other side of the Mediterranean…
Saw a BMW i8 charging up and a Nissan e-NV200 Taxi. It drove by and I thought, damn that’s quiet and then I realized it was and electric taxi.
I booked an Airbnb in Madrid but he won’t be home until 9PM, so I’ll have almost another full day in Barcelona then I’ll get the train at 6PM.
The next morning my first task was to book my train reservation to Madrid for tomorrow. Worrying that I might have some kind of Sunday curse again, I went to the Sants station of my departure, the big one in town, and asked the man at the ticket booth. He said he could only make the booking for today, closed for tomorrow. I pointed out, with some tact, that was ridiculous, it’s the same screen on his computer, just click on a different day. Not happening. Who runs these train lines? Certainly someone who hates his customers. I shook my head and walked away. There’s no way I want to leave anything to chance for my trip tomorrow, so I walked over to the Information desk and asked again. The lady said yes, closed today, but if I go to another station I can do it. Um, what? There’s a computer right there that is capable of making a reservation today but I have to go to a different train station to make one for tomorrow. Yes. I went on a 30 minute adventure to a *deserted* station on the outskirts of town and find the ticket window. I make my request and the lady says Yes, no problem. I explained what happened at Sants and she said, Yes closed, I am the only one in Barcelona who can make this ticket. Ugh. Then she charged me 24.80 euros and I just about lost it. I said it was 9 euros everywhere else, she said high speed train cost more. Ugh. This whole reservation fee thing is a transparent scam to get more money out of people who actually use the expensive ticket they already bought. OK, rant over but simmering no-likey the whole thing.
Back at the Airbnb, I meet Carmen, the friend of my host. She’s a nanny and the 8 month-old baby she takes care of is in the hospital for a bronchial infection. The three of us converse quite well given my lack of Spanish skills and we resort to the Google translate app a couple of times. We drank my bottle of wine from Bordeaux and I went to bed and watched SNL with Ryan Gosling. There was a skit about people who had been abducted in an alien ship that was about the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Kate’s delivery was incredible and the other cast members couldn’t hold it together.
Barcelona certainly lives up to its reputation. Old and historic architecture, Gaudi everywhere, fashion and shopping capital, great walking streets, great food. Definitely should be on your list of places to see.
Tomorrow, off to Madrid.
