Barthelona

I am sitting here writing this blog and feeling as though death is encroaching upon me at an ever increasing rate.  My weekend in Barcelona was phenomenal, but is was one night of little sleep bookended by two long and sleepless overnight bus rides.  I apologize in advance; this narrative may be a little long.

Departure and Arrival
I left for Barcelona from Aix at 10PM Friday night with four other girls from my program.  As I was standing at the bus-stop I looked over my bus tickets that I had printed earlier that day and noticed something slightly awry.  I was supposed to be coming back in time for class at 8AM Monday, February 8, but my return trip was booked for the overnight bus on the 9th rather than the 7th.  Not good.  My ticket was amendable, so I tried not to worry about it too much.
We boarded the bus and I spent the next eight hours trying to sleep in spite of the numerous stops, the constant chatter of the women behind me, and the fact that I was freezing cold. Despite my best efforts, I got maybe 3 hours of uncomfortable shut-eye during the voyage.  Upon our arrival to the Barcelona Sants station, we immediately sought out coffee and waited around until we could go check into the hostel at 7 and clean up before facing the day.

Day 1: Gaudí, Gelato, y Gringas
During the taxi ride to the hostel I made conversation with the driver in my very limited Spanish. Our conversation went more or less as follows:

Me: Como estas señor?
Him: airhaiuf muy sueño argavenrv.
Me: Tu trabajas todo la noche?
Him: No aieufa seis sorumoi todo la día awoeub noche navomio.
Me: Ah, bueno.

It was a magnificent success.
Upon arrival at the hostel, we were told we could not check in until one.  So much for getting an early start on the day.  We hung around for about an hour and had some breakfast.  As we were leaving, the man at the desk decided we could check in early, so we did and got out on the town not too long after 8.  We didn't have any set plans, so we just wandered around the city for a while.  Before too long, we agreed that it would be easier to split into two groups, so Brittany and I took off on our own.  The first thing we did was walk to Casa Batlló, and architectural masterpiece designed by Antoní Gaudí (facade above).  There really are no words to effectively describe it.  Ingenious, magnificent, breathtaking, they all fall short.  There is not a single straight line in the entire house and all the designs are based on formations and structures found in nature, from mushrooms, to whales and everything in-between.  The colors, the detail, the form.  Beautiful. 

While trying to readjust our senses to the real world, Brittany and I got tapas for lunch and then sat by a fountain eating gelato.  Barcelona is a very big and touristy city.  After working so hard all the time to blend into the Aixois community, it was nice to be able to accept my role as an american outsider.  We took pictures (I busted out the chacos), we investigated the artisans who were set up in their tents on the main drag and headed back to the hostel for an afternoon nap.  When we arrived around 3 o'clock and the other girls were already passed out in  their bunks.  I intended to join them, but first I had to figure out my return ticket situation.

How to make an international phone call
Thanks to this particular encounter, I am going to be constantly paranoid about improperly booking travel arrangements.
I went online to adjust my reservation and after several minutes of searching around the website, I discovered that I had to call the bus company to change the booking.  (Note: I hate talking on the phone to strangers.  I hate it even more when it involves a foreign language).  I had two cell phones with me: my American phone and my European phone.  When I tried to call the number provided on the website, I received a recorded message of a rapidly speaking Spanish woman and then the call disconnected.  No good.
Plan B: Find a pay phone.
I was directed down the street to a nearby internet/phone café.  I must have made over 20 calls before everything got figured out.  In that process I learned the following things:

1) You need to dial 00 before the country code when making international calls. (2 attempts)
2) The number I had found on the internet cannot be reached from outside France. (5 attempts)
3a) There is an emergency number to call from outside France, but emergency doesn't have the same connotation in French because they don't always answer the phone.
3b) The phone disconnects after ringing for one minute. (2 attempts in conjunction with 3a)
4) You have to push the little red button in order for the person on the other end to hear you speaking. (2 attempts)
5) One must change their bus reservation through the local office in the destination city (First successfully completed call)
6) You do not need to dial 00 before making local calls. (1 attempt)
7) The number given to me for the Barcelona office is not a valid number (4 attempts plus a call made by the man running the café)
8) The French really don't know the meaning of the word 'emergency.' (3 more attempts)
9) If the phone number doesn't work, then one must to go to the bus station and figure it out there.  But there is a second number I could try (Second successfully completed call)
10) Spelling ELIZABETH for a Spanish woman who knows limited English using the American alphabet results in I-L-A-C-E-I-I-T-H. (Third successfully completed phonecall)
11) Changing a ticket is as easy as providing the ticket number and telling them when you want to leave.

And then I went back to the hostel and took a nap.

Day 1 comes to a close
The rest of the evening was thankfully not too eventful.  We slept till 6 and then went out for tapas and sangria.  The meal was excellent.  I had lox with capers, shrimp with avocado puree and roasted eggplant and peppers with a vinegar marinade.  The sangria was wonderful, so we decided a second pitcher was in order.  After dinner we went back to the hostel and had yet another pitcher of sangria which was not nearly as good.  At that point Brittany and I went to meet up with my friend Allison and the other three went to a club.
We met Allison at a pub called El Bosc de les Fades.  It was pretty neat.  It kind of felt like we were hanging out in an enchanted forest.  But it was very small and very crowded.  And it closed at 2.  Lame.  So, Brittany and I went back to the hostel, looking forward to a moderately full night of stationary sleep, conveniently forgetting that the other 3 girls had yet to return.  Which they did at 5:30.  ouf.

Riding the metro
I woke up early on Sunday as I am wont to do most days.  After quietly getting dressed and going down to have breakfast, my anxiety about my ticket got the best of me.  I was not totally sure I had effectively communicated with the woman on the phone the previous day and I was dreading arriving at the bus station that evening only to find out I had re-booked my return trip incorrectly.  So at 8:30, while everyone else was sleeping, I left to go to the bus station and confirm that I would be returning to France that night.
I had never ridden a subway alone before, this promised to be an adventure.  I bought my ticket without much ado and proceeded down the stairs to await my train.  As I did so, I heard a series of high-pitched and very excited yelps.  When I reached the bottom of the stairs I noticed that on the other side of the tracks there were eight police with a very agitated, though muzzled, German Shepherd surrounding a man sitting on a bench.  The man appeared to be not fully functional as the cops forcibly body searched him  and then dragged him up the stairs and out of the scarcely populated metro station.
Upon arrival at the bus station I was told that everything was fine and that I was all set to get on the 10:00 bus that night.  Good. Excellent.  Deep sigh of relief.

Sagrada Familia and Park Güell
Brittany and I wanted an earlier start than the others, so we checked out and navigated our way to the Sagrada Familia via the metro (of which I was quickly becoming quite the expert).  The Sagrada Familia was Antoní Gaudí's final work and truly his finest masterpiece. This church has been a work in progress since 1882.  It is no where near finished, but the beauty of it's structure is beyond compare and it is truly amazing that the local/national/global community is still devoted to completing it.  People don't take hundreds of years to build cathedrals anymore.  It is a beautiful thing to see so much dedication to a project that will not come to fruition for generations.

True to all his work, Gaudí took all of his structural designs from structures found in nature.  Modeling the architecture after the works of the original architect make it impossible to be in that place and not feel the tangible presence of God.  "Wow. Just wow" was about all I could manage to say while there.  Human expression (including all of my photos) falls so short when presented with something so magnificent and beautiful and imposing and wonderful. 

The passion facade

From there we went to Park Güell.  Although it was a beautiful park, and the Gaudí works were impressive, it was not really capable of competing on the same level as the majesty of the Segrada Familia.  The best part of the park was that there were several people just hanging out playing Spanish guitar. There really is something mystical and enchanting about that style of guitar playing.  Park Güell is the kind of place that I would love to go and sit for hours eating gelato and people watching while soaking up the sun and listening to the music, but we just didn't have the time available to do that.

Home sweet home
We met back up with the others for dinner and then went to the bus station to embark on yet another long and sleepless bus ride back to Aix.  This was my first voyage outside of France since I arrived and it made me appreciate how well I am getting to know Aix.  I no longer need to consult a map to get around town and I don't feel as 'other' as I did when I got here.  I am so thankful to be back in a place where I know I can communicate with the general population, and it has finally started to sink in that I live here.  I live in France, in Aix.  For the remainder of my time in Europe, this is my home.  It's a very nice feeling.



Dissappointments about my trip to Barcelona:
1) I was sick with a cold, so the flavors of all of the magnificent Spanish food were severely muted.

2) I did not have a romantic encounter with Javier Bardem.

3) It only lasted 2 days.




P.S. Barcelona has a hodag!