My train pulled in to Barcelona at around 9:30 in the evening. Thanks to the efficient and immediately comprehensible metro system, I was able to find my way into the city to join the others easily. When I arrived at the apartment, it had been over 24 hours since I'd been doused in Sangria in the madness that was Pamplona. I dropped my bags and ran for the shower to scrub away the now hard shell of sugar, sweat, and dirt that encased every inch of exposed skin. Afterward, I'd never felt so clean in my life.
Barcelona is the most normal city I visited in Spain. Certainly very different from any city I've been to in America, but it seemed the most real. There was still beautiful architecture and sun-soaked beaches, but it also had contrast. It had dirt. There was poverty. There were areas that weren't absurdly pristine. It felt more lived in.
That evening, the group decided to go to a club. Having traveled all day and not having had any real rest for two days, I opted to roam the city on my own for a while and get some sleep. I walked to a street known as La Rambla, which is a major tourist area. It extends into the city from the harbor and is lined with tourist shops, street vendors, and restaurants. It was brightly lit and even at 1am it was densely packed. As I headed back to the apartment around 2am, all the cafes and restaurants I passed were still filled with customers. Nothing showed any signs of slowing down.
After a few hours of sleep, I woke up to go catch the sunrise at the beach while everyone else was recovering from their adventures that evening. I left the apartment at around 5:30am and, as I made my way to the beach, the clubs and bars were just emptying out. Young people stumbled out of dark, now silent halls of soon to be forgotten bacchanalian revelry. They emerged in various states of disarray and disheveled-ness and hobbled haltingly, supported by each other, down sidewalks in the half-light of predawn. When I arrived at the beach, a 20 minute walk away, I discovered a mass of spent and happily exhausted partiers sprawled on the sand. I overheard multiple guys breathlessly and emphatically avowing to their friends that that was, in fact, the best night of his life.
On my way back from the beach, the city had almost emptied of its evening denizens. Streets and squares I had just passed through that were crowded and filled with slurred speech and uninhibited laughter were deserted and blanketed in silence. It was almost unsettling - I felt almost like I was the victim of some kind of reverse flashmob.
After returning to the apartment and waiting for the others to wake up, we took the metro to the Gaudi cathedral. I don't know enough about it to say anything meaningful about its history or Antoni Gaudi himself, you can look that up easily yourself, but it was a pretty imposing structure. Still unfinished, it kind of reminded me of the undersea palace in "The Little Mermaid's" Atlantis. The exterior has an organic mass of figures and details. The interior was cavernous and extravagant. It was teeming with tourists and hardly felt like it could ever serve as a place of worship.
After some other general sightseeing, that evening we went to Montjuïc - translated in medieval Catalan as "Hill of the Jews." It's a large hill on the south side of Barcelona with gardens and a large castle at its summit. Unfortunately, I had only brought my 50mm because I was tired of carrying around my camera bag. I was not expecting the spectacular views from the top of the hill, but I did what I could. I was also so focused on the panorama from there and the sun setting (as seen in the shot at the top of the post) that I neglected to take any picture of the castle.
After we finished being awed by the view of Barcelona, we set out to find the cafe that someone had read was supposed to be located behind the castle on the opposite side of the hill. We walked along a dirt path that stretched out along the eastern hill face overlooking the Mediterranean. Not really knowing what we were looking for and with the light fading quickly, the walk around the hill seemed to stretch on. When we finally made it there, we were relieved and pleasantly surprised to find a charming open air cafe with another fantastic view, this time of the Mediterranean. It's called "La Caseta del Migdia" and I definitely recommend trying to make your way out here if you're in Barcelona. It's off the beaten path and it was a refreshing change from the tourist heavy sites we'd been to that day. We sat in canvas chairs at wooden picnic tables sipping whiskey, wine, Coke, and vodka Fantas.
Soon after we arrived and began enjoying drinks and plates of meat, cheese, and bread (which seemed to be all we ate in Spain), a Flamenco band and dancers began performing. I went to take some shots of the small stage where the dancers spun and stomped along with a guitarist and an older woman who sang/spoke rhythmic phrases and shouts (like a caller at a square dance...?). I moved around to the rear of the stage to get some shots with a rim light, but the older woman turned around, pointed at me, and yelled "El paparazzi!" She pulled me on stage and made me take pictures of all of them. It was pretty awesome and only reinforced the theory that everyone in Spain loves me. After that incident, they continued to perform. The main pair, if I had to describe them, were probably as stereotypically Spanish and sexy as you could be. I don't really know how else to say it. The rest of the time there I sat sipping whiskey out of a plastic cup, watching the dancers move hypnotically, and just soaking in the warmth and other-ness of that experience. It was a great evening.
We made our way back down the hill in the dark and back to the apartment. After a short rest, we went to a club by the beach for a little while. There wasn't anything particularly memorable about that. I left early to shower, pack, and go to the airport to catch my 8am flight. I successfully navigated more trains, shuttles, and confusing Spanish airports and made it back to America (not without spending the rest of my euros to buy crispy M&Ms at Duty Free) after eight great, mostly memorable days.
As good a time as I had in Spain, the first thing I did when I landed in Philly for a short layover was eat Chik-fil-a and it was glorious.
"The world was not wheeling any more. It was just very clear and bright, and inclined to blur at the edges."
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
haha! "Chik-fil-a"
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