Barcelona

When I decided it would be easy to tack Spain onto the end of my Italy trip, I did not think about what I was doing. Spain and Italy are, in fact, very different, and I just don´t speak Spanish. Furthermore, I landed in Barcelona, and I speak even less Catalan. In fact, I didn't even know Spanish was not the primary language in Barcelona, and I arrived thinking, "what the hell are these signs in the airport, and why doesn't that look like Spanish?" So that's how mentally unprepared I was for Spain. While I always qualify my Italian ability as "solo un po´" or "un pochino" ("just a little" or "very little"), my Spanish ability is so much less that I feel like this is the first time I've ever been to a country where I didn't speak the language, and it took me a day or two to adjust. However, I couldn't have asked for a better city to adjust in than Barcelona. My love for Italy notwithstanding, I have to include Barcelona as one of my favorite two or three cities that I've been to in all of my time in Europe. Like Milan, it has a vibrant quality of life beyond the tourism that makes me comfortable; deep down, I found myself thinking, "what if I lived here..."

Carrie and I did the tourism thing for the first evening and the next day. The city is beautiful and strangely esoteric. Aesthetically, I doubt there's another city like it in the world. The architectural influence of Antoni Gaudí shapes the city into something entirely unique--it is nothing like I expected.

We continued tourism sporadically after that, but we got more caught up in the life of the city. We left the beaten path for a tapas bar which was packed and ordered beers and not-even-slightly-understood tapas platters from a waiter who spoke no English using a lot of bien´s and si´s while exchanging confused and helpless looks. But they were good freaking tapas. And we felt much cooler than all the dumb tourists getting tapas off English menus at restaurants on la Rambla, because we have tourism superiority complexes. We fell in love with horchata--don't ask me what it is, I don't have any idea--and we bought sangria at a supermarket--tacky Americans. And then we discovered the night life. We wandered around the Eixample neighborhood until we started passing bars, and we found a small discoteca; I bought a beer and we danced; we met a local and hopped to a much bigger disco; we got free beers with our admission and danced until 4 AM. The disappointing thing is that 4 AM is early to go home here--discos are generally open from midnight until 6 or 8 AM--and I didn't get any useful contact information from any of the people we were talking to, so that night will just stand disconnected in memory as a great introduction and welcome to Barcelona night life. And then, the next day, we discovered the beach, which we alternated with urban exploration four our last three days in Barcelona. While swimming in Italy was incredible, Barcelona's wide, free, sandy beaches trump Italy's craggy, crowded coasts for sheer lazy relaxation, and I hear there are incredibly nice beaches in other towns nearby, too. We talked to a few locals on the beach, and I felt right at home.

Then we took an overnight bus to Madrid, and I couldn't help but think, "I just got here... do I have to leave already?" I wonder how soon I can go back...