Crazy Barcelona 5/12/08

I got up in the morning and readied myself for check out at 11. I was supposed to switch over from here to Liz's today, but I still wasn't sure exactly how to do that. Until this point, Liz and I had been communicating through email, and hadn't exchanged numbers or even confirmed where in the city she lived. I packed up, and walked downstairs to the lobby to check out. Then I sat outside the hotel and scrolled through my phone until I found an earlier forwarded email with her phone number on it. I called it, and was so happy to hear Liz pick up on the other end. I asked her how I could get to her place from where I was, and she told me to follow the street I was on, back to Rambla Street and wait for her at the corner between the KFC and McDonalds. I followed her directions and waited for her to come find me. I began to wonder how she was going to know it was me, but I suppose the huge backpack would add some clue.

As I sat there, leaned up against the wall of McDonalds, I watched the people go by on the street. There were so many different types of people, from everywhere in the world, it seemed. They spoke all different languages, although mostly Spanish, but only every so often did I hear anything I could understand. It all just sounded like noises when I really stepped back to listen. The only way I could really tell what people were talking about was by watching their body language and reactions to hearing others. It was really quite fascinating when I began to separate the words spoken from the action taken. If the world was muted for a moment, I probably never would have noticed that I was in a whole other country. Soon enough, however, I caught a few words in English through the cacophony. "Hey, Tyler?" I looked up from the brim of my hat, and saw a woman bearing 2 and a half kids, smiling back at me. "Yea, Liz?" I asked back, and we shook hands. She introduced me to her 2 kids Marc (7) and Gemma (4), the one in The oven I didn't meet, but I was amazed that she had walked all the way here, watching two small children and carrying another at the same time. Although as suppose, as with everything, after some time you just get used to it.

We walked slowly back to her apartment, minding the children, and making conversation about the area. I told her, briefly what I had seen so far, and she told me some more things I could see. The Temple de la Sagrada Familia she talked especially highly of, and said it was a must-see on a trip to Barcelona. When we got to the house, she introduced me to her husband, Xavi and showed me the room I'd be sleeping in. Xavi cooked us lunch, and explained to us what a good Spanish meal consisted of. Xavi was trained as a chef here in Spain when he was 16, so he knew all about Spanish cuisine. He said that Spaniards eat mostly salads, fish and vegetables. They're actually not very fond of spicy foods, contrary to popular myth. They eat lots of Cod fish, scallops, red meat, and special assortments of vegetables. The lunch he made us, was of course, absolutely wonderful, and came in 3 parts, the appetizer, main course, and dessert; as all real Spanish meals do.

After lunch, I began to make my way over to the Temple de la Sagrada Familia, because Liz seemed so excited about it and I'd also heard from some of the guys in my hostel in Nice that it was definitely something to see. Liz told me of a way to take the metro right to it, but I kinda like to walk whenever I feel I can, so I walked. It was a long way, probably about the same distance from my hostel in Rome to the Sistine Chapel. I was also a little surprised that it was so out in the middle of nowhere; at least a 15 minute walk from any of the other sites in the city. You'd think they'd want to build it where people could come see it easily, and not where you have to trek out a ways to no place in particular, an hour away from where you were originally. However, as soon as I got there I knew it was well worth the trip.

Just seeing it from a distance is pretty spectacular, and for most huge cathedrals, the first impression of the outside is all there is. This Cathedral, however was the most intricately designed thing I'd ever seen in my life. From far back, it looks like a giant beautiful cathedral, then as you get a little closer, you start to see something else, and then closer and something else pops out. When you get right up close enough to see everything, you could spend several days just looking at the decorations on the front entrance. Everything, from the most massive towers, to the tiniest door latch is a work of art. Some decorations even have decorations on or within them. It's just over stimulating at times. This is just the outside of the front entrance I've been talking about, I hadn't even gone inside yet.

The architect for this building is the world renowned Spanish Architect, Gaudi. He's designed several other buildings and sculptures in Barcelona, as well as Madrid and France (I think). He began working on this building in the later part of the 19th century, and construction on it still isn't complete! Over 100 years, and they still estimate construction will take about 10 more years or so. Hearing that, you wonder "How could that be, with modern means of construction? Not to mention the hundreds of people still working there around the clock." But when you're looking at it, and walking through it, you totally understand. On some parts of the main tower, slivers of stone thinner than a sheet of paper were used to decorate the top. Throughout the main hall, Gaudi's design was to have the cathedral resemble nature, and all of God's creation. So the pillars are shaped like modernized-looking trees with tiny nooks, branches, and vines carved into them. At the top is a giant stone canopy all chiseled to perfection in blazing white stone with skylights where breaks in the leaves would be. Gaudi was also very fascinated with the way stone looks under a microscope, so the mineral-like colors, and designs make up the murals on the floors and windows of the Cathedral. If you look around carefully as you walk through several corridors, animals like lizards, turtles, and birds are also represented in statutes peeking out of pillars and towers.

The back side is made up of huge, intricate scenes of what must be hundreds of different bible stories carved into the 3 arches that make up the back entrance, and all the way up to the 12 towers representing the apostles and then the one main tower in the center representing Jesus Christ. To the right side, there's also a smaller tower representing the Virgin Mary, and then a square building next to it (I don't know who that one's for) with a roof like a fallen leaf. The more I stood there to look at it, the more dizzy and tired I got. I couldn't even think anymore, there was so much going on, and so many things to look at which were all so beautiful. My mind was just simply blown. I felt spent.

At the lower floor of the Cathedral was a museum dedicated to Gaudi, and the Cathedral. I walked through that for about another hour, and got to see a lot of the process that went in to building this structure, as well as the inspirations and sketches for the decorations. At one section of the museum, they had pictures of nature, and then next to them they had pictures of decorations or structures in the Cathedral that were inspired my them. It was so cool to see the amazing resemblance between the real nature, and the artistic architectural representation.

After forcing myself to exit the Cathedral, I walked back down closer to the city center, over by where the Arc de triumph stood. It was quieter there, and everything was spread out, it was a good place to rest my brain for a moment. I sat down on a bench, and stared at the Arch, and then walked down the long concrete road to that huge park at the other end. I'd learned that there was a zoo somewhere in the park. I figured it'd probably be closed by now, but I thought I might go have a look anyway. I walked down through some beautiful gardens which glistened in the setting sun. When the sun sets in Barcelona, the whole world takes on a sort of purple and gold shimmer. The sky is dotted with clouds, and rays of yellow light shoot out towards earth. The sun peaks out from behind a cloud and then sinks like a small child lost in a waterbed. Every time it hides itself, the blue sky appears in its stead. It was really piercing blue tonight, the color I love but can't describe in any other word than "piercing". Greens and blues are my favorite colors, and greens and blues were the predominant shades of that moment, in Barcelona.

I walked on, and found another park within the park, this one seemed a part of the zoo. There were life-sized statues of Elephants for children to climb on, and a huge green lake in the center where people rented row boats. At the far end, across the lake, I heard music. It was old swing, big band music near a gazebo full of people dancing. I stood nearby and watched the people dance, and wished I had someone here to dance with too. It was such a fun moment. They danced into the night, and were still dancing when I left them.

From there, I walked to the beach to find dinner. However, before getting there, I heard more music coming from an alleyway right along the shops and cafes. It wasn't swing music though, it was drums and horns like a huge parade, and I saw crowds of people stuffed between buildings, clamoring and screaming phrases in Spanish I couldn't understand. People carried huge banners, and threw confetti into the air. Colored lights were strung in several of these back alleys, and people drank and cheered. When I got down there, I saw that it was a parade, in fact, several parades down almost every side street. I had no idea what all the celebration was about, but I joined in from the sidelines, laughing and dancing to the music. Fireworks went off, and some carried sparklers. The kids waved flags, and everyone together sang songs in a single voice. The Parades marched through the streets, and at every intersection they stopped and the party commenced again. Each parade was dressed differently, and carried different colors with usually different flags. Some of the spectators were dressed up as well, wearing masks or costumes, and dressing in the respective colors, while drinking and hollering with the rest of them. I had so much fun, and it was awesome that when one band moved on, I just walked down to the next intersection, and found another one. On my way through the alleys I found a local bar/cafe and had some dinner, and then sat out on the beach listening to the mixture of the waves, and the distant drums.

I walked from the beach across the bridge to the peninsula where the docks, and the long wooden deck reside. I sat down on a stone block, and caught up some of my blogs. The sky was pretty clear, and a crescent moon shone in the sky. I was more or less by myself on the docks, save for the occasional passerby, or wandering couple. It was quite peaceful. I listened to the sounds of fireworks bursting from the other end of the beach, and watched the light flicker from nearby parties. When I got walking back to Liz's house it was late, and there were still people everywhere. I was a long way from Liz's, out here on the docks so I hurried back, trying not to get in and wake everyone up at a really unforgiving hour.

Down Rambla Street, I passed bar hoppers, clubbers, drunks, and the occasional Spaniard selling 6 packs on the street at "discounted prices". I turned onto the street I was mostly sure was the one I was looking for, and wandered through the part of town which was semi sketchy. Fortunately, there were still several people on it, so I felt assured that I wouldn't be mugged. As I passed two guys staring at a map, they called out to me, but I kept on going. I figured they were trying to sell me something like pretty much everyone else on the street. They persisted after me asking for help, so I stopped and looked. They asked me something in Spanish that I could only discern a couple words of, but they wanted to know something about a specific club they were pointing to on the map. I said, I was sorry, and then I put my hand on my chest and said, "English". They said they were from Portugal, and were new here too. I looked at their map, and tried to find where they were pointing to to at least give them a direction, but couldn't figure out where they wanted to go. I apologized, and began to walk away. They thanked me, shook my hand gladly, and patted me on the back. One of them started getting uncomfortably close, and massaged my arm a little too friendly. I started to get the feeling they were drunk, because their actions were all over exaggerated, and when they shook my hand and leaned closer into me, they seemed to rely on me for support. Immediately as a reaction, my hands went into my pockets. As soon as I did this, they moved in a little closer, and one of them became fascinated with my belt buckle. He complimented me, and grabbed it for a closer look. I took my hands out of my pockets to shove him off me, and then the other one grabbed my arm, and I tried to pull away and suddenly realized that they weren't letting me go. I pulled back and shoved myself free, and just kept walking away. I put my hands in my pockets, and felt an emptiness which surprised me. My iPod was missing. I cursed under my breath, and then suddenly felt a tap on my shoulder. I wheeled around to find one of the guys standing there behind me with my iPod. He politely handed it back to me, and then just turned and casually walked away.

I stood their in stunned silence, holding my iPod in the palm of my hand. I was so confused. I quickly checked everything in my pockets, counted all my money, and checked every credit card. Everything was there, and now counting my iPod, accounted for. I couldn't figure out why they jacked my iPod, and then followed me down the street to hand it back. I opened up the iPod and thumbed through the song lists, knowing full well that there was no way in the 25 seconds my iPod was missing, they could have changed or erased anything. However, something different would at least make the moment a little less weird, but no; nothing was different.

As I continued walking onward, I was embarrassed that I couldn't figure it out, and even more so that I'd fallen into that trap in the first place. I'm always really good at identifying and dealing with pickpocket's and muggers. Several times on this trip people have tried both, and been unsuccessful. I learned techniques, and figured out general traits of people who want my money, and I've done well staying away from them. In crowded squares, I can see the guys going through the crowd with "sticky fingers", and when I notice them over my shoulder "casually" bumping into me, or letting their hands wander at their sides, my hands (even just without thinking now) go right into my front pockets (where anything valuable is), I make sure I'm actually touching the things a pickpocket might want, and then I look him/her in the eye as if to say "I know what you're doing" almost immediately, there's always a response, and they back off. For muggers (firstly I try not to even get into a situation where I might be mugged), If I notice someone following me down a street and there's no shop open or anything with people to duck into. I let him follow me to a spot where there is MORE THAN ONE other person, and then I turn to them and let them know that I see them. The confrontation, first of all, scares the hell out of them, and they can't do anything with people around. A mugger doesn't want you to know he's there, he wants to be able to make himself known on his own terms. If you let him know that he's not invisible, and there's people around, he'll bugger off. However if you do that when there's no one around, it'll just pressure him into mugging you right now. These are things I've gotten to know, walking around big cities by myself.

However I've never come across this sort of "gang bang pick pocketing." There wasn't much I could have really done about it once I'd fallen into it. They just kinda pinned me up against each other and had their way with my pockets.
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