Date: 07.01.2009
I wake up slowly as usual, the alarm clocks plays several times I jump out of bed and drag myself to the shower, that unfortunately doesn’t’ have any hot water, how lucky that I had a massive bath before leaving England, cause now I m going to be very smelly for the next 2/3 days. I return the Giant shampoo to Ronen and try to get him out of bed, he mumbles something and I head off to the kitchen, need to get loads of sandwiches ready and to have some breakfast is going to be a long day and we need all the calories we can get hold of. As we getting out we realise Tom is having a shower… wonder if he knows any trick to get to hot water running or if he is a bit masoquist. We get rid of the baggage, Alice mentions how unsafe it might be to leave it in Hostel on the way to the supermarket across the road to buy some more supplies for the day. We pass my reference point the big old brewery that we can see from the Hostel, we see Tom on the way to the subway passing the Hospital with a friend, its time to go the Saints Train Station to book our tickets to the first overnight train, we need to make sure we get to Madrid tomorrow, we can have all the fun today but we cant forget to board on that train.Alice is loving the little shops in the train station, whilst we sort out the tickets and Ronen sorts out meeting his friends later on, after waiting for him we head off. Now we need to find out what direction to go, we are going to start our Barcelona tour from the point we had decide yesterday we were going to end it.
I cross the road running to see the names of the streets around that big square and come back running, oops I forgot to check the traffic lights, there will come the day I‘ll get run over but it wont be today. We start walking in the toward the castle’s mountain. We see trees and a steel dragon, how cool!!! I get all excited and start jumping around the stairs, I find a little slide and get them to come around to slide down! Me and Ronen slide first getting all dirty and wet, Alice slides the bag to us and then she slides down! Lol Ronen gets all excited and does it again!! Its good fun but we need to make a move so we carry on walking, making a little stop in a internet café as Ronen still needs to get in touch with his friends
.As we are walking around I ask “how do we know we are going in the right direction?” and then I see it as I move my head towards the right hand side, the big palace welcoming us to the beginning of the exploration, its breathtaking, we run excited to the centre of the big roundabout, it seems that since I’ve learned to run in the middle of places I
not meant to, I cant stop it!! And worst now I passed it to them!! We have a laugh take some pictures next to the amazing fountain, full of detail and statues, and run off again. Without realising we passed all those big buildings and we are climbing up the stairs, there was some electric stairs but we are such tourists that we decide to go the hard way. There are so many steps that I decide to start counting, but it doesn’t last long for me to give up, there’s way too many but its worth it, the view is Awesome, Barcelona seems huge, we can see everything, the big buildings, and the amazing border of mountains covered in white, we don’t even feel the cold anymore after all this steps and the unforgettable view, I want to stay trapped in this moment forever, I want to go to those mountains!!Guided by Alice around the little mountain we see another building this one is not very exciting at least not from the outside! We are too poor and short of time to see any of this in detail, we risk it by going to some trail to get quicker to a funky tower we saw earlier and walk up to it. Once we get to that tower, we take a few more pictures and we realise that truly Barcelona is everywhere, what a massive city, we can see the castle from here on one of the hills of Our mountain! By accident we find the Olympic stadium, none of us looks to impressed with the size of it, it’s a tiny sweet stadium with a cool big old clock and some funky statues of horse riders next to it, still cant believe we couldn’t figure out it was a stadium from the outside!
Ronen time with us is running out as he has to meet his friends soon, we walk to the Castle that seems to take forever, there is a cable car on the way, we might go there later, I feel all inspired and take a few good pictures with Ronen and Alice’s cameras, really miss my camera now, this place has a lot of potential, could stay here endless hours taking pictures, Barcelona is getting bigger every minute, from here we can see the big marina with all those cruises… aww those cruises, I wish we could just jump on one of those and get out in the next port, but we are only happy penniless travellers we cant afford to do it… one day, for now I will dream with bigger travels, and we will go around this Castle exploring what might be the most perfect city in the world, after Lisbon this is…We leave the Castle and make our way to the cable car, we check the prices and straight way I just think it has to be done, and so we do it, cause if not, we will only regret it, we get the tickets and say bye to Ronen, he s heading off the centre by bus, I give him a big hug. What a exceptional place to say goodbye, love the scenery, I m sure in those melodramatic books where people say goodbye for the whole eternity is in places like this, so I give this brief goodbye to our very new traveller friend a poetic meaning, and excited and hungry we jump on the cable car, love the scenic landscape, cant get over the snow covering those mountains in the distance, so perfect, the ride feels too quick and we jump off, get out of the little station and seat in the middle of a little roundabout crowded with statues of children, eating Filipinos, round cookies made of dark chocolate covered in white chocolate, yummy!! Alice’s cravings for sweet things do pay off!! While we are eating Alice realises the cable car didn’t finish there, it was only the first stop!!! Oops!! We run off back inside the lady doesn’t want to let us back in, and insists that once you’re out of the station you’re not allowed back in, thanks to our stubbornness, valid arguments and a phone call she made to her supervisor we are allowed back in!! Yay, we just still cannot believe we missed it!! Don’t think anyone in the world would be able to do this!! And this is only the first day, what else can happen??…
Whilst having a personal conversation, goin
g down the hill and passing to some funky graffiti walls, and some weird trees covered in something looking like sharp less rose nails, with some weird fruit which according to a old lady, looking a bit like those the pigeon lady from “Home Alone”, are not good to eat, we make it to the modern area of Barcelona. Alice really wants to see the wiggly bridge, I would love to actually cross it to head off to the beach, but I look at the mobile and as we received 20 minutes ago a text from Tom asking us if we want to go meet him at the Tapas Bar, we just completely forget about our new ideas of where to go and head off as quickly as we can to the bar hoping he is still there, passing some funky Circus carriages on the way.We get to the bar, Alice looks a bit shocked with all the Jambon hanging out from the ceiling, I look around and let me be taken by the whole environment, its like a long crowded corridor with all sort of people standing and food all over the place, people throw the rubbish to the floor, the little kids are sitting down the high cupboards, and I m loving it, I mention to Alice how this would never happen in England, and I don’t want to go back, tired of all the nonsense endless rules about health and safety and children related if they misbehave and fall they will know not to do it again, I like it, its
so cool to be here, there’s no background music though, but there’s no need for it, there’s all the sound of different conversations, laughter, people eating and enjoying themselves. As soon as Tom sees us, he orders our food and a bottle of Cavas Rose and only then he realises that Alice doesn’t drink, so we have to drink it between the two of us. Oops, that wont take long by the way he pours it into our cups. We get some amazing dessert, Alice doesn’t get her hot dog in the end, I think the guy who we ordered it to, left the building, still cant believe this is the quiet time of the day, after 4 will get really busy according to Tom, (as its not busy enough!!!) The amazing wine bottle only cost €2.10, after 4 they only sell the little cups which are like €0.40 each, Tom takes a bottle home with him and I wish Id done the same thing, I m feeling slightly tipsy, Alice looks at me realising I might be a bit drunk, I think its funny, really want more of that… hmm…We walk towards the old gothic town, passing the old great amazing post office building, we say bye to Tom exchanging emails, so we can hopefully meet one day somewhere
out there.The old Gothic town for some reason looks at bit dark, narrow streets surrounded by tall buildings, some of the quietest passages really take me to a time where I haven‘t lived… Would love to see these streets in a bright sunny day. We carry on distractedly looking at the dazzling shops, making our way out of the old town with all those outstanding buildings with so much detail, the streets start to get busier it’s the end of the day, the sky is gorgeous reminds me of a twisted rainbow with different tones of pink and blue, everyone is finishing work and we are walking in the busy main street, where everything happens, we even have background music to the perfect city atmosphere, “Every step you take” being played by some street musicians… live music always makes me smile, wherever it might be. It just makes the world magically into a better place. We get to the first Gaudi building and I stare dazzled by the complexity, looks a bit like a caveman work done perfectly, a bit like the Flintstones houses, just bigger, with some skull looking balconies, contrasting with walls full of dots and splashed paint. After the next one, we head off once again to the Sagrada Familia, we might get lucky this time.
Unfortunately its pitch black again, and there are not many lights illuminating the big monster in front of us, we can see the shape of it, but we will not be able to take pictures of it with Alice’s little camera and just a few lights, so we decide that we are tired and head off to the Hostel to pick up our stuff, to relax and we could also go to the shop to get more food.
The hostel its cosy and warm, me and Alice get to the sofa completely ignoring everyone and have a little nap, that we make last as long as we can, right there in the common room, and then stick to the plan. Get the subway and go back to Sants Train Station.
As soon as we get here, Alice goes around the shops looking for a little souvenir, I m worried about the time, there’s only 7 minutes left for the train to leave when Alice leaves the shop, which means we got to run, and run fast! We get to the train and sit down somewhere… I literally mean anywhere, as Alice wants to stay in random seats, but I go around trying to find where is our little moving home for the next 10 hours, when I find it get Alice who s on bare foot already and pick up our stuff.
I love our little home for tonight, there’s only one lady here and seven seats left, cool! Hope no one else gets in here, it’s the first time we are staying in these little cabins, really feels like we are in some sort of old film of which for now I don’t want to get out of. The Spanish lady is very friendly and patient, as she helps me out with my Spanoportuguese, her name is Margarita, she’s from Chile living in Barcelona, she is on her way to Madrid to get a Visa to visit her two baby girls in the States, we talk about everything and nothing at all, well I did want an opportunity to practice some Spanish and now hopefully I’m literally stuck with it. A couple who I assume is Spanish joins us, they look nice enough, don’t join in the conversation but that’s fine. Later on another member for our little cabin group joins us, he’s very slim and tall and has a massive old style brown suitcase with him, I wonder straight way where his from, who is he, and millions of other things that only women or artists can wonder, I’m feeling like I am creating a fictional character for this story already. As he joins our conversation I find out his name is Charly, he’s French currently living and studying something boring thing in Madrid. A couple of minutes after Charly joining our conversation, I turn to Alice to carry on translating the conversation but she is fast asleep with her feet on top of his suitcase, we all agree that she looks comfortable and let her sleep, we chat for a couple of hours, Charly seems to be very interested on doing an InterRail, so I give him all the info, and at some point we all decide to sleep and we make the lights go a bit dimmer. Another passenger comes to our cabin which is getting a bit crowded, Alice wakes up. She can’t sleep, she decides to make a move to the carriage’s corridor. I keep an eye on her as I worry she’s probably freezing, suddenly she disappear, as I wait for her to come back and she doesn’t, I’ll go to the many times used toilet and then check where did she go, I find her in the bar sleeping, and she’s not the only one. There’s people all over. I head off to the cabin for the last little sleep of the night.
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