Beti tells you 'hello'.
To get to today, I really have to start last night. Traveling from place can be a little difficult, especially now at the end of my trip, where I'm more limited in time and where I want to go. After going through the few options, I for some reason settled on a night bus from Nice to Barcelona. Not too terrible an idea, I suppose, but I wasn't so sure about it as the night went on. First, I had to find where the bus would pick me up. I found the address, and where it said to be, but that meant that I found myself in front of a construction site on an empty street, with the only thing even hinting that I was in the right place, was a printout in French clutched in my hand, and a teeny little bent sign that said "eurolines" stuck on the window of a locked stairway where I'm pretty sure people get murdered.
Thank goodness about half an hour later, a very lost looking gentleman approached me and asked if I was waiting for the bus to Spain. He had apparently been given even worse directions than I had, and had been wandering the streets with his parents for about 3 hours. Eventually more people arrived, all relieved that there were actually other people waiting for the same bus, so we were all pretty sure we were in the right place.
Finally the bus arrived, and simply stopped in the street to pick us up. Sadly, our tickets had no assigned seating, so I got onto the bus to find a single person in every set of seats. With no hope of sitting by a window or by my now new friend from the bus stop, I set out to find the least threatening looking person to wake up and sit next to. I settled on a small asian girl, who was maybe a touch possessive of the window seat.
I have to say, I actually slept fairly well for a bus. They had designed the seats well. Kudos, Alsa. (Alsa is the bus company). Through the night, some people got off at various stops, and I quickly snatched up my own set of double seats, and also claimed my window seat. Unfortunately, along with people being dropped off, some were being picked up. And this is where it just got bad. A plump Frenchwoman slapped my legs to wake me up and sit herself next to me. Which was fine. I still had my window seat. But then the smell. At first, I thought maybe someone had left the bathroom open. With a corpse in it. But no, I thought, it hasn't been long enough for a corpse to be smelling that bad. No. It was at this moment I realized it was the woman now sitting next to me for who knows how long. Now let me clarify- I don't mean the stereotypical French smell, like buy some deodorant or take an extra shower. Or a shower. No, it wasn't BO. It was death. Death had somehow crawled deep into this woman's bowels and was secreting itself out of her very pores. I could smell her organs rotting on her breath. I have been wandering the streets of Europe, and have never encountered this special brand of lethal stench. Oh. My. Gosh.
I got off at every break I could, and tried to discreetly cover my face. Thank heavens finally someone cleared 2 seats and she went to sit with her husband, after trying to get me to move to the open seats, for some weird reason.
I made it to Barcelona. Sweet, sweet fresh air and sunshine. Dressed in all my heaviest layers of clothing, and with my heavy bags, I dragged my sweaty mass through the metro system and into my air-conditioned hostel. I sat in my filth in the common room for 45 minutes waiting for my room to finish getting cleaned. And then, like the sweet holy grail, the light at the end of the tunnel, I got to take a shower. And it. was. glorious.
I was a new me. The bus ride never happened. Memories safely blocked away, I ventured out into the warm muggy streets of Barcelona.
I don't know what it was, but I had some weird idea in my head about Spain, and never really had a draw to it. I can't explain exactly what the prejudice was either, I just didn't really picture it for what it really was. It has grown on me. It has creeped into my little heart and snuggled in. I am actually quite happy to be back in Spain. Although in Barcelona, they still consider themselves to be Catalan. I love that. I actually think they should be able to be their own country again, but I shouldn't discuss politics. It's just not going to happen.
Spain has so much rich culture, wonderful food, friendly people, and beautiful, beautiful architecture. Barcelona in particular has extremely interesting buildings. At one point, there were a lot of modernist architects here, and you can see their awesome buildings all around the city. I first saw one from my bus, and flipped out. And, luckily, it ended up being right near my hostel
It basically looks like it it made from coral and undersea plant life. It is colorful, an wonderful, and crazy!
It turned out to be a Gaudi museum, one of the most famous modernist architects. This is one of his buildings. His work wsa known to have influences from nature.
Modernists aside, I love the aesthetic all of Spain seems to have. I spent most of the day just wandering around and seeing the city.
The buildings are really just gorgeous.
There is a major pedestrian street called 'Las Ramblas' which has a lot of shopping and eating, and ends at the Columbus monument at the ocean.
Technically he is pointing to Libya, but if he was pointing to America, he would be facing the mountains. He is pointing at the ocean. That is cooler.
I also found their huge food market. I'm so good at finding things.
As you probably guess, it was full of food. You can get fresh produce, fresh seafood, fresh baked goods. It was raaaad.
This in an ancient anchor from when Barcelona was all under water.
Ok that's a lie. But I doubt you believed me anyway. But who just leaves anchors lying around?
After wandering for far too long, I sat outside at a tapas restaurant, and ate these fried little fishy balls of deliciousness. But the best part comes next.
Paella! I've actually wanted Paella every time I've been in Spain, as I loooove it, but the difficult part is you almost always need at least 2 people to even order it. This place had mini paellas. I scarfed this down with a heart full of sunshine.
Get out. This blog is over.
0 comments:
Post a Comment