a postcard from barcelona

It was still dark when we pulled into the Barcelona Nord bus station. After the twelve-hour, overnight, cross-country journey, we were decidedly groggy. Within 15 minutes of our arrival, a suspicious figure in the metro unzipped a luckily empty pocket of N's backpack. We arrived at our hostel at 8 am ready for a shower and found that we couldn't check in until 2pm. We found a café to have breakfast at and both the coffee and the tap water tasted weird.

It wasn't love at first sight.

Luckily I know not to trust my first impressions. And indeed, things started improving almost immediately. All it took was the sight of a group of children on a field trip at the city history museum -- school children that I was in NO WAY RESPONSIBLE FOR -- to lift my spirits. (The ruins of Barcino, the roman city the gothic quarter of Barcelona is built over, were also neat.) By the time we settled into a little restaurant in Sant Pere for lunch, I suspected Barcelona and I would get along.

(A hides behind a napkin. We may have been happier, but we were still caked in bus grime. At least we were well-fed!)

We did manage to shower that afternoon, as the rest of the gang trickled in to the city. At dinner that night at a quirky restaurant just off Plaça George Orwell sat a motley crew of North Americans currently living in Spain and France (including four McGill Political Science alumni/alumnae!). We finished our first night in the city with a coffee (also terrible) at Plaça Reial (so pleasant it made up for the bitter brew).

The following three days zipped by.

Let me preface my account of Thursday by saying that Barcelona is possibly the most tourist-infested city I have ever visited. Camera-toting, t-shirt wearing, foreign-language-speaking mobs were everywhere. We contributed to all of this of course, moving in big groups and nattering in English as we did. No day were we more touristy than Thursday, when JF, A and I settled into the open-top double-decker Barcelona tour bus and plugged in the turquoise-green earphones of the audio guide.


The marvelousness of the Gaudí monuments -- strewn throughout the city and therefore difficult to get to on a tight schedule -- made the protesting voice of my inner independent traveler much easier to ignore. Gothic art meets Disney's Fantasia -- how could your imagination not be tickled?

We were content to snap photos of the Sagrada Familia and La Pedrera from the bus, but hopped off in order to wander Park Güell. Cartoon-ish spires, whirly columns, sweeping staircases...it could have been made of candy. We skipped along the squiggled path to the top of the park, from where Barcelona, Mediterranean to mountains, poses for photographs.


At the end of afternoon we got off at the beach -- but refrained from dipping our toes in the sea (this time, JF). Later there was paella -- not typically catalán, I know, but delicious none the less.


Friday, Friday...the weather was beautiful. We strolled from our hostel to the colourful Mercat de la Boquería (one of my favourite stops of the trip) for fresh fruit breakfast. JF and I wandered the shops in La Ribera and admired the off-beat shoes, clothes and jewelery that I always expected to find in Barcelona. We lunched bread and cheese on a bench on Passeig del Born. JE joined us, and for dessert we had an eyeful of Picasso. Again, the tourists were overwhelming, and although I did enjoy the museum (highlight: the study of Velázquez's Las Meninas), I would have preferred a bit less hullabaloo.

And suddenly it was Saturday. I happened on a photojournalism exhibit on the Rambla and then found a café with seats in the sun and good coffee (at last) behind the market. I spent the rest of the morning induldging in my favourite Saturday activity: reading the newspaper. Went for lunch at Elisabets with JE and D, where I teased JE for drinking coffee while D and I dug into our appetizers.


Before I knew it, I was back at the bus station, trying to draw conclusions. I don't know if Barcelona and I are kindred spirits. It did take until Saturday in the sun (or maybe the decent coffee) for us to connect. I think, though, with more time, we'd probably find lots to like about each other.

In the end my favourite part of Barcelona wasn't the monuments or the food or the beach -- it was the two Js I shared the city with. As JF would say...guuuys, I am so happy we did this! (:oP)


More photos here.

poema que li sentada ao sol

PAIRA à tona de água
Uma vibração,
Há uma vaga mágoa
No meu coração.

Não é porque a brisa
Ou o quer que seja
Faça esta indecisa
Vibração que adeja,

Nem é porque eu sinta
Uma dor qualquer.
Minha alma é indistinta
Não sabe o que quer.

É uma dor serena,
Sofre porque vê.
Tenho tanta pena!
Soubesse eu de quê!...

- Fernando Pessoa

playing at carnival

Everything I needed to know about Carnival, I learned in Theatre Studies. Bakhtin, Shakespeare and Aphra Behn repeatedly prompted discussions about the suspension of social norms and the magical things that can happen on a Carnival night. A last-minute offer to ride with a colleague to Lisbon for the long Carnival weekend was too perfect to pass up. Licentiousness? Debauchery? Costumes? I'm there.

I popped my Carnival cherry in Torres Vedras, with cousin C and the rest of the gang.

I didn't take many pictures -- we were packed into the cobblestone streets so tightly that the jostling made taking out my camera difficult. At one point we scored a stoop, from which it was actually possible to dance. Those left in the swarm were bumped to the beat (or close enough) by the constant flow of naughty nuns, Pocahontases, human-sized beer bottles, Raggedy Ann dolls, a Pope, cartoon characters, miscellaneous animals, and battalions of cross-dressers.

My cousin and I wore matching Little Red Riding Hood costumes, which came in handy when it started to drizzle. The rain didn't seem to bother anyone, though -- not even the guy who climbed a tree in the plaza and ripped off his dress to show off his black lacy underwear.


Monday night at Bairro Alto in Lisbon was a similar story. On the coldest, wintriest nights the Bairro is full of people, standing outside the tiny bars with beers in their hands. On Carnival Monday, it was almost impossibly crowded and even more convivial than usual. I pulled together the standard cat costume with cardboard ears and a black stocking/coat hanger tail -- which invited congratulatory meowing from fellow revelers. My favourite costumes of that evening (possibly the whole Carnival) were the six people dressed up as youtube videos. They wore big cardboard boxes as computer screens, with a square cut out for their heads, and a long list of comments down their fronts. I almost ran into one of them who looked at me expectantly and said, "Download? Share?" Too funny.


I rounded out the weekend at the Tuesday afternoon parade in Sesimbra, a beach town 40 kms south of Lisbon. If it weren't for the people in the crowd wearing coats, you would have thought you were in Rio. Sparkly floats paraded, scantily-clad girls shimmied, and the samba drums beat loudly, with the calm waters of the bay as their backdrop.


As for the licentiousness and debauchery -- I'd be breaking the rules if I told you about them. Carnival excesses exist because we agree not to talk about them once Lent begins.

What happens in Carnival, stays in Carnival :o)