Barcelona

Arco de Trionfo, Barcelona, Spain.

Temple de Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain.

The train ride to Barcelona from Tarragona went quickly and we were able to make it there ahead of schedule. Because of the schedules for the trains we arrived at the Estacion de Franca at about 1:30 p.m. but didn’t depart for Milan until 7:30 p.m. Instead of sitting in the station (although beautiful) we decided to hoof it around the city a little and see what we could see around the station. We still had our bags and this made us not nearly as mobile. I asked a security guard at the station if they had lockers and he shook his head. The nearest place with lockers was the bus station Estacion de Nord and that was about a 15 minute walk. We decided it was impossible to see anything lugging around two backpacks each so we headed off to the station. A nice man in the station, who didn’t speak Spanish very well, gave us a map of Barcelona and off we trudged out the door.

The city was bustling with activity. I was surprised at the many different ethnic groups represented. Chinese, Americans, Japanese, Australians, Mexicans and many others that I couldn’t identify all bumped us and chatted as they walked by. We walked about ten minutes before we saw the Arco de Trionfo. It stood out against the skyline and was situated at the end of a long park that stretched for several blocks. Tourists were taking photos in front of the Arc and one German girl did a handstand while her friend took her picture.

We arrived at the bus station dripping with sweat and muscles straining. Relived to find the lockers, we searched our pockets for the five euro it took to rent them. Only able to find a couple of euros worth of change, Carolyn stayed to watch the bags and I went in search for more. I had asked my sixth retail shop owner for change without any success when one finally told me that at 2 o’clock someone from the station comes by and empties all their tills – it was 2:15. I walked back to Carolyn and gave the thumbs down sign from across the parking lot. A woman at an information desk (that I had originally asked before heading into the station} gave Carolyn change and we stuffed our bags into the locker and pulled the key.

We were so happy to have the weight off our backs. In Seville there are bikes you can rent to explore the city and we’d seen several banks of bikes on our walk to the bus station. Our plan was to ride these bikes all over Barcelona and give our feet a small break from the beating we were putting them through. We approached the rental kiosk and read the instructions on the screen. It required a tarjeta (card) to rent them. I asked a woman passing by where we could buy the cards to rent the bikes. Unlike Seville, these bikes were rented out on a monthly basis only and couldn’t be rented for just a couple of hours. Just as it looked like we would be walking around with our daypacks on we walked past a small Chinese store with all kinds of imports. We had been to one of these in Seville and had decided to buy a luggage roller for our heaviest bag but it hadn’t opened before we had to leave on the train. We bought our rollers and set off for downtown Barcelona with a sigh of relief.

We walked along the vias and saw the catedral down in central Barcelona. I’ve been sending postcards home from each city we go to and we stopped into a small tourist shop and bought a couple of the Temple de La Sagrada Familia. This was a beautiful church that reminded me of the Duomo in central Milan. On the map, the temple looked to be quite far from where we were. Carolyn pointed out the metro symbols and we saw that we were near an entrance. We descended into Barcelona’s metro system, which was surprisingly well organized. A woman working there was kind enough to give us the fastest way with the least amount of connections and a warning: watch out for ladrones. She pointed to our bags. The metros of major European cities all crawl with pickpockets. Because the laws are minimal to non-existent for their prosecution, they hit unsuspecting tourists in broad daylight with increasing regularity.

Without incident we exited the station at our last stop and looked up to see the temple’s shadow covering the entire square – it was massive. Just as massive was the construction going on all over the temple’s face. Large cranes and scaffolding circled the structure and the wind was blowing dust as if polishing a discovered relic. We grabbed a couple of pictures of the temple and an L.A. couple  (him with shiny white teeth and perfect hair and her with fake breasts) asked us to take their picture. The guy had noticed my shoes of all things – he wore the Reebok version of my Nikes.

We made it back to the train station with about an hour to spare and sat on the marble benches. Carolyn looked destroyed. When I came back from taking pictures of the station I watched her head bob up and down, fighting sleep. She was exhausted from what appeared to be food poisoning the day before and all the walking we did in Barcelona. The night train would be a welcome respite from all the travel and walking. We boarded the train like zombies and listlessly rolled our bags down the narrow corridors of the sleeper train. Finding our cabin, we opened the door and sat down on the seats to wait for the conductors to come pull our beds down. The cabin had a set of bunk beds, places to hang your luggage and bags, a small sink and accompanying mirror and a large window. Carolyn was already asleep in her chair.

I got up after about 20 minutes and asked one of the conductors when someone would be coming by to release the beds. He said it would be about 10 minutes. I knew exactly where this was going already. I sat back down next to Carolyn to wait when a young Chinese boy in the neighboring cabin began to scream. Shit.