I feel apologetic writing about Barcelona. Everyone I talked to loves it. I didn’t have a good time there, sorry.
I met really nice people right off the start. Two Frenchmen in my hostel room introduced themselves, and insisted I come to dinner with them. They had heard of a place just down the block. They pronounced my name with this lifting French accent that was inviting. “Come on Dirk. You must come Dirk. What else? Come on Dirk. We know of a place.” They were great.
So were the rest of the people I met hanging around with them. They were all great people, who spoke French. Tourists from France, or Eastern Canada. The Spanish employees at tourist hubs, like train stations, spoke French as their second language. I don’t have a second language, so I can certainly not fault them for failing to have a third, but it was isolating, and somehow exhausting to be on the edge of understanding for hours at a time.
I followed them to a couple of clubs. Lots of beautiful people and alcoves with strange lighting and modern lounging furniture. Huge haute sterile affairs, lonely places, or so they’ve always felt to me.
I tried to shake my funk with a walk up one of the main plaza streets, a tourist hot spot. Beautiful buildings along a wide tree lined pedestrian area. The space was lovely, the experience was not. Every thirty paces stood a guy blowing a whistle making this rhythmic rolling high pitched sound; a rave kid nightmare. I never did come to understand if they were selling the whistles themselves, or using that as an attraction to sell you something else, although I couldn’t imagine either approach being successful.
The sound chased me from all directions as I weaved through the crowded alley of trinket vendors and buskers. Street performers can be amazing, but these were all modified versions of the “The Statue”, which many of them did well, very imaginative costumes. Still, no magicians, jugglers, singers, musicians, dancers, or acrobats. Just crowds, commerce, “The Statue”, and the whistle sound track. At night this area is patrolled by surprisingly unattractive, yet very aggressive prostitutes. It was all bringing me down, man.
The culmination of the street was a huge square with a fountain at it’s centre, surrounded by stone figures. The sculptures were built to the scale of divinity, set on podiums, so you have to look up to see their beautiful looming feet. The buildings, everything, it all started to feel that way. Like it was built to impress the peasant or the invading army; magnificent and imposing.
I had to resort to an English pub. World Cup was on. I scribbled in my book, met a guy, his bachelor party, and a nice fellow from the Netherlands who worked on a ship that repaired local beaches by moving sand from the bottom of the ocean. The bartender spoke enough English that she qualified as the only resident of Spain I managed to have a conversation with. She was pretty, which was nice, although she recommended the pizza, which was horrible. Not a total loss, the evening was not very Spanish, but it got me back on the upswing.
Still, I had written Barcelona off. I just needed to kill the morning and then it was off to the airport to meet my girl. I undertook one of my aimless wanderings and it led me through this park; it was amazing. The massive fountain built into a sloping hill was beautiful and inviting. Kids splashed in it and small groups wandered the surrounding path which invited you to view it from different angles. And, all the interesting people in the city were here!
I joined those lounging in the sunny grass; couples and kids and families. A few guitars and frisbees, jugglers, some tight rope walkers practicing in the trees, yoga, a guy manipulating glass spheres, hula hoops, and two young men struggling with a hand to hand stunt. Hey! I know that one, but the language barrier kept me from telling them. Men threaded their way though the crowds quietly offering cold cheap beer they sold out of plastic grocery bags. It was my sort of place, the antithesis of the touristy plaza. So I lingered, and came around to think that maybe Barcelona and I had a future together after all.



When I arrived in the city, on my way in from the airport, every time I stepped off a train the next train was right there, it was a journey of green lights. It was the experience I used to time my trip back to pick up my girl, which was filled with red lights. I was late, but just a little.
Wait, what! Terminal 2, there’s a Terminal 2! Fuck. How do I get there!? Another train! Fuck. And so, I am running, sweaty, stressed out, and an hour late, when I see her, looking worried, exhausted, and so tiny with her backpack on.
She sees me, and bursts into tears. When we pull back from our embrace I say, “I love you. Let’s get the fuck out of here.” It’s nothing personal, it was just timing, and my heart was somewhere else. It wasn’t you Barcelona, it was me.


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