The Barcelona Trip Report

(Note: Each part of this blog was written the evening it ended. Here are a few references, if you need them: Barcelona, Catalonia, Gaudi, La Pedrera, Sagrada Familia)

Travel day – Day one, 27 May 11

The flight from Munich to Reus (where Gaudi was born) is cramped, loud and chaotic. Stewardesses can’t get through the water landing/death drill. People are snapping photos of them and talking. Every hair-in-a-bob demonstrator flight attendant is glassy eyed and look like they’ve been meth binging like cross country truckers.

My seat feels like a bad carpenter slammed two sheets of rough plywood, some old towels together and a fewspare two-by-fours for arm rests. My surgically repaired knee and the other that’s declining faster than Adrian Brody’s career are smashed into the electric chair in front of me. It’s a flying Gitmo with half warmed panini and ads on the overhead bins.

The plane thankfully lands. The azure above the clouds gives way to grey below. We Donner Party our way from the aircraft to the terminal. The sights along the way include the guts of the exposed baggage carousel and what appear to be several Dow chemical plants. This walk couldn’t have lasted longer if we had done it scraping our asses across the concrete like itching dogs.

Bags handled, we find our bus port, Número Quatro. Unfortunately, crazy kids and their want for pensions, health insurance and better house music are stopping things up in Barcelona like a Velveeta cheese binge. The bus will be an extra hour late. Instead, we pop into a taxi. Spain’s first charm quivers into view. The driver has a Chihuahua. It’s shaking like an electric razor. We’re dropped at the train terminal.

Trains are cheap in Spain. Our fare from Reus to Barcelona is about twenty bucks, including the 15-minute delay due to those same crazy socialist Turks. Every window inside the thing is slathered with grime. Pulling out of Reus, my gut tells me I should have sat on the RIGHT side, beachy features and all, instead of the left, which has a teraflop of graffiti that would make Banksy blush. The ride is 90 minutes. My wife and daughter on one side of the aisle (that beach side). I get the tuberculosis candidate next to me.

There is little more through the stained window than industrial squalor. Factories, warehouses and hug the train tracks. Balanced faith keeps me believing the set pieces from “El Cid” will pop out, but none ever materialize. Just condos, townhouses, and half worked farms that look tired and unused.

Train stops. We off, wandering up a broken escalator, or “stairs” a brilliant mind once said. Pushing past 8:30 p.m., traffic is heavy, people scurry and what remains of the daylight gives way to the fluorescent, tungsten and neon of night. Or cab driver looks more web programmer than driver. We’re awayed quickly. At first the buildings are old and worn. More graffiti. More damage. Then a right turn into transition, and suddenly, it’s like the Olympic Committee returned and said, “Clean this shit up.” brilliant restaurants, theaters and stores line the streets. We stop. Our hotel is near this.

Inside, we’re pulled up to the seventh floor and let into our room. Due to its size, there’s a 7:1 chance this place doubled as a janitor closet once. It smells of ammonia and lavender. We drop our bags, and speed out again famished, looking for something that will fill stomachs and help us sleep.

Italian cuisine graces us nine and a half hours after the start of our first car ride. There is old and new charm. Stoves with ceramic handles. Liquor bottles lining a back wall. Oak beams crossing the ceiling. Wine glasses clinking and shining. Every entrée is amazing and cheap. Our speed finishing is wholly American. Other customers are staring at us as if the staff let homeless people dine.

Ten p.m. passes. The 5-year-old, who has been singing, dancing and constricted for a graveyard shift, flops into bed like a rag doll. My wife succumbs. Stare as I might at the pillow, I’m driven to tap my the experience of this day into my iPad. Travel day ended, I remain hopeful that Barcelona’s charm emerges for our days out.

Day Two – 28 May 11

This place. This place is like a first love, the kind you stay up all night on your porch and talk about favorite ice cream. Following a day of travel that paralleled “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” the sun rose. By 8:30 we were through the lobby and on our way to the first site, Sagrada Famila. Along the way, we bump something else Antoni Gaudi created. We’ll have to catch that Sunday.

Sagrada Familia, however, is the castle Walt Disney would have built given a Saturday night dose of LSD. Breathtaking as facades go, with curves and undulating lines like a belly dancers. Reminiscent of almost nothing, the structure must have landed here before Gaudi imagined it, let it’s aliens off and stayed unfinished. Waiting in line is quick and painless. We are inside before we can think of bitching about the wait.

Glorious is the first word I could muster after a long inhalation and blinking my eyes. Curves and pillars soar upward. Stained glass tints granite and stone. Jesus hangs on a center piece that looks like someone constructed a lovely chandelier for a communion. Every tilt of a head brings some new angle that gets snapped by my camera. Meanwhile, my 5-year-old AB is thinking about a stuffed “Tweety” from the stand out front. Different strokes.

In and out in about the time it takes to watch an episode of “Angel,” we’re off to the hop-on, hop-off bus. This is the greatest invention in the history of tourism. Every fantastic Barcelona tourist spot gets a bus stop. Every stop has a bus waiting. There are plenty of seats on the top and bottom of the bus.  Did I mention the sun is out and it’s about 72 degrees? We’re off to Park Guell.

As parks go, this place looks as though Lombard Street in San Francisco smashed into Willy Wonka’s creations. Gaudi’s twists and eclecticism spiral through every point. The tile-covered lizard. The curling bench on top of the park with the view out over the city. This was supposed to be a private housing area. I’m glad no one followed the covenant. Musicians, dancers and bands dot the place. Now the whole visit is getting a free love feeling and I love it. Barcelona’s heart beats in this park. Climbing the hill to get here is a hike closer to my local Partnachklamm than party time, but worth every step. Flower gardens line the outsides should you need to duck the crowds. Every scent in the air is fresh and alive.

A 10 percent off coupon and a finicky daughter push us to Subway for lunch. My wife and I laugh at the irony, but it’s what our daughter eats. Once finished, we’re off to La Rambla. These two kilometers we walk start with birds, hamsters and tortoises for sale from sidewalk vendors. These tortoises are 17 bucks. The ones in Germany are 170 bucks. We’re interrupted by Mercator de La Boqueria, a stunning, immersive food market.

The Mercat is a grid of fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses, and spices. Every sniff of air is lined with strawberry, smoked bacon, fresh cod and chocolate. Sweet desires get the best of us. We buy a bag of liquor-filled chocolates and nibble as we go. There’s so much. Our lunch saves us from sampling something at every stop. We make an exception, however, at the glasses of cold sangria on our way out. We pause on a bench and reflect on how lucky we are.

Our walk continues. Flowers and artists take up the final leg before we reach the port. Sunshine has killed any remaining clouds. This inspiration pushes us toward a boat ride around the harbor. Three massive cruise ships, including One of Mickey’s personal barges, line the docks. Waves are calm and water is blue. The 35 minutes it takes are a great opportunity to rest. From the water, Barcelona’s industrial and old age mesh like two old friends.

The anchor drops and were back on the bus. My daughter demands beach time. We reward her with a dash down to Port Olympic and Platja Nove Icaria. We have no towel. She rips her clothes off as fast as she can and is in the water, past the AARP aged topless sunbathing ladies. AB jumps toward the sun. She’s so happy. My wife and I sit and watch her. After a while, I march out and buy a towel. Dried and warm, we seclude ourselves for dinner on the beach. I eat Octopus. AB eats pizza. Dee delves to the salmon as the sun starts to set. Perfect weather. Perfect moments.

We catch out last bus ride back to protest plaza and then toward our hotel. AB and I occupy the time playing rock, paper, scissors while Dee listens to the bus narrative. We are beat. We’ve walked more than we’ve rode and every leg muscle is reminding us of that. AB is sleepwalking, jumping and running trying to keep herself awake.

Sleep might have taken me if the European soccer championship weren’t on in 20 minutes and if FC Barcelona weren’t playing. Both those things are true. I leave Dee and AB to fall asleep and make my way to the lobby, buy a beer and sit in front of the massive HD television. I would go find a bar, but I’m dog tired. This is perfect. A family from Austin, Texas, joins me. It’s 90 minutes of suspense. Barcelona wins. Fireworks begin going off outside. One explodes (EXPLODES) dangerously close to the hotel front doors and scares us all. Cars honk horns. People are singing in unison. When the final minute ticks off, the tank goes empty and I head upstairs.

This place. I’ve spent 15 hours on the stoop with it. Is it too early to tell it I love it so? Is there a three-day rule or should I go out with it again tomorrow? I have no choice. We have to go out again tomorrow and then take our chances on a long-distance relationship.

Day Three – 29 May 11

Out the door by 8:45 a.m., we bump into one of the few cafes open early Sunday morning. Powered sugar is lining the top of what I’m eating. Dee goes with a croissant. AB is eating something. That’s rare. Turns out she’ll need her energy.

First stop is La Pedrera, another Gaudi concoction. This building’s apartments, but with all his curves and add-ons. There’s a museum here, too, and one of the exhibits shows you where he gathered inspiration for the work. A python skeleton, for instance. That’s apparent in here. The halls re made up like that, arches that line the way like a brick bone structure. The roof is more undulations and odd towers and shapes. There are only three floors viewable, but worth the ticket price.

Hop on to the bus and up to the Blue Street Car, a wood and metal dinosaur complete with clanging bell. It carries us up about half the hill. We’re pulled up the other half by the funicular. Once up top, there’s a massive church with a massive stone Jesus perched on top, arms spread welcoming us. Views of the city of Barcelona from here are breathtaking.

Oh. And there’s an amusement park. It’s called Tibidabo and it’s been here for some time, wrenched into the side of the hill like a crashed starship.  There’s a slime ride instead of tea cups. We saddle the carousel first, which is plastic and slow. We rush toward the bumper cars. I pushed the gas and AB handles the steering wheel, smashing us into a post and giving me the weekend’s only injury. Pink and fast, our bumper car is to be reckoned with once AB figures it out. We wanted that to last longer. After lunch, we hop into some sort of airplane ride. If you’re familiar with the “South Park” gag about the Line Ride, it’s exactly like that, except you sit in a seat the size of a toaster slot and it’s slower.

Later, we manage to find a flume ride. Two giant falls and splashes. “I loved getting soaked, Dad!” yells Annabelle. Me, too. We grab our souvenir photo and head toward the roller coaster. Screaming and rumbling in the air, that took some convincing to get AB on, but she’s in. Bar’s down on this crimson beast and we’re up, up and away. And it turns out this is the fastestrollercoasterI’veeverbeenon. This thing moves like a sports car. Hills are deep and turns quick. AB is whipping around. I’m just trying to find the camera for the pose and pay five bucks for it later.

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