Volume 9: Pete in Barcelona - A sun soaked city with a tad too much full frontal public male nudity
Paris to Barcelona – I can’t feel my legs!
I, as a man fresh out of employment (or as I tell the ladies “semi retired”. Sounds a lot better than saying you’re unemployed and by extension sounding like a bum), was looking to save money on this trip where possible. Given my longest break in 4 years away from work had been 2 consecutive weeks, I was still keen to treat myself and spend some of that hard earned money. So, wanting to stay in a hotel in a great location with modern facilities and enough room to swing a cat (you never can be sure of local customs. Spain has the running of the bulls, so for all I know they could have the “swinging of the cats” so I don’t want to miss the opportunity to partake in local customs whilst also having an ample sized hotel room), one of the ways for me to save money was to reduce transport costs.
This allows me to introduce you to the crap shoot that is budget airlines; in this case Spanish budget carrier Vueling. Vueling I believe is a Spanish word that means “maintenance optional”. My seat was broken and would never remain in the upright position, something that must be consistent amongst Vueling planes as not once did any of the cabin crew ask me to bring my seat to the upright position on takeoff or landing. The broken seat was a happy diversion from the utter lack of leg room in between seats. I had absolutely no fear of a 9/11 type terrorist attack as there was no way a terrorist could have bounced out of his seat and stormed the cockpit as their legs would have been too numb with pin and needles. On takeoff I heard no request for passengers to turn off electrical devices, so I figured the pilot was up the front of the plane with a compass and a fold out map to navigate with no electrical navigational equipment to aid him. The flight also helped to remind me that while different countries have different cultures, one thing remains universal and bonds us all; crying babies on planes. Unbelievable, every flight ever! No matter where you are on the planet you will have crying babies on your plane.
So having gotten to the Paris Orly airport 2 hours before I could check into my flight. Having the medal detector breakdown at Paris Orly airport while my bag was in it and waiting 10 minutes for them to reboot the machine (waiting that long for a bag to clear gives you an insight into the nervousness a drug mule must have). Having been cramped into a seat on a plane from an airline whose business model assumes passengers are all under 4 feet tall or legless. Having discovered the airport bus to Plaça de Catalunya then deciding to hold onto my pee and hoping the advertised short travel time was correct. Having to refer to my phone map twice to find my hotel, and finally finding my way to hotel had made it a long day. A day that would finish by the rooftop pool with a reasonably priced beer.
Grand Hotel Central and the Rooftop – beer me
There’s some small things in life which I appreciate as they make life a little easier. One such thing is countries and hotels whose names provide an accurate geographical reference to where they are. For instance Central African Republic, which as the name suggests is a country centrally located in Africa. Back in the days of the cold war when there was a West Germany and an East Germany (sure the communist dictatorship was unfortunate for those forced to live in East Germany behind the Berlin Wall, but at the same time think of the convenience that adding a point on a compass adds to a country’s name when trying to find it). And Grand Hotel Central, my hotel in Barcelona, which when located on my fold out map, which had numbers 1-12 running vertically, and letters A-P horizontally, could be found in the H6 square. That is the very definition of centrally located. There was quite a grand elevator in the lobby, the building was a hotel and was central, so this may well be the most accurately named hotel I have ever stayed at.
The main thing that had drawn me to the hotel, except for its incredibly accurate name, was the rooftop infinity pool. I would conclude most days enjoying a beer whilst watching the sunset over the city on the rooftop, reminding myself to enjoy these little moments in life. Whilst also enjoying the little moments when the bar staff would forget my room number and then not charge me for the beer. As for the other patrons on that rooftop, they weren’t quite appreciating it as much as me. One night a young couple arrived at around 9:30pm. They ordered a bottle of white wine and settled in for a romantic night of…her on an iPad and him listening to something on his headphones. I was about to wander across and slap each of them upside the head for not appreciating the moment of being in each others company with a bottle of wine and a tremendous view, but eventually after 10 minutes they put down there electrical devices and partook in the dying art of conversation. Then there was another night when a middle aged American couple reclined on lounges; the wife ordering a red wine and the husband a VIRGIN pina colda. Are you for real man? When do you need to operate heavy equipment on holiday? Or an emergency cricothyroidotomy on someone with a pen? I once saw Hawkeye do that on an episode of MASH but when he wasn’t doing that he was getting hammered on moonshine made in his tent! A VIRGIN pina colda; I just couldn’t believe it.
The beach – where 1 wang is too many wangs
In a happy coincidence for the people of Barcelona, they have days of 34 degrees in August but a also a beach attached to the Mediterranean Sea allowing them to cool down from that 34 degree day in August. As a general rule while I’m on tour I always stop walking or sightseeing at 4pm and get a beer to reflect on the day. Due to the heat of the days and the sights on the beach, I would on most days bring this 4pm deadline forward to noon.
The beach in Barcelona whilst being made up of 1 long strip of sand, is technically made up 3 separately named beaches. At the southern most point is Platja de Sant Miquel (the patron saint of fat naked European men apparently. Never before have I seen so many wangs on a public beach), then further north is Platja de Sant Sebastia (from what I can tell the patron saint of topless women) and then at the northern most part of the beach Platja de la Barceloneta. From my understanding of Spanish if you put “eta” on the end of words it means “little”, which is a fair assessment as the breasts I saw at that part of the beach tended to be smaller than the Sant Sebastia area. The “little” also referred to the servings of food. One day I decided to escape the heat and have lunch at a beach side restaurant. I paid 12€ for a baby squid. That’s singular, not plural; a single baby. Thankfully, there was a woman on the beach in front of the restaurant massaging sunscreen into her breasts while I ate that single baby squid and so the rage over the excessive prices soon subsided.
On another day I ventured to the southern most tip of the beach and enjoyed a number of beers at a bar at the foot of the W hotel. People watching is one of my favourite activities and the people watching was good here. It started well with a big booty woman in a g string consistently bending over in front of me, but was soon ended when she left and 2 blokes who for some reason appreciated architecture more than the view of the beach so turned their deckchairs away from the water and toward the W hotel. Preferring topless women over men, I then directed my attention westerly to 2 women moving 4 deckchairs with more frequency than a general moving battalions during a hastily organised retreat. It’s not hard ladies! Put deck chair in shade and point at the water, repeat for remaining 3 chairs!
On another day I setup shop in a small beach side bar at Platja de Sant Sebastia (who I also discovered is the patron saint of poor service) where in between waiting 3 to 4 hours to get a drink, I watched 3 people laying out 2 beach towels looking to maximize surface space as if expecting a helicopter would need to land on it. I also noticed they only had 1 bike between the 3 of them, and in my semi intoxicated/semi sunstroke mind (mostly sunstroke, no way you can get drunk if its 4 hours between bar staff serving you) I was wondering how all 3 of them were going to ride that bike home, not for 1 moment entertaining the thought that all 3 of them could live at separate domiciles. All I wanted to see was 3 people trying to ride the 1 bike. Of course, I shouldn’t have been surprised by the fact it was taking 3 to 4 hours to get served given one of the barmaids had a tattoo of a cupcake on her arm. Much of her time would’ve been spent trying to explain to co-workers and customers why the f#$k she would get a prominently displayed tattoo of a cupcake. Mike Tyson’s face tattoo is easier to explain than that cupcake tattoo. As I drunk my 3rd beer at that bar, or in other terms 12 hours later, I noticed a smoker asking for a light. Why do so many smokers seem to lack the intellectual capacity to remember to bring both their cigarettes and lighter? Surely they both go hand in hand? It would be like leaving your house with your car keys and then asking someone if they had a car you could borrow. As I drunk my 4th beer at that bar, or in other terms 16 hours later, I pondered that to sit at home on your couch drinking beer with a TV in front of you getting your own beers you're considered to be doing nothing, yet travel 10,000 miles, sit on a deckchair with a beach in front of you with someone referring to you as "sir" getting your beers and you're considered to be doing something.
General observations and events – a city’s true character is judged by the smell of its sewers
When I arrived in Barcelona it meant I was in my 3rd country with my 3rd different language in 3 weeks. Having just arrived from Paris I would occasionally slip into poor attempts at French when talking to the locals as my brain occasionally got confused as to what nation it was in. If I opened up with Spanish it just would’ve meant I was confused when the Spaniard fired back with his response. At least when I opened up with French it meant both parties to the conversation were confused, so it put us on equal footing. While my Spanish in general is terrible, in turns out I must have excellent pronunciation of the words “hola” and “una” because as soon as I broke out those words the Spaniard would fire back his/her answer at 100 miles an hour. This is why I hate foreign language phrase books. They teach you how to ask a question phonetically, but of course a local never talks back to you phonetically, so most of the time when a local responds to your beautifully constructed, phonetically sound question you’re left thinking “I have no idea what he is saying. Just finish man, you’re wasting both of our times”.
When I arrive at a new city I always like to walk and walk as I find it’s the best way to discover a city and discover accidental surprises. As I first walked Barcelona the first thing I discovered was the smell of its sewers. It wasn’t like an overwhelming punch in the face, but at the same time it was bad enough to occasionally sneak up your nostrils to remind you you were walking on a few hundred tons of s#*t. I haven’t been in a city with such a noticeable reminder of a city’s sewer system since being in New Orleans, which is a party town so I always put that down to everyone’s AGBs (After Grog Bogs) from the previous nights drinking.
Barcelona in August is full of tourists; annoying tourists who were forever walking slowly and then stopping in front of me. It happened so often that I was tempted to embrace the local culture of bull fighting where I would pretend I was the bull and the person in front of me was the matador. When it wasn’t annoying tourists stopping in front of me, it was tourists stopping me to ask stupid questions. On one such occasion I was at the harbour and a French couple sent their young son over to ask me for directions to the beach. You’re at the harbour! Follow the water and when you hit that big f#$king sandy thing with all the water in front of it you’re at the beach! Its times like these you wonder how mankind ever set sail and discovered far off lands. Although, it appears stupid tourists have been asking that question for over a century, as when you come to the end of La Rambla you’ll discover the Columbus Monument constructed in 1888 which allegedly has him pointing towards the Americas, but I’ll think you’ll find locals got sick of tourists asking where the Mediterranean Sea is so just constructed the Columbus statue and positioned it atop a 60 metre column meaning it can be seen for miles around. And while on the topic of stupid tourists, what is the deal with people thinking an iPad is a convenient camera? If you offered a photographer from the late 19th century the chance to use an iPad they would say “thanks for the offer, but I’ll stick with my big ass camera as it’s easier to carry”.
People often jokingly refer to McDonalds restaurants as the American Embassy. If that is the case, I think Irish themed pubs should now be referred to as the Irish Embassy. Barcelona was full of them, a trend that seems to be happening across many cities of the world. It’s getting to the point that there are less Irish Pubs in Ireland than there are outside of Ireland. Don’t get me wrong, the Irish pub is an export the Irish should be proud of, but when I’m in a country other than Ireland occasionally I like to sample non Irish related culture.
The Barcelona sights – where quoting over 100 years to build something is normal practice
La Catedral
La Catedral, or as it’s known by people paid by the keystroke Catedral de la Santa Cruz y Santa Eulalia, or to those in a hurry its also known as Barcelona Cathedral, was located opposite my hotel so was essentially the first sight I ventured off to see. It was quite a grand structure and caught my eye as I walked down Via Laietana as I first arrived at the hotel. La Catedral was built with the usual trademark scintillating speed of a Spanish church construction, commencing work in the 13th century and finishing in the 15th century…and then commencing additional construction in the 19th century…and then finally downing tools in 1913 at the completion of the 70 metre central spire. Although, in fairness, the speed of construction was somewhat hampered by numerous civil wars and the Black Death (hot day go to the beach, call the boss “Sorry, not coming into work today, I’ve got the Black Death”).
As you work your way through the church you eventually come to the Font de les Oques, the “Well of the Geese” to you and me, completed in 1448. It’s essentially a small centrally located outdoor garden containing 13 geese. My initial thought was “what’s the f#$king deal with the geese? I don’t associate geese with being holy”. Then my next thought was “I probably shouldn’t be swearing in a church”. Then my next thought was “if the Catholic church is happy to let pedophilia happen in the church, god won’t be overly fussed by me dropping the occasion F bomb. Also, the fact that I may have been staring at the amble bosom of a bridesmaid at the last wedding I went to held in a Catholic church makes the swearing even less significant”. Turns out the 13 geese are to represent the 13 years that Eulalia (co-patron saint of Barcelona, the other is star football player Lionel Messi?) graced the earth. According to legend she was exposed naked in the public square (fair enough, it was 34 degrees most days I was in Barcelona, anything to beat the heat) but a miraculous snowfall in mid-spring covered her nudity (why your mother always tells you to bring a coat when you leave the house). If its one thing ancient Romans can’t stand, its unseasonal weather, so they chucked her in a barrel, stuck knives in it and rolled it down the street (thank god the iPad was invented to provide an alternative form of entertainment). If you’re a rock star and want to be remembered, die at 27. For all others there’s martyrdom at the hands of the Romans. The body of Sant Eulalia is now entombed in the cathedral’s crypt. Upon exiting the church I was greeted by a gypsy woman yelling. While I appreciated that she was at least making an effort to get some attention unlike the many meek gypsies of Paris, I seemed to have misplaced my wallet as I passed her.
La Sangrada Familia
As mentioned earlier, my love of walking a new city means I walk to most sights. My decision to walk from the hotel, with a detour to Arc de Triomf, may not have been the wisest. The fact that I had to turn my fold out map to the “Greater Barcelona” side to find it probably should have been enough to suggest the metro was a better option. The fact that it was another stinking hot day should have been the thing that seconded the motion to catch the metro. Anyway, stupid is what a stupid does, so I decided to walk there. It was about 2.5-3km from the hotel as the bird flies (having wings to flap on this day would’ve been handy to keep me cool) but closer to 5km as the idiot walks. So having walked for over an hour in the heat I felt like I’d put in as much effort as the crusades on this holy mission to see this church.
La Sangrada Familia follows the business model of La Catedral; quote the owner about 2 years work and then take over a century to finish the project. Work commenced in 1882, and now has an anticipated finish date of 2026. Many companies hire family members, but it seems if you’re the owner of a Spanish construction company you employ at least 10 generations of your family. La Sangrada Familia is another of Gaudi’s handy work. Spanish always banging on about Gaudi architecture. My first impressions of the church were that the towers were inspired by waffles, and that Gaudi was paid on a per Jesus on the façade basis. It was just a hosh posh of things thrown together; stick a Jesus here, a bunch of blokes standing around baby Jesus there, now I need a chick playing the harp here, well if I’ve got a harp then I’m gonna need trumpets as well. The somewhat randomness of it all reminded me of when a 3 year old draws a picture of their house and family. They’ll do something random like put the pet dog on the roof of the house and you’ll ask “why is the dog on the roof?” and the 3 year old will reply “why wouldn’t he be on the roof?”. Gaudi pretty much choosing the 3 year old’s drawing approach, but then actually building it. I would not be surprised to hear he had a dog on his roof. Gaudi died in 1926 with less than a quarter of the building done, so by my calculation there would’ve only been 50 Jesus’ on the façade by then. It’s quite fitting that at the base of 2 large columns there’s a turtle and a tortoise, supposedly to represent the land and the sea but probably a more accurate commentary on the speed of construction. The central spire of Jesus Christ will be 170 metres tall, 1 metre shorter than the Montjuic hill that overlooks the city as Gaudi believed that his creation should not surpass God’s (only took God 6 days to create the earth, so by taking over a century to finish the project shows that no man will ever surpass God’s construction speed).
I didn’t bother going inside as the lines were longer than a central spire of Jesus Christ, and as there were no geese or other holy birds like budgies inside I didn’t really see a need.
Montjuїc – the Jewish Mountain that didn’t seem to have any Jews and isn’t a mountain
Montjuїc, a Catalan word meaning “Jewish mountain”, is the “mountain “(at just over 170 metres tall it’s a hill, it knows it a hill, please call it a hill) that overlooks the city. To scale this mountainous hill I caught the Telefèric cable car from down near the beach. At the entrance to the Telefèric was a security guard that looked like a vigilante cop. He had a baton, handcuffs and a walkie talkie. So if you jumped the line he could have beat you and called for backup so some more blokes could beat you even more. Suffice to say, I didn’t contemplate jumping the line. What troubled me more was he didn’t have a seat to relax in the heat, so I couldn’t help but think back to a Seinfeld episode when George Costanza organised a seat for a security guard in a store. With the Spanish economy haemorrhaging and high unemployment, I decided to buy return tickets on first the cable car and then a connecting gondolier up to Castell de Montjuїc purchased atop the great devoid of sherpa mountain. In both cases, I didn’t use either of the returns tickets. I could have excused buying a return ticket for the Telefèric cable car, but for the gondolier I should have known there was no way I was walking back up the hill after visiting Estadi Olimpic midway down the hill that was now starting to feel like a mountain in the excessive heat.
Castell de Montjuїc is a fortress set atop the great mound of dirt. It affords great views of the city, good enough to help you forget the money recently wasted on return tickets for cable cars. It also helped me forget about the French family that cut in front of me when buying tickets for the gondolier. It’s a shame they didn’t speak English, and therefore, couldn’t understand my colourful profanity laden commentary on their personality flaws and my suggestions that the French are only aggressive when it comes to line jumping and surrendering a weapon to a German in WWII. Anyway, I was busy enjoying the view from Castell de Montjuїc. Dating as far back as 1640 it provided a 360 degree view to defend the city, but at various times in history was actually used to attack the city (probably by the pissed off owner of a church who was quoted 2 years work but was now entering its 2nd century). During the Napoleonic wars the French actually captured the castle as troops guarding the castle were ordered not to fight the French, so it was captured without a single shot being fired (the “not firing a shot” strategy from then on would be used by all French armies up to and including WWII).
After enjoying the view from Castell de Montjuїc, I repelled further down the mountain to Estadi Olimpic. By now it was past my noon deadline to have a reflective beer, so I ordered a beer held in such a big container it walked the line between cup and bucket, and planned to enjoy it in peace. That was until some whinging f#$king kids spent 20 minutes making noise. All over f#$king Barcelona! Whinging f#$king kids! The stadium hosted the 1992 Summer Olympics, the 1990s of course being the last decade it was still socially acceptable to slap a misbehaving child. It was also going to be host to the People’s Olympiad in 1936 (Hitler hadn’t even invaded Poland yet but was still universally recognised as being an asshole) but the event had to be cancelled due to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. The Peoples Olympiad promised to be a rocking event as it was supposed to also include chess and folk dancing (“horizontal folk dancing” is of course an event that takes place at the modern Olympics, it’s just its isolated to the bedrooms of the athletes in the Village). What is more amazing is that at least 200 athletes remained in Spain and joined local militias (See Sangrada Familia: check. Go to beach: check. Fire shots at nationalists: check. Not your traditional tourist itinerary).
Camp Nou
The Camp Nou, the new field, home of the Barcelona Football Club. Home of the 23 euro self guided tour. After walking through their trophy room, or should that be trophy rooms, one couldn’t help but think they could reduce the price of the tour by taking some of those trophies to Cash Converters. So many trophies. Donald Trump could live for 1 thousand years and his trophy wives would still never equal the number of trophies in the stadium. The tour also allowed you to go to the commentary area and into the locker rooms (BYO own towel to twist up and snap friends’ ass). As you walked out onto the stadium you could see the clubs slogan “MES QUE UN CLUB” which I believe loosely translates into “the club thanks you for taking all your money”. Not happy with slugging the punters 23 euro to do the self guided tour, you could also be parted from your hard earned by getting your picture taken with the champions league cup or against a green screen where they photo shopped you into a picture with the players. Camp Nou, whilst been home to the most successful team in recent years in Spain, also is home to the most successfully budgeted building in the history of Barcelona from what I can tell. It only went 336% over budget, while somehow finishing inside of a century (only 3 years!).
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