Barcelonaaaaa

Theme tune for this post!

We woke up in this huge hotel, a load of display cabinets housing old typewriters and computers dotted around the floors. The sky was misty which blocked a bit of the view from our hotel balcony – we were in the middle of a national (natural?) park. It was like a little rainforest and lickle birdies (still no bikinis) were making that lovely little whooping noise they do in the meditation recordings I listen to! <3 It was misty but there was no rain and Anf seemed to be disappointed about the lack of rain… In fact, our Anf spent most of the day in Barcelona highlighting to me (over and over again) that I’d said it would rain and that it wasn’t raining. (I suppose I could get a complex about this, overthink it and wonder if he’s trying to teach me that I can be wrong every now and again. Crazy little mind of mine? Stream of consciousness?)

The hotel doubled up as a training college for students of business and, up until this point, we seemed to be the only guests. There was just one other couple at breakfast and we checked out around 9am, heading into Barcelona centre.

It wasn’t until we got proper central that we realised we didn’t really have a plan. I’d been to Barcelona before and had said to Tone that it was down to him to choose what we do here (I’d led the way in Melilla and Sevilla – it was his turn now!). I said it would rain and it didn’t. We’d agreed a sight-seeing tour on top of a bus would be rough if it was raining but we hadn’t discussed whether or not we should go ahead now that the weather was fine. (I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned but I said it would rain and it didn’t.) Anf said he’d like to see the cathedral and we drove past one in the centre of town. I remembered the Gaudi cathedral being much bigger…

It was only at this point that I realised how difficult our Anf finds it to make decisions. I’m not alone!! He seemed very indifferent about what to do (can one be very indifferent?! And is it possible to be stitipous or do we always need to be superstitious?). We spent a fair amount of time driving around the city whilst he (we?) came to a decision. This travelling à deux malarkey ain’t half tough – trying to please two people is so much more difficult than having to please just one (something I find quite difficult already!!). But, we don’t half compliment one another – he with his laissez-faire attitude, me with my stressypants. He with his loose handful estimation techniques, me with my eye for details.

We decided to park up and did our very best to keep an eye out for a spot on the side of the road. The city has been designed in such a way that very few cars are parked on the streets (and rightly so!). There is a metro system and a bus system so, if we could stash the van somewhere, we could use the public transport systems to find the cathedral. Decision made on parking (ooof, that was tough!!!), the next challenge was to find a car park that’d take our Smiles – they all seemed to be underground carparks, like in Seville, meaning Smiley would be too tall to go in. Bummeroony.

We were edging on getting pretty fed up of driving around and I was, personally, very close to giving Barcelona the two fingers and doing one. Then, Anf spotted a space. We parked up, paid the €7 for the 2-hour max stay (twice because of some machine error) and plonked down for a coffee. Did I pick the wrong year to stop smoking?

 

I’ve spoken a bit about how I’ve been using my languages. It’s great. But one of the downsides is that the people you’re with think you know everything about everything when you’re in that country. I’ve experienced this many times before on holidays with others (upon entering a bar I’m often asked where the toilets are – even if I’ve not been to the bar before!) and I’ve faced this again over the last week when I’ve been in Spain with Anfony.

A few questions that dear Antonio has got way too used to asking me (despite me often not answering accurately):

1.       “Where are the toilets?”

2.       “What’s that there?”

3.       “How much?” (this is one of my favs as, when I encourage Anf to communicate with the assistant/waiter directly himself, he translates it into “how many” for some unknown reason – this tends to confuse the non-native speaker and I take pleasure in watching the confusion unfold!)

4.       “Why are they all wearing orange?”

5.       “Which way now?” (I often get this one wrong and yet he still asks me, oh so faithfully :-D)

6.       “Do they have wifi here?” (This has been a popular one of late!)

7.       “Do they do coffee?”

8.       “Do they take card?”

9.       “Can I have a sweety, little girl?” (OK – this one isn’t language-related, but he’ll ask me this several times a day when we’re in the van – I make him ask rather than autofeeding)

 

Speaking the language also means that whoever you’re with doesn’t try to speak the language too much and I like to encourage integration/assimilation. So. I’ve been forcefeeding our Anf Spanish (much to his delight, I’m sure!) He can now say “hello”, “thank you”, “please”, “yes” and “water” all in Spanish, and he’s understanding a lot of what I’m saying when I’m speaking to people too. There’s more work to do but this is great progress. :-D Who knows, maybe he’ll look to learn Spanish upon returning to the UK. Anyone who speaks another language may also be able to relate to the concept of creating a new personality when you learn the language. I’m keen to make sure Anf’s Spanish personality says please and thank you. 😊

 

I digress a fair amount… All of this to say that Tone will often tell me (he means to ask, I’m sure!) to say certain things to certain people. This was one of those occasions…

“Ask the waiter about the cathedral.”

“Yes, sir. No, sir. Three bags full, sir.”

 

The (rather delicious-smelling) waiter explained it was pretty far to the cathedral and that it would be best for us to get a metro/bus. Plan made, we sup up our drinks and head for the metro towards the Sagrada Familia.

Metro route mastered, we descend the escalators and head from Barceloneta to Sagrada Familia. There are lots of people and Anf needs a bit of time to drag his leg around with him. People are rushing, running all around us and lots of youths pass in front of Anf before we get on the wagon that comes along the tracks. Whatever happened to respecting your elders? We’re OK. We move along to where we need to change, head to the right platform and the next train chugs along. This was when Anf and I get separated.

The beep beep BEEP of the doors is loud. Frantic. Passengers clamber to the doors to stop them from closing. The doors resist the hands of many trying to force them back open and Anf is still blissfully making his way to his standing spot on the train.

The green button on the door stops flashing, the beeping stops and I’m manically knocking on the windows to get Anf to turn around so he can see I’m not on. He turns, round just as the train starts to move away, standing there, smiling, calmly waving in a haven of peace.

I don’t know whether he’s going to get off at the next platform to wait for me, or if he’s going to carry on to Sagrada Familia and when my train pulls up five minutes later, I jump on, wondering if I’ll see him at the next platform. When he’s not there, I can only hope he’ll be at the Sagrada Familia!

Reunited and over the excitement of being separated, we climb the stairs out of the metro to the jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring sight of Gaudi’s unfinished cathedral.

(More trouble uploading pics so for another day!! Sorry - espec to Kim/Darren who are asking where post updates are - and thank you for following!!)

When at the coffee stop I jumped onto the wifi and downloaded an app all about the basilica which I read to Anf as we walked around the outside of the cathedral. (It was a lovely day, there wasn’t a sky in the cloud and it wasn’t raining, even though I said it would.)

We treated ourselves to some ice cream (second of the trip!), basked in the sun before getting the metro back to the car. I mean van. Don’t call it a car. Anf don’t like it. It’s a van.

 

I’ve just read this to Anf as he’s driving along and he’s said:

Don’t forget to mention it took us two hours to get out of bloody Barcelona due to Stacey’s navigational skills. But this was an improvement on Tracey’s Marseille navigational skills.

 

He seems frustrated by this. It took us a while to get out of Barcelona, granted. But we had a great visit of the industrial area, including the Nissan plant, where there were more trucks striking, before heading back out of Barcelona. I take him to all the best spots.

We made progress towards Andorra and as night felt we decided to call it a night. (It didn’t rain all day, even though I said it would.) We stopped at a services at the end of a tunnel. Any good for sleeps? Not really.

We entered France and on a roundabout ahead I spotted a MacDonalds.

“There’s a MacDonalds up there.”, says Stace.

Silence.

More silence.

“Let’s just go this way.”, says Tone.

I keep silent.

We head to a campsite. We crawl around said campsite. Very slowly. Indeed. We find a spot near the toilets. I jump out. I check the toilets. They’re open. We crawl around the other side of the campsite. Very slowly. We leave the campsite. An hour passes.

“Hmmm. There was a MacDonalds back there, wasn’t there?”, says Tone.

Long story short: we camp at the MacDonalds for the night.