Spain

Spain. I left Aix the morning of the 26th of December on a 12 hour train ride to Barcelona, Spain where I met Lisa Cantrell the afternoon of the 27th. We spent the first day sleeping/riding on a bus around the city, mainly because we took the wrong bus into the city, and it was an hour before we realized it. In the evening we wondered around the north of Barcelona looking for our host Jaume’s apartment. When planning our trip, Lisa discovered this website called Couchsurfing.com. The website provides a medium through which travelers and hosts can find each other. Basically, people create an account on the site, posting information about themselves and about their extra couch or place to stay. Then, if you are traveling to a city, you search for people who have a couch, and you write an e-mail asking if you can stay with them. For free. Yes, free. The idea is to promote cultural exchange and to provide travelers with an insider’s perspective of a city. You stay with someone for free with the intention that one day you will host someone for free in your city. You are not obliged to provide food for your guest, just a place to sleep and maybe some interesting conversation and a little information about the city. People of all ages all over the world participate. I believe there are about 130,000 participants. I think it’s a fantastic program. http://www.couchsurfing.com

With that said, we had not prepared ourselves the unusual sleeping conditions of our first couchsurfing experience at Jaume’s tiny studio apartment. Jaume is a divorced, 45-year old man who is extremely active in the couchsurfing community, hosting several travelers every night and organizing events for couchsurfers and hosts in Barcelona. To our surprise, the first night Jaume was hosting three other guys from three different countries, along with Lisa and me. That makes six cozy friends sleeping in the same room. His apartment was also home to hundreds of DVS, books, papers, gadgets and single-man smells stacked haphazardly on or under tall shelves lining the walls or strewn around the floor. Lisa and I were given two mattresses to sleep on in the “living room.” We cleared away some three-year old receipts and CDs and made our beds with the blankets that Jaume had, shrugging and giving each other that what-the-hell-are-we-doing-here-sleeping-on-the-floor-of-some-guy’s-apartment-but-hey-at-least-it’s-free look.

Our nights at Jaume’s passed rather uneventfully in this manor, Lisa and I on our respective mattresses with other random travelers on other cots or mattresses nearby, until the last night. Our 4th night, Jaume’s four children all under the age of 15 came to visit daddy Jaume. Lisa and I attempted to repack our bags with Jaume’s 10-year old daughter begging us to play and with the TV, computer games, and lights blaring full force at 2 am as we tried to sleep. Needless to say, I am not having children when I grow up. Haha just kidding. I mean, we were quite grateful to be leaving the next morning.



This is me and Lisa with 2 of Jaume's children. Right.

Barcelona is a beautiful city on the coast in the northeast of Spain. Lisa and I spent most of our time wandering around the city, lost in it’s tiny streets, shops, and cafés. We walked up and down the Ramblas, a street lined with merchants and bizarre street performers that do a trick if you give them a coin. We ate plump Spanish olives and drank sweet sangria. We made picnics with spicy chorizo (like pepperoni) and fresh cheeses. It was delightful. We visited the Picasso museum and listened as street musicians filled the parks with captivating Spanish saxophone and guitar, giving in and buying their CD. We spent time admiring the strange, incomplete cathedral started by Gualdi in 18something. One of the famous artists in Barcelona, Gaudi designed a park and several apartment buildings and houses, along with his cathedral. He wanted people to live in art. His designs are colorful and eccentric and remind me of Dr. Seuss. I wish I could show you my pictures but…

My camera was stolen the second day we were in Barcelona. Actually my backpack was stolen from beside my feet while we were having a drink in a bar before dinner. Apparently, Barcelona is one of the worst places for robberies in Europe. It was pretty strange because the bar wasn’t crowded at all, but we saw nothing of the incident. Luckily, only my small digital camera and my cell phone were in the bag. My important documents and money were in Lisa’s more secure bag. Sigh of relief. This means, however, that instead of nice digital pictures of our trip, I have three rolls of ghetto speckled pictures. Such is life.

But here are some picts from Google:







We left Barcelona on the 31st for Madrid, the capital of Spain. We spent the first part of our New Year’s Eve in the bar of the hostel partying, dancing, and drinking Sangria with other travelers. Later we merged with the enormous, pulsating crowd at the Place del Sol, the center of the city where everyone had come to bring in the new year. The air was electric. We found a small ledge against a construction barricade from which we could see both the clock tower and the swarms of people underneath. Although there was no countdown, Madrid gave birth to the new year with a glorious explosion of fireworks and cries that temporarily lingered above the crowd like last years regrets. Shortly afterward, we randomly ran into some friends from the hostel and danced our way into the first few hours of the new year.

Aside from the new year’s bash, however, Madrid was one of those cities that you are likely to forget you were ever there...we spent the rest of our time in Madrid recovering from new year's, drinking small coffees in various cafés, making a running commentary on the local fashions, and watching children play in the park. We danced near a drum circle and ate delicious tapas in a smoky crowded bar. We did visit the Reina Sofia museum to see the contemporary art exhibits, which was cool. But to me, Madrid had no surprises, no delights, no pull. I enjoyed living the lazy, contemplative life for those few days.