0930 Local Time May 07, 2010 – 0100 Local Time May 08, 2010
Finally we had a morning without the alarm: we woke up and missed the cutoff time for breakfast in the hotel. It was nice not to have to rush out somewhere to get everything in that we needed to see before we left later that afternoon. Since we hadn’t made our plans to stay until late in the evening yesterday and I hadn’t gotten a FB reply from Marc, I made a quick call to him before we headed out to see if we’d be able to meet up later. It was about 11:35 so I was crossing my fingers that I wouldn’t be calling during his exam that he had this morning. Apparently I didn’t interrupt the exam but I did call in the middle of class—and he answered. This was rather surprising given that we’d never do that in the States, although not altogether really strange because it happened in Mexico several times while I was there. I guess answering your cellphone is more acceptable in Hispanic countries. Anyway, a little flustered that I had called in the middle of class (and moreso that he had picked up), we made hurried plans that I would call later around 4 because he had class until the afternoon and several other errands and things to do.
That being set up, we headed down to Plaza Cataluña via the ferrocarril and the Metro. I’m doing pretty well with navigating the underground world of Barcelona. Once we made it to Plaza Cataluña, we were both hungry (since we hadn’t eaten yet) so we found a quaint little restaurant-café and sat in the window. Papo had the tortilla española and glazed doughnut and split the chocolate coated doughnut with me. I had the spinach empanada which was quite good. For dessert (after all it was lunch time in the states) I had a piece of chocolate cake and Papo had something reminiscent of flat apple pie. After breakfast, we began our second day of shopping (happy face).
This time we walked Las Ramblas with a different objective in mind and similarly without a “Command and Conquer” mentality. As we walked all the way down to the Mediterranean Sea-beach and back, we checked out all the souvenir stores and vendors on either side of the street. Clearly negotiating a price even in the stores is acceptable here despite Lee’s information that you “have to be sly about it.” It must have to do with my wily girlish charm and I think speaking Spanish has a little bit to do with it too. Papo says his good looks didn’t hurt us any.
So since Marc had no way to contact us (given our lack of cellphones), we did things the old fashion way. Just after 4 o’clock I called and he said he still had a couple of things to take care of but that, since we’d already seen everything in the area we were, how about we go somewhere else. He gave me instructions on how to get to the Arc d’ Triumph on the metro (only a couple of stops away) and we made plans for about an hour later—5:30. Since we didn’t have very far to go, we continued our shopping expedition a little bit more as I picked up the last couple of things I wanted for my (hopefully) future classroom and souvenirs.
Just as we were finishing up the last of our shopping in Las Ramblas, I saw two really pretty dresses in the display window at El Corte Inglés (popular department store comparable to Boscovs or Macys), but alas, they were all sold out. That’s okay, I probably couldn’t’ve afforded either one of them anyway.
But time was just about up so we bajamos al metro and took said metro Red Line 1 two stops to meet up with Marc for phase two of our Barcelonian tour.
When we got there we were a little early and we could see the famous Arc d’ Triumph which I pretended to see two years ago in my fake trip to Barcelona. Since we had the little bit of time to spare, we crossed the two streets to take a couple of pictures before going back over to wait on the benches at the exit of the Metro station. And then we waited. During this time frame I must have looked very Spanish because between going to the Metro and while waiting on the bench I was consulted twice in Spanish for directions. This is something of a record. Unfortunately I didn’t know the answer either time, but hey, at least I looked like I fit in.
At 6 o’clock I tried to phone Marc again (since it was about half an hour later than we originally said and he had no way to contact us if in fact something had come up. So the first time I called I dialed wrong and the telephone ate my money. Then I was told that, hey, Kate, the you know on the other side there’s a telephone that you can stand up at, right? Because I had been kneeling at this one in order to see the key pad. Uhm, no, obviously I didn’t know that. So I switched phones and dialed correctly this time. Marc didn’t pick up so I left a brief message figuring that since it was counting down the time I had left on the phone, I would be able to get 50 euro-cents back. This, unfortunately, was not the case. I lost the 50 Euro-cents and only got to leave a really quick message.
So I went and sat back down on the bench awhile to wait a little bit longer. Then, lo and behold a little bit after 6 Marc strolled up saying that traffic had been terrible and sorry we had to wait and that he’d actually had to run around a little bit to figure out where we were (though the fact that we had called was something of a hint that we had to be somewhere with a pay phone). Right there at the station was a place where Marc wanted to pop into to get MTG cards (apparently I will be forever surrounded by people who like this game) and that left us to mosey into the store next door. This leads me to believe that Marc is entirely responsible for the purchase of my new hat and any complaints can be sent directly to him via Facebook =P.
Off again on our tour, walked through the arc and along the park and ended up at the zoo. During our stroll we saw many people sitting on the grass, which I thought was odd because it seemed like the manicured type of place where they wouldn’t let you on the grass. As it turned out, there was in fact a sign that showed a shoe over the grass with a nice red circle with a slash through it; apparently that sign wasn’t very important to the very many people hanging out in the grass having picnics and climbing the palm trees.
From the Zoo area we headed over to the Olympic Village (1992) which just so happened to be at the Mediterranean Sea (different part). There we took a couple more photos and continued walking along. We saw some important looking people and wondered if we could be like the international white house crashers but figured that we weren’t dressed up enough to pass as reporters for the BBC. Papo hungry early since we had walked so much and had only brunch so we found a place to eat; Marc wasn’t ready for dinner because it was too early for him (7:30) so Papo and I had a snack instead. Papo ordered two tapas: mini shish kabobs and some spice bombs. Papo found another glass he didn’t have for his collection in the restaurant but this time he actually had to pay for it instead of getting it for free. Either way a glass is a glass so it was a success.
After our snack, we continued along to La Sagrada Familia, another one of the selected sights on my pretend trip for class. Since it was a ways away we took the Metro again. While we were on it, Marc, seemed to be using his cell phone a lot, but still made sure we knew where we were getting off and where we were going. As we left the Metro, he invited us to his home for dinner with his family (as it turned out, that’s why he’d been on the phone). He had been calling back and forth to his family (in Castellano and Catalan I noted) to make the arrangements. This was exceptionally nice of them we thought, especially given such late notice and having both of us—two people that two days ago had never met before. Either way, we were honored to accept the invitation and continued on our walking-metro tour.
As I was saying about the Sagrada Familia, I had more or less decided that it wasn’t going to be all that worth seeing since I had seen the pictures on the postcards around and it wasn’t all that impressive as they hype seemed to be. But then we went over there and let me just be the first to say that all the pictures that I’ve seen simply do not do it justice. This Cathedral is another Gaudí masterpiece and has been under construction for over 100 years. There’s an old part and a new part that they are still trying to construct. Apparently in the original design there was supposed to be a super-high tower with Jesus on the top but for security reasons (being that it might be unstable since it would be so tall) (and also we think because it would be so costly) they’ve decided not to build that part. Really it’s worth seeing if you ever have the chance—don’t let the postcards scare you away.
While Papo ducked into a KFC to use the bathroom, Marc and I browsed through a gift shop located just across the street. Right before we went in he said, “Don’t speak English in the shop because then the prices will go up.” I had been suspicious that this was the case before, but to have it confirmed was very interesting. It was also cool because this was the first time we’d really had a full out conversation in Spanish instead of in English or a mix of the two. Fun =).
Together again, we walked over to the modern architecture section of the city. Hey Clare—I know the hospital you want to work at. I’ve got it all figured out for you Chiquita—you can work at that hospital and I’ll teach English, vale? We saw another building that was erected during World War II that had the German Eagle still on it.
With all this, we had spent a lot of time walking around and daylight had waned away and it was time for dinner. We hopped on the Metro one last time and followed Marc to his car and he drove us to his house. I have never seen a more complex “intersection” of highways. It puts our beltway to shame. He put on the radio but we heard a French song followed by one in English—funny how that is.
Upon arriving at Marc’s home we were greeted by his mother, father and brother. Marc gave us/me a tour of the house. Their home is very beautiful, decorated with beautiful fairies. Marc showed me his bookshelf collection many of which comprised a lot of my high school readings…which is partially unfortunate because I didn’t really like a lot of those books.
During the meal it was really interesting to see the language dynamic. We had three languages: English, Spanish, and Catalan. I could more or less choose who to include in the conversation: if I spoke in English I was basically talking to Papo, Marc, and Marc’s brother. If I spoke in Spanish I was talking to Marc’s whole family but not Dad. I can only imagine that it was even more complex for Marc who was fluent in all three. Often times we would have one conversation, and then a summary would be repeated in another language to catch everyone up. It was really neat to see that.
So with a really wonderful dinner of a variety of cultural Catalan foods behind us, Marc and his brother drove us back to our hotel. This actually worked out great because it meant that we would have our lsat two rides on the Zone 2 pass reserved for tomorrow morning.
*~The Traveling Buddies
Current Location: Sant Cugat, just outside of Barcelona (St. Joan Station on the ferrocarril)
Day 8: Over and Out.
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