Saturday, September 29, 2007
Barçelona
Barçelona is freaking awesome! Highlight of my trip so far and I have really only had the chance to see a little section of it as of yet. I arrived a little late, there was some trouble with some rocks on the train tracks so we had a little bit of a longer stop and got into BC around 10:30 instead of 9:30. I was lucky enough to find my hostel quickly and got unpacked and cleaned up before hitting the streets at almost midnight. Good thing is that most restaurants are still serving at that time so I had no trouble finding a tapas bar. I didn´t get too much just some patas bravas and albondigas in squid sauce, it did fill the little void of hunger that I had been suffering from a long day of walking around and riding public transportation.
Speaking of walking I was completely off on my assumption of where the bus was going to pick me up from Bonnieux to take me to Avignon. Blakers dropped me off right by the wine cooperative where I figured the stop would be (according to the schedule I had). The cooperative is where the smaller wine growers go to turn in their grapes and avoid the hassle of having to do the wine making themselves. It is also where you can go to buy cheap local wine, they even have it in bulk coming out of these hoses with nozzles that don´t look much different from those that you would use to fill a tank up with diesel. If you go through the hassle of filling your own vessel you are able to get the wine at the bargain price of 1.15 a liter. All the college art students were stoked when we told them about the crazy cheapness.
Anyway after I missed the bus I decided to just walk to where I was certain that there was a stop; Lumieres about 5 miles from where I had been dropped off. Normally a walk like that wouldn´t affect me much, but with the addition of a 50 pound back pack I started to get a little bushed. The worst part about it was that because of some road construction I was forced to walk on the busiest highway in the area for the majority of my trek. But at least I got to the bus stop and figured out how make my way to the train station.
The train ride over to Barçelona was mundane really, I finshed some trashy short detective novel that I had begun the day before and I admired all the graffiti of which there was plenty passing through the train windows. Funny thing about French graffiti (and Spanish to a lesser extent) is that the style of lettering are quite archaic compared to what we have evolved to in the states. Big bubble letter that are clearly readable are the norm in contrast to the wild style in the US. Not to say that it isn´t cool, just it is retro to be sure. Even the hip-hop kids that I have seen are dressed kind of retro, kangol and adidas ala Run DMC.
In the afternoon I walked about 3 miles and randomly I plopped myself down in front of a little cafe for some lunch. Little did I know that it was right accross the street from the OxfordHouse, a school the has a 4 week long intensive TESL certification program. Before I could order this guy Tim from Boston and an older lady Jana from England sat down next to me having both just taken their final exam. In the next 3 hours of eating and drinking I met a bunch of other students who were wandering the streets, I got Tim´s number if I feel like calling him in the next couple of days so I guess that means I made at least one friend.
After the cafe I had to get myself to bed for a little bit to sleep off the afternoon revelry, so I took an little nap back at the hostel. One of the workers was busy passing out blankets, it was supposed to be getting cold that night, read 17c (laughable compared to Minneapolis, I didn´t even use my sheet). I woke up in time to walk down to the beach and drink a beer gazing out accross the sea, I may have had a couple too many or they were too strong because I just got crazy tired quickly. I managed to figure out the metro to bring me back towards the center area and people watched for a bit before heading home. All and all a big busy day, and I didn´t even manage to buy shoes yet!
There is supposed to be some sort of a fountain show tonight that rivals the one at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, I just have to figure out where that goes on and get myself over in that direction.
The little internet cafes don´t allow photo uploading but I have somewhere around 400 new pictures some of which are easily the best I have been lucky to take in my life.
Speaking of walking I was completely off on my assumption of where the bus was going to pick me up from Bonnieux to take me to Avignon. Blakers dropped me off right by the wine cooperative where I figured the stop would be (according to the schedule I had). The cooperative is where the smaller wine growers go to turn in their grapes and avoid the hassle of having to do the wine making themselves. It is also where you can go to buy cheap local wine, they even have it in bulk coming out of these hoses with nozzles that don´t look much different from those that you would use to fill a tank up with diesel. If you go through the hassle of filling your own vessel you are able to get the wine at the bargain price of 1.15 a liter. All the college art students were stoked when we told them about the crazy cheapness.
Anyway after I missed the bus I decided to just walk to where I was certain that there was a stop; Lumieres about 5 miles from where I had been dropped off. Normally a walk like that wouldn´t affect me much, but with the addition of a 50 pound back pack I started to get a little bushed. The worst part about it was that because of some road construction I was forced to walk on the busiest highway in the area for the majority of my trek. But at least I got to the bus stop and figured out how make my way to the train station.
The train ride over to Barçelona was mundane really, I finshed some trashy short detective novel that I had begun the day before and I admired all the graffiti of which there was plenty passing through the train windows. Funny thing about French graffiti (and Spanish to a lesser extent) is that the style of lettering are quite archaic compared to what we have evolved to in the states. Big bubble letter that are clearly readable are the norm in contrast to the wild style in the US. Not to say that it isn´t cool, just it is retro to be sure. Even the hip-hop kids that I have seen are dressed kind of retro, kangol and adidas ala Run DMC.
In the afternoon I walked about 3 miles and randomly I plopped myself down in front of a little cafe for some lunch. Little did I know that it was right accross the street from the OxfordHouse, a school the has a 4 week long intensive TESL certification program. Before I could order this guy Tim from Boston and an older lady Jana from England sat down next to me having both just taken their final exam. In the next 3 hours of eating and drinking I met a bunch of other students who were wandering the streets, I got Tim´s number if I feel like calling him in the next couple of days so I guess that means I made at least one friend.
After the cafe I had to get myself to bed for a little bit to sleep off the afternoon revelry, so I took an little nap back at the hostel. One of the workers was busy passing out blankets, it was supposed to be getting cold that night, read 17c (laughable compared to Minneapolis, I didn´t even use my sheet). I woke up in time to walk down to the beach and drink a beer gazing out accross the sea, I may have had a couple too many or they were too strong because I just got crazy tired quickly. I managed to figure out the metro to bring me back towards the center area and people watched for a bit before heading home. All and all a big busy day, and I didn´t even manage to buy shoes yet!
There is supposed to be some sort of a fountain show tonight that rivals the one at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, I just have to figure out where that goes on and get myself over in that direction.
The little internet cafes don´t allow photo uploading but I have somewhere around 400 new pictures some of which are easily the best I have been lucky to take in my life.
# posted by Felipe : 12:38 AM
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