Part III: Walkin’ Spanish Down the Hall

Edie got home tonight.

The last time I saw her was a month ago in Barcelona as I was tiptoeing out of the 17^th floor AirBnB we’d rented on our last night in that magical city.  I’d given her a peck on the cheek as she lay sleeping in a tumble of blankets on the couch before slipping into the hall to wait for the elevator. My backpack was cinched up tight and my other two carry-ons were bulging with souvenirs. Edie cracked the door of the apartment just as the elevator doors were opening, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and waving a last goodbye. My heart swelled then farted as I stepped in, blowing her a kiss.

See you at home…

She’s dug some more crazy sites since then. After sleeping a bit later in the highrise condo, she lashed her own pack tight to her tiny shoulders and headed back to the core of the city to spend a last night with her friends there before making the respective scenes in Granada and Valencia, eventually passing back through Barcelona on her way to Budapest. That last link unfortunately took two days because she missed the flight out of Barcelona and was forced to endure punishing half-day layovers there and in Lisbon which please appreciate is not between Barcelona & Budapest, not even close. By the time she made it to Hungary she was not only hungry, but pretty darned sick. She saw a doctor who recommended she drink some water and stretch, and she rested a couple of days before getting evicted from the hostel and fleeing to Krakow with Joao from Brazil. From Poland, they hitchhiked through Slovakia on their way back to Budapest where Edie caught a flight to Heathrow and ultimately to Everett by way of LAX.

And that’s really not even the half of it. But I’m not going to hijack her stories. You can read them on her own blog…

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Barcelona Cathedral, Good Friday

We first arrived in Barcelona at 5pm on Good Friday. Born and raised on the West Coast of the US, I don’t know what it’s like to deal in a culture dominated by any religion stronger than Consumerism. Walking into Barcelona’s very catholic Gothic Quarter at peak hour on Good Friday was like a strange dream.

The plaza of the towering Barcelona Cathedral was packed with worshippers, and a procession wound through the crowd toward the wide front steps that lead to the lower square. Robed priests marched slowly at the procession’s head, chanting and waving the incense. Behind them, hovering above the heads of the crowd, drifted a lifesize crucifix. On the anniversary of his execution, the wooden Jesus rocked gently side to side spreading the faithful like Moses parting the Red Sea. (That was Moses, right?)

Anyway, the April evening sun was dropping in the general direction of Bellingham, and the narrow canyons of the Gothic Quarter were in shadows. Processions were converging on the Cathedral from multiple directions, and it was in these tributaries that the really whack action was percolating. Long rows of robed, hooded figures lurched silently through the ancient streets, paced by a single snare drum. It was one solemn parade. Floats laden with flowers and fruit and a glass-eyed statue of Mary atop were carried by-hand by dozens of miserable sinners with something to prove on this redeemingest of redemption days. Never mind that they looked like the Klan in their tall, pointy hoods with eyeholes cut out– carrying crosses and torches. Each group had its own colors, like marching bands from rival high schools– black, red, purple and of course your classic White. Many dragged elaborate networks of chains from ankle irons, their bare feet chafing on the cobbles. TGiF, man. That is some penitent shit right there…*

We had initially been anxious to locate our hotel and rid our packs, but the macabre proceedings pretty much froze us. Plus then we couldn’t figure out how to cross this river of repentance!  Eventually we began to move upstream, in the opposite direction of the flow. We were looking for a place to cross, but the parade seemed to have no beginning. At one point the route veered left, so we cut right and tried circling around. But we only ended up further upstream and still blocked. This is where we fought off our first pickpocket.

The farther we’d gotten away from the Cathedral, the more secular the crowd had become. There were some seriously authentic local believers pushing up against the fence at the church—but the deeper we got into the reaches of the Quarter, the less it seemed like Easter and the more it seemed like Bumbershoot. The crowd got younger and drunker and less-Catholic, and there were more phones held aloft stealing video of what was intended to be a very serious & purposeful religious demonstration. We ducked out of the pedestrian stream and into an ornate arched doorway to regroup and to ask Edie’s phone where in the hell our hotel was.

“Whoa,” I heard her say, as soon as she’d shouldered out of her pack. “That was weird…”

I was taking off my own pack and pulling out my water bottle. That’s literally all the time it had taken for two young men to grasp the shoulder straps of Edie’s day pack and start to walk away with it. She’d essentially watched them pick it up just inches from her and had grabbed the nearest strap before they were so much as a step away.

They shrugged and let go, disappearing nonchalantly into the festive mob. They didn’t run. Edie said she saw them later, and they’d gazed at her as if to say ‘OK, you win the first round…’ It was very Spanish.

The Hotel Continental was right on La Ramblas directly across from the Font de Canaletes. I don’t know if it was originally a prison or a tire store or what– but I don’t think it was built as a hotel. Eventually we navigated the Escheresque network of staircases and checked in at the mirrored front desk. Our 4th floor room had a balcony and an ashtray and two twin beds pushed together. We opened a bottle of white and called Patti to let her know we’d arrived safely in Spain before showering and changing into our eveningwear.

The Gothic Quarter. Never having been to Europe before, I totally dug London and of course Paris France is priddy neat also. But I fell hardest for Barcelona, and nowhere is the identity of this mysterious city on more authentic display than in the old centre. Sure, it’s had plenty of facelifts– some as recent as the 1970s. But the original spirit and function of the district is apparent to the extent you can almost still smell it. There are plenty of gargoyles and grotesques and fountains and menacing iron gates. Just the narrow carless streets and dark arched alleys are enough to give a visitor the essence of the place. Paris is gray. The streets, buildings, people and skies are gray. But Barcelona has so much rich brick and tile and color—it seemed very alive by comparison…

It was getting dark as we emerged from the Hotel Continental looking for soul food. The Good Friday night throngs flowed to and fro along Las Ramblas, the vendidors hawking everything from bottled water to Catalan flags to those propeller boomerang things that zoom 60’ in the air. It was a festive atmosphere quite unlike the somber mood back nearer the Cathedral. These folks were not nearly as bummed out to learn of JC’s death—they were here to partay.

Choosing a tapas restaurant in Barcelona is like trying to find your favorite tree in the forest. We walked by a dozen before ducking in to one that looked nice. They’re all nice! The dark & dashing waiter was appreciative of Edie’s excellent Catalan and she ordered us some plates, among them probably the best scampi I’ve ever had and I’ve had a lot of scampi. I loved that Edie was enjoying seafood, as she never did as a kid. Funny how a few months out of your comfort zone can adjust your tastes…

We left the restaurant with full bellies and a corked half-bottle of white and proceeded to continue exploring the ancient quarter. Lots of shops & bars were open, but in fact many were not– and we would discover that a lot of stuff either was not open at all during this holy week or else regular business hours were even more irregular than normal. Ah, the riddle of Spain!

We finished the restaurant takeout wine and Gulu’d another. In fairness I should say that I finished the wine and secured another. It was fun to have a glass with Edie here and there throughout Europe, and I got a kick out of her never being carded because carding isn’t a thing in Europe. But in reality, Edie didn’t usually have a drink even at mealtime, and on this particular night it was me who was drinking la parte del leon of the wine. Perhaps this fact was apparent, as it was about this time that we fought off our second set of Barcelona’s finest.

We were meandering down yet another charming calle when two jovial young men in their late teens approached on a bicycle—one at the wheel, the other in-front on the pegs. Edie & I were having such a good time, and as the boy in-front jumped off the bike it was apparent that he too was having such a great time tonight in Barcelona! Presently, he engaged me in a kind of playful dancing game, as if he were trying to steal an imaginary soccer ball I was dribbling. I was stoked that we were both having such a killer time! I looked down at our dancing feet and in the amount of time it took to do so, there were three more of his adorable, smiling friends also playing the playful dancing soccer ball game except that they were also digging their hands into my pockets and clawing at my bag. They weren’t trying to steal an invisible soccer ball.

Despite my relaxed state, I quickly realized what was happening and spun out of the dance circle, gripping tight my shoulder bag that contained my phone, money, journal and wine. Just as quickly as the gang had materialized, they were gone–folded silently back into the shadows of the Gothic Quarter in-search of some other tipsy chump. This victory was mine, but I wouldn’t venture into the streets of the city again all week without the flesh-colored moneybelt I’d promised Patti I would wear in Barcelona. The city is known for its pickpockets for good reason. They’re not violent or particularly aggressive—they don’t smash & grab. But they are clever, not to mention cute. We left the city leading 2-0, but we’ll be back some day and I’m sure they’ll be waiting for us…

el Mercado

Holy Saturday commemorates the day Jesus lay in the tomb between crucifixion and resurrection. Even I know that. No better way to observe the occasion than to trip around the Gothic Quarter some more and visit the renowned MACBA Skate Spot at St. Jordi. Later we walked through the Mercado de La Boqueria. I wasn’t in the market for fresh swordfish or fresh eggplant or impossibly fresh poultry or fruit or cheese or ox livers or cockscomb. But if I were, I’d have been accommodated– with each stall specializing in one unimaginably fresh delicacy or another. I’d watched some fairly primitive live butchers in both England and France. These Spaniards were cutting animals, too, but there was not a drop of blood or fleck of membrane to be found. It was the cleanest working market I have ever seen– a veritable temple of sanitation.

Reluctantly we left the Quarter mid-afternoon to find our AirB in the Lesseps neighborhood just few Metro stops away. We ended up later by someplace called The Family Segrada or something, so we stopped there and walked around. But it was under construction, like The Pirates of the Caribbean sometimes is, so we didn’t go inside…

Closed for Construction

Easter Sunday in Barcelona was super fuckin’ windy. We’d been watching the weather for a week, and the forecasts for Barcelona had consistently featured those little animated blowing clouds, indicating wind. And sure enough, a strong breeze was blowing in from the south on Easter Sunday– and when a strong wind blows through an old city, you invariably get a lot of grit in your eyes and hair.

After a cappuccino and a quiche in Vila de Gràcia, we caught a Metro then a bus to the base of Tibidabo where we boarded an ancient cable tram that labored us to the top of the mountain—the highest point in Barcelona. It was even windier up there, and my hat blew off and across the plaza. Edie’s hair flew around her face like claymation and after staring at her for a long moment, I took a picture because I knew it would last longer.

Oh my heck, were having a such a great time. It would be a bold-faced falsehood to say that I hadn’t worried just a little bit before the trip about whether Edie & I would be compatible traveling companions for two full weeks. I knew were were going to be jazzed to see each other and that we’d be taking in some thrilling sites. I knew she’d been having a killer adventure and that she’d be relieved to have me paying for stuff after fending for herself for ten weeks by the time I showed up. But I totally was not prepared for how well we would travel together and for what an absolute riot we would have every step of the lengthy journey.

Ours were very close quarters. She went out with local friends a couple of times in Lyon & Barca, and I went out to see the Hammersmith Odeon on that last night in London. But otherwise, we were pretty much in the same immediate airspace 24hours  for two full weeks including usually sleeping in the same room. And we could not have gotten along any better. We felt like walking at the same time. We felt like eating at the same time, talking at the same time or just being still and not talking at the same time. We had some very meaningful conversations but other times just laughed and laughed at the most inane nonsense. Practically until wetting our pants, we laughed.

But standing so small in front of the commanding Temple Expiatori del Sagrat Cor on the top of a holy mountain on Easter Sunday, I again felt the nagging of trip-end anxiety from somewhere inside me. By this point, I was halfway through the last leg. I’d be getting on a plane in a mere 72 hours and going back to grody ol’ America. Edie would remain in Europe for the last push of her mad season, but I’d be back at home sorting souvenirs and going through photographs, trying to put the Trip of a Lifetime into words. I still am.

Snapping out of my melancholy daze and resolving there wasn’t a moment to waste, we blasted back down the mountain through the ivy & cacti & scrub pines as fast as the cable tram would take us, which wasn’t actually very fast. First stop was Easter Brunch, which we presently conjured in the form of Sangria & Paella in the regal L’Antiga Esquerra de L’Eixample neighborhood. Sunday is laundry day in Barcelona, and Easter seemed no exception. Every balcony in the district had colorful garments draped over the rails drying, many with the Catalan flag underneath like a tablecloth.

Easter Brunch

We’d walked the sands of Sant Sebastia in the dark on Friday night, but hadn’t beheld the marvel of the sea in the light of day yet– so we followed the gritty breeze toward the mighty Mediterranean. Along the way, we fought through the vendors of La Barceloneta, selling everything from sunglasses to jewelry to visors and knock-off Adidas’s and Louis Vuiton [sic] handbags, laid out on blankets. Block after block, blanket after blanket. Each city had its version of these bootleg vendors all selling mountains the identical merchandise for one Euro. There’s something odd and perhaps even ironic about the Senegalese selling Eiffel Tower keychains made in China. Truly a global transaction. How there’s enough of a market for as many of them to be out there hawking is beyond me. Still, there they were.

Jardins de les 3 Xemeneies

Beyond Vendor’s Row, we finally reached the beach. The tide was so far in that it looked like the surf was crashing right up to the seawall. All beaches are made of sand and salt water—but they’re not all the same. The Mediterranean Sea is different from the Pacific or the Atlantic. The sand is different for one thing. Not fine like Mexico or Florida– more coarse like at Tahoe. The water was the same color as the steely sky, and it was still super windy. The parasailers or wind gliders or wave stealers or whatever you call those insane maniacs were just flying all over the place, catching the tops of waves and sailing 40’ above the surface. There were a couple of little kids wading in the shallows, but other than that everyone was dry and mellow, sipping ten-Euro Mojitos and kicking the soccer ball (a real one). We sat and stared at the breakers for while before snapping a selfie and moving on. The clock was running.

I could have spent a week at the Mercat Port Antic just off the marina, with its tented booths overflowing with silver, brass & porcelain. I’m a sucker for an antique mall in the toddling Pacific Northwest, let alone the old world where there’s been something of a headstart. Some genuinely antiquated stuff in these booths, and as in France I fondled much of it but ended up settling for a couple of skeleton keys that I talked the vendor down on just as he was starting to pack up his collection for the night.

Next was the incredible Jardins de les 3 Xemeneies graffiti park. Barcelonans like their spray paint but there seem to be some unwritten rules observed where muraling is concerned. Churches generally are off-limits. I did not see any spraypainted dogs, cats or taxi’s. But a lot of the rest of the city is covered in beautiful urban murals. So much color and style and scale. I don’t know how good it is for the environment, but it’s pretty striking to look at. They also really like stickers. Doorways and light poles and parking meters and street signs are skinned in layer upon layer of stickers. Edie & I didn’t have any spraypaint, but we did get into the sticker act a bit. Not knowing if I’d be able to find the traditional PAAS easter egg dye kit in Spain, I bought one in Bellingham and packed it along. We had dyed a half-dozen eggs the night before, and I’d brought along the little sheet of stickers on our epic Sunday ramble. So in Jardins and through the Ciutat Vella we left our mark. Ours were subtle and humble contributions, but we got a pretty good kick out of behaving like natives. So European!

Happy Easter!

We’d been walking all day. We’d collected a few souvs and our daypacks were bulging. We Metro’d to Lesseps for a quick break and a change of shoes. Like Uncle John used to say, ‘take five if you’re tired; take more you’re fired.’ We didn’t have time to rest long. In an hour, we were back on the street. We hid the Easter eggs on the way to the sushi restaurant on the other side of the neighborhood. It’s not as if sushi is a traditional Easter meal for us. We just both felt like sushi and it was excellent.

 Edie left from Lesseps to meet a couple of friends. I tried to Gulu a bottle of wine, but luck was against me this night. I got pretty lost walking back to the apartment, the neighborhood quite deserted by midnight. I eventually found it (yes: I am not still wandering in Barcelona looking for a rented apartment) and crashed out pretty hard. I had 10am tickets for the Museu Picasso in the morning.

I don’t know much about art. I know what I like, as they say—but I don’t know a lot about real art. I dug the 5^th floor of the Centre Pompidou in Paris and there were some rad busts in the British Museum in London. I’ve been to the Met and the Moma in NYC and I love the alligator pit in Golden Gate Park. Actually, I guess that’s an aquarium. The point is, I can look at art in a coffee table book. If I’ve got 4 days in big city, I have a little trouble spending even half of one inside nodding at art that could be anywhere. I’d rather watch locals buy meat or sit on a park bench and eavesdrop on the conversation of a couple of suited, smoking old men who look old enough to have drank with Dali. Even if I can’t understand what they’re saying. I just like watching people.

That said, the Picasso museum was pretty cool even though everyone was staring at their phones because that’s how the guided tour was administered. Not the little earbuds like some places. I didn’t buy the tour, and it made it feel kind of weird thinking everyone was just wandering around bumping in to each other checking their Instagram.

Edie had spent the night with friends and was supposed to meet me down there, but she didn’t. So I wandered around the Quarter for an hour after breaking Pablo trying to get to the bottom of my souvenir list: ashtrays crafted from aluminum cans, musty old novels en Espanol, airplane bottles of absinth, tiles from the tile store. I was getting pretty thirsty by this time, but everything was suddenly closed.  We hadn’t spent a weekday in Barcelona yet, so I wasn’t sure how extensively siesta would be observed. But the neighborhood was fairly suddenly not open, and only then did it dawn on me why. Eventually I found an open Indian restaurant and ducked in for a half-carafe of sweet red and a hookah.

 A little bit light-headed, I got back on the cobblestones for a leg of the trip I’d been dreading—the preparation for departure. I needed some kind of bag to use as a second carry-on and secured 20-Euro duffle with BARCELONA on the side for 15-Euro. I grabbed a slice of pizza and snapped one last selfie before ducking into the Metro station at Las Ramblas, bound for Lesseps.

(What wasn’t closed during siesta, or at any time at all throughout all of Europe was KFC. By far the most-popular American icon of any kind was the Colonel—more popular than Ronald McDonald or the Burger King or even the Starbucks mermaid. In terms of garment logos, hands-down the most common was The North Face, maybe because the Europeans still thought it was winter even though it was 60 (Farenheit). Levi’s, Blundstones and Doc Martens were also very popular. But the Colonel was King– no contest…)

Additionally, Barcelonans:

• Smoke but also vape
• Busk
• Wear pale pink leather jackets (the ladies, at least…)
• Root for the Los Angeles Dodgers in baseball
• Use the code ‘coffee shop’ when soliciting marijuana
• Guess that I am Italian (twice) or Mexican (once)

The fact that anyone would think I was from Mexico or Italy underscores one of the most pleasant surprises from my trip: that Europeans are not terribly fascinated by Americans or by extension particularly aghast at what is going on in America. Like Flava Flav, they got problems of they own– those strikingly similar to our problems here.

In bygone eras, Americans had probably walked through Europe wearing stars & stripes and dishing out high-fives– dignified members of the Greatest Generation from This Great Nation. By this late hour, I wore a maple leaf lapel pin and kept my voice down and they still thought I was Italian. In any event, Europeans couldn’t give two shits about Donald Trump– a fact I was quite relieved to learn.

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You can’t see Barcelona in five days. We’d tried– but headed south & west toward our final flop in the airport-convenient La Marina del Prat Vermell neighborhood Tuesday mid-day we encountered the stunning grounds of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya and I arrived at the grim realization that there would be much left unseen this trip. We used the Metro, a surface bus and eventually our feet to reach our final AirB. The key was buried in a planter outside and we wearily rode the elevator to the 17^th floor.

 I had fallen hard for Barcelona. In London I spoke the language. In Paris, there were some sites I expected would change me, as Paris does. But Barca made my heart race from the start. Her brick, her domes, her tile florets. The iron! She is a saucy dama with many pockets. I imagine one could live inside her for an entire lifetime and not solve her. I was there for five nights and haven’t stopped thinking about her since. But I don’t know anything– I’ve not been almost anywhere. If I spent five nights in Bali or Berlin or Bermuda, maybe then I wouldn’t have such a boner for Barcelona or even be stoked to live in Bellingham.

Selfies en la Parc

The sun hadn’t been out since that first evening in town, but it shown brightly that last late afternoon as we climbed up through the viaducts of Parc Guell. Antoni Gaudi’s seed is of course smeared lasciviously all over Barcelona. I’m glad he built the stuff he did–somebody had to. But I guess other than marveling at the pure zaniness of it, I kind of prefer the more traditional Spanish stuff. We didn’t see all the Gaudi buildings in Barca, but we saw several representative works. How it even stands up is a mystery, actually—it looks to have been made with paper mache or Bondo, not sticks & stones. It’s as if Dr. Seuss had designed a Playmobil castle. For my money (and of course merely gazing at architecture is often free) the Palau de la Musica Catalana or the Arc are more pleasing. But to each their own…

 Descending from the Parc, the realization that I had less than twelve hours left with Edie was starting to set in. We were standing on a crowded shuttle weaving its way down the steep hills around the parc, and both our heads rolled from side-to-side with the lurching of the coach. We were just spent. But we had one more destination — one which I’d been anticipating since leaving Bellingham. The restaurant Can Maregarit had been recommended to us by the all-knowing Gottleib Cardini and I’d actually reset my Google password en Espanol earlier in the day in order to make a reservation—so we were going!

 We made the Poble Sec neighborhood via Metro in plenty of time for our 21:00 reservation and closed on the location on-foot. The neighborhood did not look like where one would expect to find a internationally renowned eatery, but we kept plodding—hungry by this time and thirsty too. Thinking earlier that we were headed toward a fancy-shamncy destination, I’d suggested Edie wear the best clothes she had left. And those weren’t that great. Her scuffed-up trekking boots, torn cargo pants and a stained peagreen sweatshirt was the best she could do at this point in her 3-month backpack. I hoped the maître d’ would seat us.

We stood on the sidewalk regarding the building. Surely, there must be some mistake. The street had the right name and the numbers above the splintered wooden door were the same as what we were searching for. Google Maps congratulated us on having reached our destination. But this couldn’t be it…

We tentatively cracked the door, peeking inside thinking it might be somebody’s house or even a garage. There were candles burning on the crooked wooden table in the center of the room, and three huge dusty wine casks loomed along the right wall. We stepped in and looked around, our eyes adjusting to the light, even dimmer than the dark sidewalk. The space smelled like the fourteenth century.

Presently a very small yet authoritative older gentleman appeared and asked (in Catalan) if we had a reservation. Edie responded (in Catalan) that we did—for Braimes, a table of two at 21:00. He consulted the ledger on a side table for quite some time before nodding. He invited us to take a seat at the table before disappearing again.

Momentarily he re-appeared and strode to the wine casks, beckoning us to follow. He then informed us (in English) that the first cask was red, the second sweet white and the third strong white. He gave us both a small straight glass and elegantly demonstrated how to use the tap on the cask by filling a third glass for himself. He raised it in our direction, then disappeared again. Edie pulled herself a glass of the sweet white; I chose the strong. We sat back down.

We were alone in the cavernous foyer. The rough-hewn raftered ceilings were 20’ high and the floor was of ragged brick. The high windows were opaque from years of candlesmoke and the table hadn’t been wiped off since it was built. We had arrived…

This was the perfect time for me to break down in tears, telling Edie how proud I was of her and how much I’d valued the opportunity to walk with her these past 15 days. She was so capable, so resourceful and courageous. I could scarcely believe that the boisterous toddler I’d played balloon games with a mere seventeen years ago was the same poised young woman interpreting for us in Spanish and navigating every public transportation and accommodation through three countries. Her hair was starting to dread and her boots were a fucking mess. But she glowed strong in the dim, dank light and she too shed one as we sipped the homemade white and reflected back on the high times of the past two weeks.

the sweet white

The meal, of course, was completely insane. The menu was a tattered page without prices, barely legible. I ordered lamb chops, and Edie—on Cardini’s recommendation– had the rabbit.

“Dad,” she asked, peering at her plate in the candlelight, “is this the rabbit’s face?”

“Dude,” I said, pouring myself another small straight from the decanter of strong white on the table, “I’m sure they don’t cook the rabbit’s head!”

Edie discreetly forked the rabbit’s head toward me and I saw if not its floppy ears then at least its obvious jawline and rabbitty row of rabbitty incisors. And of course we just laughed and laughed. An it was delicious.

Nine hours later I was on a Metro headed toward the Barcelona Airport. Doppelgangers had presented themselves throughout the journey, but on this last hour in Europe I found it strange that Kim Reeves would be sitting next to Tom Isenhart with Jason Wheeler standing near the door.

SIGNS AND OMENS, BARCELONA