travel to and around the fantastic city of

Barcelona, Spain - 2004

This is the straight, semi-edited version of my Moleskine notes from my trip to Barcelona with Kwang-Ying, Tien-Ying, Sinem and Sofia. All girls that I live in the same building as. Yeah, I traveled with four girls, there was one guy for the first three days, however.

Day 1. Saturday - 13 Nov.

Arrived at 9:30pm. Street bustling with people & activity — even at 12, 1 am. Reminds me of Mexico so much. Much drinking, littering, hosing the streets down.

Day 2. Sunday - 14 Nov.

Absolutely only tourists out in the morning. Beautiful parks, love the balconies on every door/window. Destination uno is the Fundacio Joan Miro. Great museum of modern art. Then subway to Casa Batllo by Gaudi. Then walk to Cala Mila, by Gaudi. Take the tour for 7 euro. The inside is cool. The roof is really cool. The we walk to the Temple de la Sagrada Familia. Gaudi is a mad genius. Awesome views of the city. Perfect timing with the setting sun, gorgeous, picture perfect.

Day 3. Monday - 15 Nov.

Kickstart the day with a visit to Park Guell, another place designed by Gaudi. Flora & fauna amazing, integrated man and nature. Then hop on the train to the Placa Espanya. Walk towards the Museu Nacional D’Art de Catalynua Palu Nacional. Take a stroll (meander (an inside joke… there were asking me what we were going to do, so I told them we’d stroll through the parks… they were like can we go slower than stroll, so I told ‘em we’d meander. But then had to define it, cause the three girls didn’t know what meander meant, but they thought it was a cool word)) through man beautiful gardens to the coast. Would have taken a cable car to the beach, minus the whopping 7.50 euro price tag. So we walk down to the harbor. Attempt to buy train tickets to Madrid. Then head to the hostel with Sinem while Taiwanese girls goto bus stop. We buy pasta and sauce on tithe way from two small little shops. Ate food, went for a walk till 11pm.

Day 4. Monday - 16 Nov.

Wake and head to the street market off of La Rambla. Metro to bus station to buy the tickets to Madrid. Confirm my flight booking. Walk a long way to find flea market — that was closed because it’s only open Wed, Thur, Sat. Go to Montserrat, a mountain village. Really more of a monetary. The cathedral is gorgeous. Catholics are strange. In some way, I’m impressed that they build such things to honor God, but is this what he wants?
Decadence.
We see the Basilica, Virgen de Montserrat. Walk for a bit,
Tired, head to the cable car.
Wait for the train while the sun sets.

Spanish culture -

• why is so much of the Spanish speaking world so messed up?
• Lazy
• richer version of Mexico?
• Why are the Spanish so Catholic yet
  • … younger generation losing traditions
  • … drinking and partying so much?

When does innocence go from cute to annoying?

Take a long 52 minute train ride back to the city. Sinem and I eat Falafel, while the Taiwanese girls pickup supplies for dinner. They make noodles with Squid sauce. Quite good. I wish I had time enough to absorb Spanish culture such as with Dutch culture - that’s been an amazing experience, I’m really glad I came on this exchange. It’s an amazing experience - living in another country - but could I do it again?

It’s sad that I understand more in Spain than Utrecht, since I know no
Dutch. Makes me realize how nice it is to understand everything.

[later]

Well, this day turned out to be more exciting. Tien-Ying decided she’d
go to an Internet cafe. OK, that’s cool, except she returns quite a bit later and says, “something happened to me.” OK. It turns out she tried to get money out of an ATM and it didn’t return her card. We take a walk there. On the way, I notice a short latino and a tall black guy passing. We head the wrong way, so we turn around. The black and latino are now heading towards us, they’ve also
turned around. The black stops directly in front of me and says, “what country are you from?”

“The U.S.” I reply honestly.

“What?”

“The United States.”

“I’ve got a knife and I’ll cut you, give me all your money, now.”

“My money, knife?” I mutter.

“Yeah, give it now, all of it.”

“Alright, but I honestly don’t have any money on me.” I pull
everything from my pockets and show him the contents. “I’ve got a
butter knife, you can have that, or my flashlight.” He’s not
interested and turns.

“Good job, you did good,” he tells me. I’m not sure what that’s
supposed to mean, but I slap and pound his outstretched hand. He and
his latino friend walk quickly up the street, while I tell the story
to the four girls. We make our way to the ATM, eventually canceling
Tien-Ying’s card. Head to bed. Long day.

Day 5 - Wednesday 17 Nov.

I never thought I’d be glad to get on a plane home - a plane landing in Amsterdam. I guess Utrecht has become my home.

Today, we goofed around the hostel for a while, then headed to the flea market. Sinem and I wandered around for a while, but there was a bunch of crap. Later, we made our way to Museu Picasso. Genius. To the beach, watch a beautiful sunset, marred only by the pollution. Head to La Rambla, I split from the group to head to the airport, to begin the long journey home.

This trip also really made me miss home. Both homes, but really
Wyoming. I wish I could have watched the sunset with my Wyoming frineds. Drinking wine on the beach and have fun. I’ve met many great people here, but I miss home. I’m really glad I only came for one semester, two would be really hard.
Rewarding, I’m sure, but really hard.

It’s funny that it’s comforting to hear the goofy Dutch language once again on the plane. Although I wish I could understand signs and conversations in the Netherlands as well as I did in Spain. No, I didn’t particularly understand very much, but 5% is better than .5% of written words.

It’s so good to hear the comical, jovial Dutch language again. And take comfort that all these people speak English.