2004-02-03
Gain a Sprain on a Plain in the Rain in Spain

1:39 p.m.

Thursday after our test, Nick, Miguel and I were almost immediately usured into the car by Markus, who, understandably, was quite anxious to get underway. We left around 2ish, which put us in Barcelona around 10. Nick and I spent the drive oohing and ahhing over all of the castles viewed along the way, much to the amusement of both Miguel and Markus. Being native Europeans, castles were nothing exciting to them, but to a couple of little-traveled Americans, all merited exclamations of, 'Look at that one!' accompanied by frantic picture-taking. The countryside was also beautiful, a mosiac of rolling hills, shimmering lakes, open plains, and small villages.

I also received a dissertation from Miguel on the history of Castillian Spanish and Catalan, which are two completely different languages. This is what I get for asking if Catalan was a dialect fo Spanish. Silly, ignorant me! As it turns out, Catalan, the official language of Barcelona, was a blessing as it is closer to French than Spanish so I was able to understand a lot more than I expected, because everything in Barcelona was written in Catalan and Spanish.

Markus joked that it only rains in Spain, and sure enough, as soon as we crossed the border into Spain, it started raining.

We dropped Miguel off (he lived there so hitched a ride with us to spend the weekend with his family) and the three of us headed to Markus' house. Unfortunately, on the way there, Markus received a call from his wife who had been in a bad car accident and was currently in the hospital. Markus dropped us off at his house and then went to the hospital. The Portugese housekeeper didn't speak any English, which left us at the mercy of Nick who liked to think that he spoke Spanish.

She had dinner waiting for us, and Nick and I sat down to an incredible meal of gazpacho, a cold green soup of some kind, bread, and these breaded chicken dumpling things. Nick was in heaven and still, as far as I know, considers it one of his best meals in Europe. Afterwards, we headed upstairs to a shower and our beds.

I have to say that Markus' house is beautiful. It's several stories, extremely well-furnished, a cozy and extensive library, a small and tidy yard, but the best part is that it's located on a hill which affords a wonderful view of the Mediterranean.

The next morning, we met his wife who is really nice and very friendly and also spoke English well. Markus is Austrian, but met his Spanish wife at grad school and now lives in Barcelona. So, he speaks German, Spanish, French, and English. Even a smattering of Russian, since they have adopted a little Russian girl. Hmph. All of these people with their multiple languages! Anyway, we had a wonderful, very European-style breakfast (complete with hard-boiled eggs in the little cups which we weren't sure what to do with, so waited to see what Markus did) and then met Ralph, their American Bulldog, who is a baby when it comes to attention and rolled right over and let me rub his belly. He's a big, powerful, lumbering dog, and Markus, while he does like him, isn't as dog crazy as I am, so Ralphie really enjoyed the attention I gave him; even now, Markus asks how Bennet is doing, and then tells me that Ralph misses me.

Markus and his wife dropped off Nick and I at the train station, with much trepidation, I'm sure, about unleashing two unicivilized Americans on Spain and wondering whether or not they would see us at the appointed 4 PM Sunday time. I was wondering the same thing.

Our adventures started right away; we bought a ticket into town, and climbed on one train, which then turned out to be broken so everyone had to get off and climb on another. On the ride, several times there were sparks outside, the lights went off, and the train felt like it was coasting with no power. Noone seemed to be concerned, and sure enough, each time, everything was restored and we made it into town unscathed. Our first stop was to the tourist center, which was conveniently located near the train station, and the staffers whom fortunately spoke English. We found a hostel, decided to walk the distance instead of buying a tram pass. That ended up being a nice little hour carrying our packs uphill, but we finally found it and checked in. They had places for us that night, but not Saturday, so we'd have to find other arrangements. We bought tram passes (not wanting to do that much walking again) and decided to explore the city.

We did a lot of walking, went down to the ocean and each took pictures of the other sticking our hands in the Mediterranean. There was a lot of interesting sights - a statue of Christopher Columbus pointing (presumedly) towards America, Olypmic Stadium, and Pla�a Espanya, not to mention the myriad old buildings that just don't exist in the US.

We even went to a travel agent to see about the possibility of visiting Portugal since we were so close, but that was quite expensive and instead we bought a ticket to Madrid that left the next morning and which would bring us back that night on the sleeper train - thereby allowing us to see another city and have a place to sleep, all in one.

Here's a (blurry) picture of Nick and I at the fountains at Pla�a Espanya. It was this beautiful building that looked a little like our capitol, only more brightly colored with gold, blue, and red. A long walkway led up to the building from the city, lined with fountains, this one being the largest and just below the stairs leading up to the building itself. We climbed the stairs to the bottom of the building and Nick, who delights in what I call 'pensive poses', wanted me to take a picture of him pondering life as he gazed out over the colored streams of water. As I was backing up to get a good picture, all of a sudden there was nothing under my feet and I fell into a three-foot deep recess, landing on the hard tile on my left hand and side, a little stunned.

Nick said that he heard a 'thump', and upon turning around, was briefly upset because he thought that I'd ditched him. Then he noticed everyone gathered around a hole, and came over to look and discovered me laying at the bottom of it. He helped me back up, and despite a little pain and some wetness, I was fine. Or so I thought.

He really wanted to see Olympic stadium, so we had to figure out how to get down from the hill that we were on and up the one that held the stadium. On the way there, my hand decided to swell up and by the time we reached the stadium, I had a very nice little lump. Nick wanted to go to a doctor, but it was 8ish at night and as nothing was hanging off or sticking out, I figured that I would survive.

The stadium was dark, of course, but it was still interesting to peer in and walk around a bit in the park next to it and see the giant torch and everything.

We headed back to the hostel, stopping briefly on the way to explore an old vintage and pick up a a bandage and some tape at the pharmacy for me to wrap up my hand.

We hit the hostel, exhausted but happy. The next day, we had to get up early to catch a train to Madrid. Did you really expect us to stay in a city longer than one day?

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