Minu Bordeaux: Sangria

January 10th, 2013, home
19:46

miles travelled since last home: several thousands

On Wednesday morning, at 8:30, in my Roots and Boots hostel room, packed with 5 British guys, one Italian guy and one stressed German, something pulled me by my leg. Literally. Turns out it was Milo, who was trying to make me understand my flight leaves in 90 minutes. Nice one, I thought, yet again sleeping in. Quick plan – the airport shuttle takes 40 minutes and it leaves at 9, so I have time and a theoretical chance to make my 10 o’clock flight. I stuffed everything I had in my Alfie bag and rushed out of the door, asking Milo which way should I turn from the hostel. You didn’t look it up before??? He cried in German agony while I swooshed out of the door, took a wrong turn and missed the 9 o’clock shuttle. Promptly, I went to the nearest hotel, asked for the translation for my German boarding pass, and learned that boarding ends at 10, but the flight leaves twenty minutes later, so I had time, I had so much time… At 9:33, I was sitting on the bus on my way to Santiago airport, too tired to ponder upon alternative options to get to Barcelona, so I made up my mind – I’m going to make this flight. The shuttle stopped in front of the airport at 10:12.

I took my Alfie bag and literally flew through the airport, stumbling upon 3 Spaniards who were running as well. My logical conclusion was that they were also missing a flight so I decided to just run after them. That was the fastest security check I’ve ever made (read: I flung my Alfie bag over the machine) and just ran to the gate. Lucky story – the spaniards were late for the same flight, and since it was 4 people, they were waiting for us. One of these got the baggage stuck in the RyanAir baggage measurer and I helped them nudge it out, while the lovely gate lady was going through a decision process, trying to figure out whether she should facepalm, cry, or deny boarding for us. Yeah, I made the flight.

I landed at Reus a cheeseburger and 15 scratchcards later (being aware that lottery is stupidity tax, I felt so bad for the flight attendant that I decided to get a card and then kept getting new free ones), only to find out that Reus is quite far from Barcelona. Frustrated and thirsty, I went to the info center to get some shuttle times and luckily, there was one bus in an hour – ridiculously expensive, but pretty much my only shot, as I thought. I went outside for some fresh air, when suddenly a small dog fell in love with my dress and ripped away from his owner to come and play with it. Turns out, it was the dog of the guy who came to pick up the three spaniards I had helped before with their baggage so they offered to take me to downtown Reus, to the train station, where it would be really cheap to get to Barcelona. So there we were, four spaniards, one dog and one Estonian, wooshing through Spain in the rain. One guy was going to move to France in a month, so I told them about Bordeaux, my French life and a lot about Estonia. Seriously, our government should pay me an incentive fee for all the marketing I’m doing. Once we got to the train station, they came with me to get a discount, as apparently one of them had a special card. Well, we didn’t get the discount, but I did arrive at Barcelona, where I had around 15 hours before meeting Simon - which were spent over walking in Barcelona, having the most awesome dinner at a small Galician restaurant and sharing a heartfelt conversation with an Estonian I met in the hostel kitchen. Hemingway was right, we truly are in every harbour.

Somehow, next morning, I opened my eyes at 05:45. I’m not going to repeat the words I thought in my mind – Simon had already arrived and here I am, somewhere on Carrer de Sardenya, in a hostel room that is essentially a closet, and a mouldy one at that. I dressed in approximately twelve seconds and rushed out into the hot, sleepy morning air of Barcelona. It was pretty simple, really – just head down Sardenya and at some point you will make it to the main station. My dress kept ketting stuck in my sketchers and my heels were still hurting from the camino, but I bravely took step after step and reminisced about the old lady from Estonia I had met in the hostel kitchen yesterday who poured her heart out to me over a pot of carrots cooked in tomato sauce. Just follow the signs, she had told me, which was eerily similar to what I had told myself last week in Portugal, after aimlessly wandering into a luxury golf estate and being escorted out on a golf cart. Follow the signs, Siret. I was swept of my feet half step when suddenly, from the darkness, a pair of German arms wrapped around me and reminded me that not all mornings are always bad. Although we could have gone back to my hostel, we somehow managed to fight the temptation of encountering the mouldy closet of Tunisian men and decided to wander in the awaking, swarming metropol. We had a nice breakfast of tostada and cafe con leche – my typical camino breakfast, saw the Sagrada Familia, ohhed and ahhed at Barcelonian architecture and finally decided to check me out of Olé and go to the hostel Simon had booked for us. I mean, something called Lullaby Gardens has to be awesome.

Turns out, it was. That is mostly the reason why I haven’t been able to write much about my life – I was somehow too busy living it. Everybody who knows me (or Simon) also knows about our excessive love for museums, architecture and historical sites – we had planned five different museums, most of Barcelona’s main attractions and heavy sightseeing walks in the city. Five days and approximately 68 litres of sangria later, our museum score is still frighteningly close to zero, but our life enjoyment index is up somewhere in the scale of German housing bubble. It is very difficult to explore sites you could Google if the conversations take you to places no museum ever could. We started from progressive income tax, made a detour to oceanology, argued about the occupy wall streeters and whined about the toil and pangs of the finance world; we were frighteningly honest about German history and not that honest about others (mea culpa, hee hee), especially when finding out about how much German culture has borrowed from the Estonians. Fascinating, I never realized we had had that much influence on those guys. We saw the most fascinating species-confused seagull on the quays who was clearly convinced he was a dog (or at least an aspiring one), we met a gender-confused German in the Lullaby Gardens, we were constantly reminded by how awesome our life is by fascinating soundtrack (don’t we live in a movie?), especially the drugged street musician somewhere in Barcelona Underground, whose representation of Johnny Cash’s „Hurt” was astoundingly true to its title, we had our movie moment on Diagonal Avenue when I gave an impromptu concert in the sun to almost 200 spectators on a huge concert piano, randomly on the street – we had the best vacation ever. We are now safely back in Bordeaux, albeit sunburn (don't worry, I am wearing mine with aplomb) and yearning for the Tapa Tapa sangria, already making plans for the next trip there.

Barcelona Cathedral that we tried to visit almost 6 times, but decided in favour of sangria, somehow. But hey, I had just walked 300km to another cathedral, so hopefully the old guy doesn't hold a grudge.

The Dog who played with my dress, thus granting me a free trip to Reus from the airport. Oh, and his owner as well.

Me with Simon on Rambla Mar, after our first Tapa Tapa sangria.... and before my hellish sunburn

Our fleet

This is an old Irish guy from Canada who lives in Paraguay who was called Karl, but whom I called Jack. We talked about annunakis, intergalactic wars and fluoride conspiracy. He yelled to the hospilaliero, "Patrick, Patrick, look at this - I am learning from a 22 year old". I heard later he accidentally smoked weed on the patio and danced the robot at 3 am in the living room. Gotta love hostels.

The hostel living room where currently Simon is trying to console Milo, a pilgrim I met in Pontevedra who joined me in Barcelona after Santiago, and two Moroccan guys who always had to explain that no, they are not immigrants, no, they do not live in France, yes, they actually do live and work in Morocco.

Random street in Barcelona

Simon on the edge of the world. OK, OK, on the edge of Park Güell elevator factually, but every edge could be the edge of the world, couldn't it?

Mediterranean life

Small hill at Park Güell

Old Town

Gaudi Square

"Make a funny face, Simon" - Simon pretends to dance Thriller. Come on, how is that funny? Scary stuff happened in these forests...

Patriot

In the surf of the Mediterranean. Yeah, for the Spanish it was too cold... I mean, we were talking about only a mere 25C...

La Pedrera - we stayed right next to it. I still don't know what the function of this building is, but it did look great in the light.

Siret and Simon enjoying Estonian spring. OK, we went to the Ice Bar, made of ice - even drinks are served in glasses made of ice. The temperature inside was -14C, which would be a mild spring breeze somewhere in the end of March for my Nordic soul. Out of solidarity I did wear the jacket though.