Monday 4th of August, 2003
I'm not a natural beach person, I suppose.
The last day off. I had intended to do something exciting and different, but instead wander around in Barcelona as I had on the previous occasions.
The day started beautifully, though. I drank coffee with the Morin-Gillets in the dining room, then Jesús taught me how to make Venezuelan corn bread, then there was a lot of hanging out - it reminded me of student Saturday mornings. Then farewell to the M-Gs and off to Barcelona.
I go to the Barceloneta (a sort of dowdy city-beach), but once you've seen:
- The Sea
- The Sky
- The Sand
- The Naked Spanish People
you've seen them. I'm not a natural beach person, I suppose. With no one to look after my stuff, I can't even go paddling, so I wander off for fresh things to do.
I end up at Montjuïc, the large mountain park in the west. I take the Metro up to where the cable car starts, then chicken out of taking the cable car to the top. So I walk to the top, wander around there, take in the amazing views (the city-scapes are more astounding in real life than they could be in any photograph). As with other things on this course, I've become familiar with a geography (the streets of Barcelona in this case) in a fragmented way, and am then spirited to a point from which all this information suddenly makes sense.
I also chicken out on taking the cable car down, so I walk. I end up getting lost and walking through the Olympic stadia. There are only so many empty sports stadia that one can look at and think "my what an impressive building", and that number is precisely one. I saw at least five.
I then got to see the tenement area of the city until I managed to get on a bus that took me to Plaça Espanya. Then home from there, stopping to get some guitar polish in one of the many small guitar shops off the Rambla (ran into Shinku there).
Yes, they make stuff specifically to polish guitars with. Go figure.
Stop at the supermarket and buy some yellow dusters and big bags of fun-size Mars and Twix (the woman behind the counter doesn't find this at all surprising) and return to the house. The choc bars are left out for those people who might want them. All of them, I suppose.
