Barcelona Pt One
Barcelona
Barcelona has a warm ambient energy that dissolves hours and days as sugar plopped into warm tea. This town has the looks to match its vibe and in the evening times it is a hot date. A pleasant place to idle over coffee and a book and to dawdle open mouthed through an architectural wonderland crowned by the naturalistic dreamscape of Gaudi's La Familia Sagrada. A colourful soaring splendour, eclipsing the traditional imposing greyness of clerical architecture, this cathedral has been in the works for 120 years and is unlikely to be finished for another 80. An iconic building apart, Barcelona as the epitome of Catalan independence.
The principal blight of Barcelona, after the backpacker-unfriendly prices, are the tourist hordes. It might be a little rich of me to complain about tourists, but queues on weekday afternoons in February is taking the piss. At times daylight seems to dim as another busload of locusts falls onto a point of interest, zigzagging all the time behind a leader holding up a small flag and speaking into a mic. At each stop the swarm unleashes a blizzard of flashes, words of explanation filters through the disinterested chatter and the swarm lifts off again blindly following their pied piper in a peaked baseball. Barely a hunched moment of quiet contemplation is allowed before the next swarm descends. At lunchtime a carefully chosen, quiet little restaurant is instantly turned into a swarming anthill as the drones file in one after another. Sitting briefly, the insect sound of intense munching fills the room before the drones file out again to fulfillment of their itinerary. Two more museums, a scheduled coffee in a plaza, a shopping centre and half an hour free time before grazing again at dinner time.
Downswing
Unfortunately - as with most of my time in Spain - the weather did not match the mood of the city. In the glum, driving rain recollections of sun blessed days in Torre Vieja and warm afternoons in Morocco were all but washed away. As was my good humour. Trapped in a tapas bar one evening, imprisoned by a biblical rainstorm, i thought i may need need an ark to get back to my hostel. My mood blackened to a depression that jostled the weather for dour supremacy. Thunder and lightening. Cats and dogs.
As the fury splashed down, a flashflood of irritation welled up to meet it in grim contemplation. Though ostensibly i had little to complain about (maybe this was the problem?), in this frame of mind everything darkens and every occurrence and observation becomes a source of irritation. Looking out at the dismal downpour from a barstool with no backsupport, I filled a couple of mildly therapeutic journal pages with my black thoughts, as though naming the guilty irritants would divest me of them. On paper they were all trivial - people on mobile phones, noisy tourist drones, lousy buses, snoring dorm mates, wobbly table legs, broken ATM machines, soaking weather, loose paving stones sploshing water into my boots etc etc. And as i continued my moan my own irritability became an annoyance as i turned on myself. Why am i letting these trivial things get me down? With a perfect spiral of misery feeding on itself, i decided to budget-bust and treat myself to some proper good food and better vino.
After dinner my mood tempered somewhat but continued to simmer at the surface. I took my book and journal to a friendly bar counter for a quiet, conciliatory drink liom fein, and ended up in conversation, having somewhat begrudgingly putting down my book, with an ex pat from Dublin. Soon a whole ruckus of British Royal Navy marines on shore leave spilled into the bar - anchored down en route to Greece - and a carnival atmosphere unfurled. A weird, weird world, I genuinely could not believe the time as we stumbled out the door at 4:30am.
The next day i nursed a murderous hangover and a mood at least as bleak as the previous day but which was principally attributable to the bitter medicine i had indulged rather than any greater or lesser metaphysical concerns. A quiet day was followed by a nite of elusive sleep, owing at least in part to the three - count 'em, three out of four - snorers in the dorm room. Fidgeting in the bed for most of the nite i looked forward to a day of fatigue that was unlikely i figured to produce an upswing.
Footie on the box
One of the principal reasons i stayed for a week in Barcelona was to take in the Liverpool Barce game at the Nou Camp. The weekend before the big match game, Barce played Valencia and i headed out to scout out our opposition on the box. Eschewing the legion Oirish bars i sought out the company of local Barcelona fans. This proved to be more difficult than i could have anticipated.
A city guide book recommended two bars for their authentic footie atmosphere. A long trek through town found each of these closed for Sunday. Typical i thought. As kick off was imminent i ditched authenticity in favour of immediacy and ducked into The London Bar, which against the odds turned out to be a local favourite. A full bar was pensively awaiting the clearing up of a temporary tv malfunction, sitting broodily over full drinks. Ten minutes after kick off time the bar was instantaneously and moodily cleared by the announcement from the barman that the temporary malfunction had become permanent. Full pints deserted on every table. Money in the bar till.
I now hurriedly returned toward the hostel to a neighbourhood bar i had spotted the previous evening. It was stuffed with grumpy old men, grumpier dogs, grandchildren and assorted nuts sheltering from the rain. I wedged myself into a semi-empty seat and leaned around a corner to catch a view of the small screen. One old-timer down the back was setting out his stall as an Espanyol fan and took to baiting the Barce fans. Even my limited knowledge of Spanish determined that he was cheering for Valencia just to wind everyone else up. And he was succeeding with some aplomb. At one stage he jeered Barce's Italian full back, Zambrotta, as a "dirty Sicilian Mafiosi". Next he was shouting in the face of loud reposts that Barce only win because the refs are crooked. As the patience of his neighbours freyed he turned his attention to cajoling one patron´s bulldog to attack another's fluffy little Schnauzer. Massive uproar ensued from those fixed to the game when the loudly snarling, ill-tempered bulldog knocked over glasses and chairs in devouring the tiny German mutt.
Despite the surfeit of entertainment i decided to leave the circus to retire to a reliable Oirish bar at half time. Finding a heaving, sweaty Paddy joint i sucked in my stomach, removed my shoulder bag and dived in. At the counter i received one untypically Spanish, and very typically Oirish, messy, overflowing pint of lager. With my eyes on the prize of a sliver of standing room I wiggled through the crowd, manoeuvring bag, coat and pint around various corporeal obstacles. Forcing gently between two large bodes i squeezed through to the other side and as i did so the messy, wet, slippy pint slipped. With tremendous dexterity, bag and coat falling from my shoulder, i slung forward and just managed with my finger to catch the pint glass in mid air ... and turn it upside down into my coat, bag and crotch. A loud cheer from the bar folk, a scowl on my face, all I needed to round off the experience was an aged Espanyol fan to set a bull dog on me. On the plus side a fluffy little Barcelona team were devoured by a tough Valencia bulldog.
Queuing for tickets
The Liverpool match was a sell out, with the final couple of hundred tickets going on sale at the stadium the day before the game. The ticket booths opened at 10:00am. With grim determination i hauled ass out of bed at 4:45am. An Irish shower and cursory toothbrush later i joined two scousers in the lobby and we caught the first metro to the Nou Camp, arriving into the cool air and fading darkness of early morning. A queue of fifty odd people had already formed and taxis were landing every few minutes disgorging early birds and late nite revellers into the queue.
The line up was headed by about twenty-odd grizzled Spanish touts, a few of whom had tried to sell me tickets outside the stadium the previous day. A rumour swirled through the crowd during the morning that passport ID would be required to obtain a ticket and when the gates opened at 9:00am pandemonium was unleashed. As the gates opened the line tightened, tired bodies began to compact and a commotion was rising near the front. Inside the wire the touts walked smilingly toward the ticket booths. Outside, and in front of me, the queue was going nowhere.
After agitated discussion i pushed ahead and discovered that UK passport holders were being refused tickets, as the seats were all in the Barce end. This development caused dismay - to put it mildly - amongst those who had queued since early morn. Nonetheless the armed security guards were not in an "I feel your pain" sort of mood, more of an "I'll inflict your pain" stance. Through this growing ruckus i forced my way, Irish passport held head high and skipped into the queue for the ticket desk. While we awaited the opening of the ticket booths the frustrated scousers who had been denied entry broke into a brief chorus of Liverpool chants and awaited with vaseline for the touts to emerge. One unsavoury tout walked from the ticket booth by the Liverpool fans, waiving his tickets in front of them, laughing as he slipped out a side exit and down an alleyway. Immediately he was followed by four burly scousers, who no doubt wished to discuss politely with him affairs of state or some other such delicacies, and who returned ten minutes later with two tickets and red knuckles.
The game
The couple of thousand scousers in Barcelona generated a party atmosphere ahead of the game, far outsinging their numbers. Gathered in the centre of town near Las Ramblas they hung their banners and flags from balconies, street lights and bar windows. Peaceful and in good spirits they drank lake sized quantities of lager and sang to Ronaldinho that Cilla Black wants her teeth back. Heading to the stadium i brought my reassuringly green passport and decided against anything that would mark me as a Liverpool fan - for fear of not being left into the Barce end, and for fear of what the Barce end might have to say about it. However both fears proved groundless. The Barce fans were generous and courteous and Liverpool stormed the fortress. An amazing 2-1 victory in the lions den set us dreaming once more. And afterward a very, very late nite ensued.
Feeling the pain
Returning to the hostel in the early morning of the next day, more Liverpool fans were spilling in and we emptied the beer dispenser in the lobby before heading to bed as other people began to leave to catch flights. Another titanic hangover seemed inevitable and i wobbled to my dorm, joy unconfined overwhelming any portents of the pain that would surely attend my next awakening. Nite shades installed, ears plugged and water by the bed i slumped into a deep sleep to awake late in the afternoon. And it was here that Pt Two of my Barcelona experience began.
Barcelona has a warm ambient energy that dissolves hours and days as sugar plopped into warm tea. This town has the looks to match its vibe and in the evening times it is a hot date. A pleasant place to idle over coffee and a book and to dawdle open mouthed through an architectural wonderland crowned by the naturalistic dreamscape of Gaudi's La Familia Sagrada. A colourful soaring splendour, eclipsing the traditional imposing greyness of clerical architecture, this cathedral has been in the works for 120 years and is unlikely to be finished for another 80. An iconic building apart, Barcelona as the epitome of Catalan independence.
The principal blight of Barcelona, after the backpacker-unfriendly prices, are the tourist hordes. It might be a little rich of me to complain about tourists, but queues on weekday afternoons in February is taking the piss. At times daylight seems to dim as another busload of locusts falls onto a point of interest, zigzagging all the time behind a leader holding up a small flag and speaking into a mic. At each stop the swarm unleashes a blizzard of flashes, words of explanation filters through the disinterested chatter and the swarm lifts off again blindly following their pied piper in a peaked baseball. Barely a hunched moment of quiet contemplation is allowed before the next swarm descends. At lunchtime a carefully chosen, quiet little restaurant is instantly turned into a swarming anthill as the drones file in one after another. Sitting briefly, the insect sound of intense munching fills the room before the drones file out again to fulfillment of their itinerary. Two more museums, a scheduled coffee in a plaza, a shopping centre and half an hour free time before grazing again at dinner time.
Downswing
Unfortunately - as with most of my time in Spain - the weather did not match the mood of the city. In the glum, driving rain recollections of sun blessed days in Torre Vieja and warm afternoons in Morocco were all but washed away. As was my good humour. Trapped in a tapas bar one evening, imprisoned by a biblical rainstorm, i thought i may need need an ark to get back to my hostel. My mood blackened to a depression that jostled the weather for dour supremacy. Thunder and lightening. Cats and dogs.
As the fury splashed down, a flashflood of irritation welled up to meet it in grim contemplation. Though ostensibly i had little to complain about (maybe this was the problem?), in this frame of mind everything darkens and every occurrence and observation becomes a source of irritation. Looking out at the dismal downpour from a barstool with no backsupport, I filled a couple of mildly therapeutic journal pages with my black thoughts, as though naming the guilty irritants would divest me of them. On paper they were all trivial - people on mobile phones, noisy tourist drones, lousy buses, snoring dorm mates, wobbly table legs, broken ATM machines, soaking weather, loose paving stones sploshing water into my boots etc etc. And as i continued my moan my own irritability became an annoyance as i turned on myself. Why am i letting these trivial things get me down? With a perfect spiral of misery feeding on itself, i decided to budget-bust and treat myself to some proper good food and better vino.
After dinner my mood tempered somewhat but continued to simmer at the surface. I took my book and journal to a friendly bar counter for a quiet, conciliatory drink liom fein, and ended up in conversation, having somewhat begrudgingly putting down my book, with an ex pat from Dublin. Soon a whole ruckus of British Royal Navy marines on shore leave spilled into the bar - anchored down en route to Greece - and a carnival atmosphere unfurled. A weird, weird world, I genuinely could not believe the time as we stumbled out the door at 4:30am.
The next day i nursed a murderous hangover and a mood at least as bleak as the previous day but which was principally attributable to the bitter medicine i had indulged rather than any greater or lesser metaphysical concerns. A quiet day was followed by a nite of elusive sleep, owing at least in part to the three - count 'em, three out of four - snorers in the dorm room. Fidgeting in the bed for most of the nite i looked forward to a day of fatigue that was unlikely i figured to produce an upswing.
Footie on the box
One of the principal reasons i stayed for a week in Barcelona was to take in the Liverpool Barce game at the Nou Camp. The weekend before the big match game, Barce played Valencia and i headed out to scout out our opposition on the box. Eschewing the legion Oirish bars i sought out the company of local Barcelona fans. This proved to be more difficult than i could have anticipated.
A city guide book recommended two bars for their authentic footie atmosphere. A long trek through town found each of these closed for Sunday. Typical i thought. As kick off was imminent i ditched authenticity in favour of immediacy and ducked into The London Bar, which against the odds turned out to be a local favourite. A full bar was pensively awaiting the clearing up of a temporary tv malfunction, sitting broodily over full drinks. Ten minutes after kick off time the bar was instantaneously and moodily cleared by the announcement from the barman that the temporary malfunction had become permanent. Full pints deserted on every table. Money in the bar till.
I now hurriedly returned toward the hostel to a neighbourhood bar i had spotted the previous evening. It was stuffed with grumpy old men, grumpier dogs, grandchildren and assorted nuts sheltering from the rain. I wedged myself into a semi-empty seat and leaned around a corner to catch a view of the small screen. One old-timer down the back was setting out his stall as an Espanyol fan and took to baiting the Barce fans. Even my limited knowledge of Spanish determined that he was cheering for Valencia just to wind everyone else up. And he was succeeding with some aplomb. At one stage he jeered Barce's Italian full back, Zambrotta, as a "dirty Sicilian Mafiosi". Next he was shouting in the face of loud reposts that Barce only win because the refs are crooked. As the patience of his neighbours freyed he turned his attention to cajoling one patron´s bulldog to attack another's fluffy little Schnauzer. Massive uproar ensued from those fixed to the game when the loudly snarling, ill-tempered bulldog knocked over glasses and chairs in devouring the tiny German mutt.
Despite the surfeit of entertainment i decided to leave the circus to retire to a reliable Oirish bar at half time. Finding a heaving, sweaty Paddy joint i sucked in my stomach, removed my shoulder bag and dived in. At the counter i received one untypically Spanish, and very typically Oirish, messy, overflowing pint of lager. With my eyes on the prize of a sliver of standing room I wiggled through the crowd, manoeuvring bag, coat and pint around various corporeal obstacles. Forcing gently between two large bodes i squeezed through to the other side and as i did so the messy, wet, slippy pint slipped. With tremendous dexterity, bag and coat falling from my shoulder, i slung forward and just managed with my finger to catch the pint glass in mid air ... and turn it upside down into my coat, bag and crotch. A loud cheer from the bar folk, a scowl on my face, all I needed to round off the experience was an aged Espanyol fan to set a bull dog on me. On the plus side a fluffy little Barcelona team were devoured by a tough Valencia bulldog.
Queuing for tickets
The Liverpool match was a sell out, with the final couple of hundred tickets going on sale at the stadium the day before the game. The ticket booths opened at 10:00am. With grim determination i hauled ass out of bed at 4:45am. An Irish shower and cursory toothbrush later i joined two scousers in the lobby and we caught the first metro to the Nou Camp, arriving into the cool air and fading darkness of early morning. A queue of fifty odd people had already formed and taxis were landing every few minutes disgorging early birds and late nite revellers into the queue.
The line up was headed by about twenty-odd grizzled Spanish touts, a few of whom had tried to sell me tickets outside the stadium the previous day. A rumour swirled through the crowd during the morning that passport ID would be required to obtain a ticket and when the gates opened at 9:00am pandemonium was unleashed. As the gates opened the line tightened, tired bodies began to compact and a commotion was rising near the front. Inside the wire the touts walked smilingly toward the ticket booths. Outside, and in front of me, the queue was going nowhere.
After agitated discussion i pushed ahead and discovered that UK passport holders were being refused tickets, as the seats were all in the Barce end. This development caused dismay - to put it mildly - amongst those who had queued since early morn. Nonetheless the armed security guards were not in an "I feel your pain" sort of mood, more of an "I'll inflict your pain" stance. Through this growing ruckus i forced my way, Irish passport held head high and skipped into the queue for the ticket desk. While we awaited the opening of the ticket booths the frustrated scousers who had been denied entry broke into a brief chorus of Liverpool chants and awaited with vaseline for the touts to emerge. One unsavoury tout walked from the ticket booth by the Liverpool fans, waiving his tickets in front of them, laughing as he slipped out a side exit and down an alleyway. Immediately he was followed by four burly scousers, who no doubt wished to discuss politely with him affairs of state or some other such delicacies, and who returned ten minutes later with two tickets and red knuckles.
The game
The couple of thousand scousers in Barcelona generated a party atmosphere ahead of the game, far outsinging their numbers. Gathered in the centre of town near Las Ramblas they hung their banners and flags from balconies, street lights and bar windows. Peaceful and in good spirits they drank lake sized quantities of lager and sang to Ronaldinho that Cilla Black wants her teeth back. Heading to the stadium i brought my reassuringly green passport and decided against anything that would mark me as a Liverpool fan - for fear of not being left into the Barce end, and for fear of what the Barce end might have to say about it. However both fears proved groundless. The Barce fans were generous and courteous and Liverpool stormed the fortress. An amazing 2-1 victory in the lions den set us dreaming once more. And afterward a very, very late nite ensued.
Feeling the pain
Returning to the hostel in the early morning of the next day, more Liverpool fans were spilling in and we emptied the beer dispenser in the lobby before heading to bed as other people began to leave to catch flights. Another titanic hangover seemed inevitable and i wobbled to my dorm, joy unconfined overwhelming any portents of the pain that would surely attend my next awakening. Nite shades installed, ears plugged and water by the bed i slumped into a deep sleep to awake late in the afternoon. And it was here that Pt Two of my Barcelona experience began.
posted by Supertramp | 7:39 AM
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