Friday, October 4
The transportation situation between Sitges and Barcelona had really put me off from wanting to do that again.
"There are several more trains to Vilanova than to Barcelona," the English woman had said. While standing on that platform, i'd seen three, so i was inclined to believe her.
I was meant to check out of this hostel tomorrow anyway. Should i head to one of those AirBnbs in Vilanova, then?
Or should i leave the area, go see Portugal, and then head south to Morocco?
I'd enjoyed going to the film festival, of course i did, of course i would. But when i woke up this fine Friday morning, my heart did not want to sit in a theater. My heart wanted adventure.
I looked at trains to Porto, and
oh
oh no
These schedules are shit.
Most of them are not even in the Eurail pass network, and the ones that are have hefty seat reservation fees. I'm looking at 12 hours of travel, and i can't even do it overnight. The only "overnight" routes will leave me stranded at a station for between 7 and 9 hours.
Trash. This is trash.
But my heart wouldn't shut up about having some adventure, even though my body felt kind of drained (mostly from the transportation stress last night, i supposed), so i put tomorrow's plans on the back burner and headed out to see what i could get up to in Barcelona.
My friend Huan-Hua, who travels to Barcelona occasionally for work, had provided me with a list of about twenty recommendations for attractions and for food. She'd given her top 3 must-sees as Basilica de la Sagrada Família, Parc Güell, and Mercat de la Boquiera.
I got out of the hostel at noon, and decided to head for Parc Güell. It wasn't the closest, but it was near the Bunkers del Carmel, which Huan-Hua had on her map, but were already on my radar because of Atlas Obscura. I figured it would be pretty easy to hit those, one after the other, and then i'd probably be ready for some food afterward. I was once again loaded up with cornflakes and white toast, so that should hold me for...ehhh we'll see.
The walk to Parc Güell was almost entirely, very noticeably, uphill. My watch was showing 352 feet of ascent, 0 feet of descent when i reached the park, 2.02 miles from the hostel. I could see from the outside that the park was full of whimsical and bizarre sculptures, and i was pretty excited about it.
I was at the exit, though. It pointed toward an entrance, to the right. There was a sign on the exit that seemed to indicate that tickets for the day might be sold out, though.
I guess i thought this was going to be a park, but now it was looking like it was more of an amusement park. I didn't expect to need tickets.
Arriving at the side entrance, i saw the same small, mostly nondescript sign on the corral. Tickets sold out for today. Another seemingly American couple was approaching the employee at the gate, trying to get in. I heard her inform them that yes, in fact, all tickets for today were sold out. They, and consequently i, would not be able to get in.
That is disappointing. I got on the web site. There were only a few tickets left for tomorrow, but i wasn't sure i wanted to commit to being in Barcelona tomorrow. I was planning to head for Portugal. So i didn't buy them.
I tried to pull up Atlas Obscura to see if anything else was in the area, but today was the day that their web site decided that the version of Firefox i'm running on my phone is too old, and hey, have you tried our app?
Wait since when does Atlas Obscura have their own app? Is this new?
It didn't matter, i couldn't do either because i had a weak mobile data connection, and i didn't really want to pull down an app of that size without wifi anyway.
The Bunkers del Carmel were on Huan-Hua's list, which i had open in Google Maps anyway, so i just headed for them.
Google Maps, stupid fucking Google Maps, first gave me directions leading through Park Güell to get to the bunkers. Apparently, they don't understand either that it's not a public park.
I started making my own way around the park, but there wasn't any direct route. I had to go pretty far down the road to find a cross street. Once i made that turn, it was all uphill from there. I was scaling a mountain.
I guess i didn't realize that the bunkers were so high above the city. Did i not read the Atlas Obscura article? Maybe i didn't, because i was thinking "bunker" like "bomb shelter." I thought it would be underground somewhere.
As i made the climb, the buildings began to recede around me, giving an incredible view over the whole city and out to the sea. I stopped for photos several times, not aware that the view was only going to keep getting better and better.
I was really impressed with myself here, though. I'd climb like a hundred feet, be breathing pretty hard, stop to take a photo, and feel myself recover within a minute or two. Repeat. By the time i got to the top, absolutely towering over the city, my watch showed 868 feet of ascent across 3.40 miles in an hour and thirty-five minutes. And i felt so good. So, so good. Incredible, even.
Between the sprint for the train last night and this climb, i finally feel like maybe my stamina has made a decent recovery. My lungs haven't felt this good since before the first time i got Covid, definitely not since the second, and the third and fourth infections had only made them worse. I was getting to the point where i didn't believe my doctor, i thought i would be fucked for life.
But now.
Now i am excited.
I feel like my body might be ready to start dipping back into my full training regimen. Take it slow at first, of course, but i think i'll be able to handle it. I haven't done any strength training since Amanda's been gone, other than participating in the Wolfie Games.
Maybe i'll be okay to run that marathon i signed up for in November. I'd been having serious doubts.
The Bunkers del Carmel were built in 1938, to serve as anti-aircraft fortifications during the Spanish Civil War. From here, they could survey and protect the entire city, with 105mm cannons.
The guns were removed after the war, but the bunker itself was left to rot. It didn't take long for people to figure out the abandoned facility was up there, with its spectacular views. The site became so popular that in the 2000s, the government finally did some renovation work to the site, to encourage tourism.
Atlas Obscura has a photo of the clean concrete foundations, but by the time i got up there in 2024, the entire site, every square inch of concrete, was covered in graffiti, which i think is beautiful. I am a huge fan of graffiti-covered ruins, even if many of the pieces loudly declare "TOURISTS GO HOME." I'm not a big fan of tourists either, a lot of them are loud and messy, and damage the area. I don't know what the state of the tourism industry here in Spain is, but if Hawaii is any indication, i can understand why some locals would be upset. Hawaiian locals have been vocal for years about the damage tourism does to their land, but especially since the recent fires, there's been a prominent movement asking people to stop coming. Most of the federal funds for rebuilding the island went toward the tourism industry, leaving the residents to fend for themselves. People are understandably bitter.
I could've stayed up there all day. I love this kind of thing. The views, the ruins, the art. Plus i was happy to get out and get a challenging hike in, even if i hadn't planned for it.
But as always, there comes a time where i need to move on with my day.
After that incredible climb, the way down felt very nice. I was heading for another of Huan-Hua's top three, the Basilica de la Sagrada Família. I wasn't quite hungry yet, shockingly, but i thought if i saw something on the way, maybe i'd stop. I didn't.
Sagrada Família is one of the stranger churches i've ever seen. I understood immediately why Huan-Hua had described architect Antoni Gaudí's style as "hallucinatory architecture." Every characteristic of the shape of this church looks like it grew out of a Dr. Seuss book, from the oddly round spires to the giant bunch of grapes held within them. Meanwhile, the statues sculpted into the facade are very blocky, like CGI characters from the early 1990s experiencing torture. This church was designed in 1882.
Gaudí worked on it steadily until his death in 1926, after which work was taken over by a series of other architects, who wanted to preserve Gaudí's vision. In 2024, over 130 years after it was started, the basilica still isn't finished. Cranes outside continued to move pieces around even as i watched. It's getting very close; current projections hope the church will be completed in 2026, the hundredth anniversary of Gaudí's death.
Despite its unfinished state, the church sees 3 million visitors per year.
I would not be one of them.
There was no ticket booth. The gates all had posters with huge QR codes on them and instructions to download their app in order to buy tickets. That's it. That's the only way. You need to download an app, just to buy tickets to get into this church.
I've complained before, notably in Milan, about churches charging admission fees, especially amusement park-level fees. I was willing to do it for this one, just because it's so dang weird, i had to see it. I was not pleased about needing to download an app to do it.
I'm sorry, but i'm with the boomers on this one. These kind of extraneous apps for processes which should be extremely simple just really grind my gears. I would really like to go through a booth and just hand someone some cash or my credit card, and get through the gate. This doesn't need to be any more than that. If advance tickets are really necessary, just let me book through your web site.
I couldn't connect to the church's wifi, even with my VPN turned off. It refused to give me an IP address. So i'm stuck downloading this stupid fucking app over mobile data, which has been slow and unreliable for me. The app is over 80 megs. It took a while.
And once it was in there, inside my phone, stealing my data and sending it back to the church, because that's the only possible reason to have your own app for something this stupid, i clicked on the links to buy tickets...
...and it just loaded an external web page in Firefox anyway.
You motherfuckers.
This could've just been a hyperlink off of your god damned main page.
Admission, without a guide, just to walk around on my own, would be €26. If i wanted to tour the spires too, it was €36. An audio guide added an additional €4. Honestly, i just wanted to see the weird architecture, so i clicked on unguided with spires.
Booked out for weeks. Next available option was October 14th. The day i fly out.
Okay, that's super inconvenient, but if i really want it, i can make that work. I clicked to buy the ticket.
Then it made me choose one (1) spire to see. I can't even see both of them??
I tried to make a selection, and it wouldn't let me. I went back to the date selection, and the 14th was no longer available. Either someone else had taken it in that split second i was on that selection page, or it was glitched and was never available anyway.
Even entry without spires was showing that the next available date was the 15th. I'll be in Iceland. I can't do it.
I deleted the app and walked away, frustrated. That was a whole lot of bullshit for nothing. I gave it one star in the app store and commented that it shouldn't exist. Its rating currently sits at 2.6 stars.
I may also have been especially cranky because i was finally realizing the level of hunger i'd hit.
I picked something off of Huan-Hua's list that was sort of close. It wasn't the closest option, but it was one of the more interesting ones, and if it didn't work out for any reason, there was another one very nearby.
Bodega Solera is a small pub that serves great tapas. I had never had tapas before, and i wasn't entirely sure what that was. I guess it's a pretty loosely-defined class of snacks or appetizers, that can reasonably be combined with other tapas to form a meal. I didn't know what the size of the thing was going to be, so i just ordered one, a smoked eggplant and goat cheese dish. I had the feeling that a soda would ruin this meal, so i asked the waitress what she would recommend to drink with it, and she suggested a fruity red wine. I wish i could remember the name of that wine, because it was fantastic and i would love to have it again.
The smoked eggplant was so fucking delicious, good god, holy shit. It wasn't very substantial, though; i definitely felt like i needed more food afterward. But i did not want to let the taste leave my mouth! I wished i could carry that around with me all day!
The wine was absolutely the right call, too. Yeah, a Coke 100% definitely would have ruined that eggplant. I was pleased with my decisions.
As i stepped out, i thought about going over to the other nearby suggested restaurant as well. It was a pizza place, so i thought maybe i could snag a quick slice. However, two doors down from Bodega Solera, i found a churro shop, Xurreria Trebol. Yes, i think this is the answer.
I got a churro that was both covered in chocolate, and had a chocolate filling. I've only ever had regular, vanilla churros with cinnamon from Costco, or some smaller but similar ones from a few local restaurants. I've been blind to the possibilities of what can be done with churros!
My watch was down to 6%, my phone around 10, and i felt like my guts were going to need some attention soon. I decided to head back to the hostel for a little bit, to let my devices charge.
It turned out that one of those devices was me. After i got out of the bathroom, i fell asleep for a solid hour and a half.
I don't know how the hell i managed to get myself back up and out of the hostel after that. By all rights, that sounds impossible. I should've been in for the night.
But i did it.
It was 8pm, but i got myself out of the hostel and on the road again.
I had noticed on Google Maps that there was an attraction nearby called "Arc de Triomf." It was enough to pique my curiosity.
Built in 1888 as a gateway into that year's World's Fair, this Arc de Triomf stands as a symbol of friendship and welcoming, unlike the many other triumphant arcs found across Europe and America. Though it's often compared to L'Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the Wellington Arch in London, the Arcul de Triumf in Bucharest, and the Soldiers' and Sailors' Arch in New York City, this one does not celebrate or romanticize the military or war, as those do.
The first thing i noticed was that there were a bunch of police officers under the arc. I could hear club hits of the 90s being played at a reasonable volume coming from somewhere nearby. I got a bunch of pictures around the front of the monument, then walked around it to see the other side.
Hundreds of bicyclists were standing around, chatting, holding their bikes next to them.
It was kind of surreal. Obviously this is some sort of organized event, what with the police presence and the quiet DJ, but like. Literally everyone is standing here, holding their bikes? Some kind of...gathering...for chill, low-key cyclists? There were also children drawing with sidewalk chalk, the whole plaza was covered in chalk art.
I have no idea. I felt like i was crashing someone else's party, though, so i left.
I was definitely hungry again, which should not be surprising. I remembered seeing a ceviche place on my way, i thought i'd go hit that up. I don't think i've ever had authentic ceviche before, just the container of vegan ceviche i buy from Costco when they have it, which i use more as a dip or a spread than a meal.
Señor Ceviche was the place. I got a table outside, next to four very white dudes talking about reading Mein Kampf, which was...yeeeaaah. From the tone of their conversation, i got the impression they were the kind of dorks who think of different political structures as a simple matter of preference, rather than systems that affect literally every aspect of their lives. Also, they seemed to be professional football players. Or at least passionate recreational ones. I have no idea, maybe they were famous people, i don't follow soccer. Or American football, for that matter.
I got the salmon ceviche. It was served as more of a soup, with some thick slabs of potato on a side plate that were encrusted in something like tempura, and a little dish of salsa. I did eat most of the ceviche with a spoon, but as i'm familiar with this food in more of a "dip" fashion, i scooped some up on each of those potato slabs and ate it as if it were a tiny little open-faced sandwich.
It was incredible. It was spicier than i expected or realized even while i was eating it, but my nose kept running for a long time after i left.
I went back to the hostel and sat in the dining room, trying to figure out my travel situation for the next day. At this point, i'd accepted that the choice was either Portugal or Morocco, no both, simply because of the amount of travel time between destinations, and how soon i needed to be back in Barcelona, plus i did still want to go to a few more days of the festival, on the back end.
Ferries to Morocco seemed easy and cheap, but i still couldn't figure out a reasonable way to get all the way to the south end of Spain to get on the damn ferry. Whether i go west or south from here, it's still burning an entire day just on travel, both ways.
So my options were Portugal, or Morocco, or stay in the Barcelona area and go back to the film festival.
My brain was baked from being out in the sun all day, and climbing that mountain. I went into the Goki app and pushed the button to request an extra day at the hostel, because there was no way i was getting these travel plans in order before checkout tomorrow. I went to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment