Haven't we been here before?
Ahh Barcelona (yeah, the London update, which will be ha-ha-sterical,hasn´t happened yet. In short: settling in very well though, thanks for asking). City of sun, streets, wine, beer, food and culture.
My present from the lovely for my birthday was a trip to three places of my choosing (I know, I don´t deserve her; and no, you can´t have her). First up, Barcelona, for a week revisiting (for her, not me-I hadn´t been here before) her favourite city.
My borrowed guide-book triumphantly informed me that "Barcelona is a sunny city, enjoying clear blue skies for a large part of the year."And it clearly stated, with the mythical wisdom we seem to give these guide books when travelling, that "Grey drizzly weather, lasting days on end is VERY rare"
And so it was that I experienced a very rare Barcelona.
Late breakfast of coffee and cigarettes? Yes please (or as the ´locals´ say "si, por favor."* Barcelona is a city you can get lost in. Fortunate, really, when you are as directionally challenged as I am (I still, 2 months into my new job, get lost in the office-particularly humiliating when you are meeting external people at the foyer and get lost taking them to your meeting room). North? um... that´s where that shop was earlier, near the ... hmm. sorry, where was I? - maybe this is why i get lost sometimes.... anyway
Fear not! I had the lovely - a veritable compass. Better than a compass! North, south, east and home - she has it covered. And, unlike your silly little compass, the lovely remembers streets and places and reads maps and stuff. Finally, the baby shambles can see stuff in a new city beyond concentric circles around the hostel. Now I can get lost in a city (a passtime and a passion) AND know where I am and how to get out (a depressing practicality).
And this is broadly how our first days functioned- left right, left, right coffee and some toast. Stumble, stumble bar - talk and drink, eat and read ... stumble fumble ... home? (how did we get home? I thought it was north .... of ... here).
And so on, and so it rains. What can you do when it rains? most go to museums and galleries. And that´s PRECISELY why the baby shambles doesn´t! The lovely wanted to visit somewhere few tourists would venture and she knew exactly where. After a walk along the beach (in the rain) it was determined, from upon high, that we would venture to ... a solar park - a big, open park by the water, with a huge solar panel (the size of a soccer pitch) hoisted 10m up in the air!.
Yes, what could get away from the Foddor´s-bearing menopausal Americans and their brow-beaten husbands more than a solar park ... in the rain ... that isn´t finished yet ... only 20 inconvenient minutes by bus from the centre!
So we went. And it was cool (in both senses) and we walked around and the lovely stared in wonder at the vision and the construction, and I stared, smiling, at her wonder, in the rain.
And we both left happy.
On the second day I had brought shoes. One pair had ´contact earth´ a function that supposedly grounded me (in a static electicity sense, not metaphorically). I thought it was bollocks, but it turns out on day three, my ´contact earth´ was interfering with the lovely´s compass.
Some form of magnetic interference with ´magnetic north´ (unlike the true north of which some of you are painfully familiar) that they talked about in physics when you were day-dreaming about something more interesting and less important. Her cunning sense of direction was askew, what would we do?
We would get lost. Then we would (re)discover where we were again (by, for example walking past where we had eaten lunch 30 purposeful-walking-to-a-museum mins ago). Then we found a fantastic Bodega with huge barrells of beautiful cheap wine and not a care in the world. And we stayed there. Happily.
Haven´t we been here before? Yes, and hopefully many times more.
It's north of the thing ... right?
My present from the lovely for my birthday was a trip to three places of my choosing (I know, I don´t deserve her; and no, you can´t have her). First up, Barcelona, for a week revisiting (for her, not me-I hadn´t been here before) her favourite city.
My borrowed guide-book triumphantly informed me that "Barcelona is a sunny city, enjoying clear blue skies for a large part of the year."And it clearly stated, with the mythical wisdom we seem to give these guide books when travelling, that "Grey drizzly weather, lasting days on end is VERY rare"
And so it was that I experienced a very rare Barcelona.
Late breakfast of coffee and cigarettes? Yes please (or as the ´locals´ say "si, por favor."* Barcelona is a city you can get lost in. Fortunate, really, when you are as directionally challenged as I am (I still, 2 months into my new job, get lost in the office-particularly humiliating when you are meeting external people at the foyer and get lost taking them to your meeting room). North? um... that´s where that shop was earlier, near the ... hmm. sorry, where was I? - maybe this is why i get lost sometimes.... anyway
Fear not! I had the lovely - a veritable compass. Better than a compass! North, south, east and home - she has it covered. And, unlike your silly little compass, the lovely remembers streets and places and reads maps and stuff. Finally, the baby shambles can see stuff in a new city beyond concentric circles around the hostel. Now I can get lost in a city (a passtime and a passion) AND know where I am and how to get out (a depressing practicality).
And this is broadly how our first days functioned- left right, left, right coffee and some toast. Stumble, stumble bar - talk and drink, eat and read ... stumble fumble ... home? (how did we get home? I thought it was north .... of ... here).
And so on, and so it rains. What can you do when it rains? most go to museums and galleries. And that´s PRECISELY why the baby shambles doesn´t! The lovely wanted to visit somewhere few tourists would venture and she knew exactly where. After a walk along the beach (in the rain) it was determined, from upon high, that we would venture to ... a solar park - a big, open park by the water, with a huge solar panel (the size of a soccer pitch) hoisted 10m up in the air!.
Yes, what could get away from the Foddor´s-bearing menopausal Americans and their brow-beaten husbands more than a solar park ... in the rain ... that isn´t finished yet ... only 20 inconvenient minutes by bus from the centre!
So we went. And it was cool (in both senses) and we walked around and the lovely stared in wonder at the vision and the construction, and I stared, smiling, at her wonder, in the rain.
And we both left happy.
On the second day I had brought shoes. One pair had ´contact earth´ a function that supposedly grounded me (in a static electicity sense, not metaphorically). I thought it was bollocks, but it turns out on day three, my ´contact earth´ was interfering with the lovely´s compass.
Some form of magnetic interference with ´magnetic north´ (unlike the true north of which some of you are painfully familiar) that they talked about in physics when you were day-dreaming about something more interesting and less important. Her cunning sense of direction was askew, what would we do?
We would get lost. Then we would (re)discover where we were again (by, for example walking past where we had eaten lunch 30 purposeful-walking-to-a-museum mins ago). Then we found a fantastic Bodega with huge barrells of beautiful cheap wine and not a care in the world. And we stayed there. Happily.
Haven´t we been here before? Yes, and hopefully many times more.
It's north of the thing ... right?
posted by underwhleming at 5:32 AM
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