It is impossible to practice Spanish here in Spain. Everyone speaks English perfectly. After trying to buy a SIM card in Spanish for about 30 seconds, the sales got tired of watching me struggle and asked me what I want in my language. I would have insisted on struggling through, if I didn't feel that I was being impolite by wasting his time. I couldn't even try much Spanish on my new friend at the hostel, Laura, an Ophthalmologist from Argentina. Her so-called broken English was far far superior than my terrible Spanish which I 'learned' from travel phase books. So, in order to not reduce our conversations to grade 1 level talk, I simply insisted on speaking English with her so that we could both actually enjoy each other's company.
Today was catch-up day. It's actually my 4th day here in Barcelona already. But it has been a blur, although in a good way. As usual, I started my time in the new city but joining one of these "free" walking tours I spoke of so often last year (I "donated" 10 Euros after for my guide's efforts). As usual, these are more about meeting new people than seeing new places. I honestly did not hear a single word of his tour, nor did I take in any of the important destinations he attempted to show us. But I did mention to meet a bunch of fun people. There's the above mentioned Laura. Then there's my tall goofy Moroccan friend Amjad, an ex-financial planner from Miami called Raman who quit his disenchanted work life to travel the world and refocus his life, a sales from UK named Viraj who also happen to love his pet snake, and two Norwegian doctors (an OBGYN and a paediatrician) Eva and Sunniva. We quickly bonded over Cavas (the region's favourite bubbly wine, which is basically Brut) and Sangria (who we were told should never be drunk here in this part of Spain). The next several days we would proceed to do our own things, but would meet up occasionally for this or that, or simply show each other what we've been up to on group chat. Last two nights, we also had the lovely added company of two nice German dudes, Markus and Max, who dined and beered with us. Today, pretty much everybody went on either home or to their next destination, and I had a day to roam around myself and reflect upon what Barcelona had meant to me.
I spent the morning going up the steps leading to the magnificent Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (I didn't actually go in, for I felt I burned all my travel funds on Gaudi, tapas and wine already...). But staying outside the building was pretty much where the reward is, as I was treated with a stunning panoramic view of the entire city, over the soft romantic tones of the Spanish guitar by a street performer that really set the stage for the moment. In the afternoon, I found myself a little place that served delicious bite size baguette slices topped with a variety of Spanish tapas, called Pinxos (or Pinchos). The etiquette is that you take the ones that appeal to you (about 2 Euros a piece), consume them at your leisure then afterwards, they simply count how many toothpicks you have on your plate and bill you accordingly (nobody cared to consider the ease of which you can simply toss the toothpicks away or hide them in your pockets, but being the honest Canadian that I am, I showed them my 8 pieces of sticks, gave them a 20 Euro bill (I also had wine), and walked away satisfied.) After my delicious gluttony, I served up my post-prandial coma with a dose of Picasso at the nearby Picasso Museum (this, I had reserved some funds for, since I was a big fan boy of his). This unique museum was largely focused on the earlier works of this creative genius, where you can witness the purity of his skills in his earlier days, before he took upon himself to deconstruct everything it is we knew about art and made something that looked like children's drawings marketable and sexy and actually thoughtful. Hoping to use his influence to help spice up my new digs in Vancouver, I brought 2 postcards that I intent to frame in the guest washroom or somewhere around there. Tonight, I honestly have no plans, and I'm rather excited about that. I might even dive further into the Spanish textbook that I took with me. Who knows, maybe the next time I need to buy a SIM card in Spain, I can actually use their language, without embarrassing myself too much.
(For those who care, get a SIM from one of the bigger phone carriers such as Vodafone or Orange. Mine cost 10 Euro, included 1.5 G of LTE and 15 minutes of talk time. More than enough to last me all of Spain for my 10 days. And simply get it from one of the many Vodafone or Orange store in town. Preferably in English.)
Tomorrow, I'm off to a little town on the Northern Coast of Spain called Bilbao. I could have gone to Madrid. But I've already been there almost a decade ago, and had $200 stolen from my wallet somehow while it was still in my hand. Yes I was a dumb kid back then. Maybe still is. So I did not intent on going back. :)
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