After an hour of working away at that last entry, I bolted to a different, more sedate cybercafé. Two 30ish hispanic women entered the first one shortly before my exit, bringing the place to near-capacity. After several further minutes of obscenity-packed shouting among the young males, one of the Pakistani owners decided the women didn't need to be subjected to that, ordering the boys to zip it. Which reduced constant high-spirited swearing to frequent outbursts punctuated by seconds of quiet. ("¡Coño, me muero!" "Bueno, ¡qué te maten, mamón!" Silence. "¡Joder! ¡Cabrón!") ["Fuck, I'm dead!" "Good, may they kill you, cocksucker!" Silence. "Fuck! You bastard!"]
By the time I stepped back out into the street from the second cyberjoint, darkness had fallen, Saturday night was well underway. Pedestrian traffic on Barcelona's backstreet version of major thoroughfares had grown from a trickle to a flood, locals mixing with overabundant tourists, everyone out looking for a good time.
I'd spent much of the previous evening with a friend not seen in just over two years, pausing first at a crowded tapas joint before settling into a restaurant for a couple of hours of chow/conversation. A smart, interesting guy I first met in intensive Spanish classes in Madrid 3-1/2 years ago -- Belgian, now studying for his master's in Barcelona.
Got home late, Barcelona's Friday night street party just cranking up as I turned off the light, slightly before 2. Groups of revelers six floors down woke me up at both 5 and 6 a.m., singing in various languages with loud, ragged enthusiasm.
There is a strange sense of dislocation I experience over here, at once exhilarating and bittersweet -- various languages audible everywhere, signage idioms changing depending on the city. Some folks speak to me in Spanish, others go directly to English after assessing me with a fast glance. Some are patient, friendly, others curt, uninterested. There are many ways in which I feel far more at home here than on the far side of the Atlantic, others in which I am clearly foreign, drifting through styles of daily life rooted in many centuries of history and culture. Far from unique, probably experienced by many millions of people. I, however, am not them.
But I blabber.
Saturday morning: pulled myself out of bed at an excessively reasonable hour, intending to get my butt to Güell Park, up in the hills to Barcelona's north, before the Saturday hordes showed up. That was my intention. My body had other plans, refusing to move quickly, wanting espresso, a croissant, blah blah blah. Factor in Metro ride followed by long uphill slog to the park (a ten minute walk, according to the guidebook I glanced at -- HA!!), by the time I walked in the park entrance, busses were unloading large groups of other furriners. By the time I stepped out of the small Gaudí museum (Gaudí's house in earlier years), the tourism flood gates had been opened -- so many people that after a short walk around the grounds, I got out of there.
Don't know exactly why, but I found myself not happy with being in the middle of great mobs of tourists this weekend, and so generally avoided big lines, big crowds.
[continued in next entry]
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Detail, overlook wall at Güell Park, Barcelona
Madrid, te quiero.
rws 9:08 AM [+]