After relaxing days spent on the beach we boarded a train to Barcelona for our small excursion into Spanish country – however, I soon learned we were in Catalania, not Spain. Catalan is a region in the North East part of Spain, bordering France and the Mediterranean sea, where there is a different dialect (Catalan), different cuisine, and different people. Literally, everything is translated into 3-4 languages, Spanish, Catalan, English, and French.
Barcelona is the most beautiful European city I have seen thus far. All European cities knock the U.S. out of the water with their enormous public parks, their cleanliness, their old buildings, and their narrow, bricked streets. However, Barcelona has the most impressive architecture I have seen of all these European wonders. Apparently, some guy named Gaudi, who, by the way was chums with Dali and other famous-names-you-can’t-remember-from-art 101 artists, loved his homeland of Catalania and decided he would pretty much build the majority of the city up himself, with his own architectural designs. This provides a stunning tourist-bus drive (yes, I did one of those double-decker sight-seeing buses, strapped with my camera around my neck and my sunscreen on) of stunning buildings built not to expected style, but with curved or rounded tops, deep metallic colors of blues and greens, and the most famous of all, the Sagrada Familia – a cathedral so vast and beautiful you can’t really capture it all in one photograph no matter where you stand (google it for pictures). The cathedral itself is not even finished yet, as Gaudi died before his dream of 18 steeple tops that shoot into the sky could be completed; the construction continues from anonymous donors finances.
La Rambla is another famous site of Barcelona that all tourists are sure to experience since it houses most of the hotels and hostels. What is it? Just a street. But a street with a walkway down the center that is lined with everything one could ever want to peak their interest: birds, turtles, guinea pigs, newsstands, flowers, characters dressed up in extravagant costumes, soccer players showing off their juggling skills, or human statues painted head to toe in metallic body-cover. Least to say, this is where all the tourists hang out and get drunk, and to try to sleep at night before 5AM is a lost cause.
To our luck, we were there during the week of the big football World-cup qualifier game between England and Andorra, to be played at the famous Olympic Stadium in Barcelona; if you’ve never experienced English fans, well, imagine those annoying little girls that like to make up cheers and chant them all night long behind you at an OSU football game or something, then multiply that by about 20,000 Brits who want to be noticed in all their glory, all over Barcelona. They have hundreds of songs they enjoy getting started, one right after the other, in every bar you step into along La Rambla. After our pub crawl one evening, our last stop brought us into, I believe, the most crowded English pub with screaming, drunk Brits donned in their red and white jerseys. We finally engaged a sensible (if you can call it that) conversation with one group and were educated about the superiority of the English, the arrogance and ignorance of the Americans, and all about those “F***ing French collaborators! The rumors are true, the English hate the French.
The next day, we took a tour through the wine country of Rioja Spain, to two vineyards owned by the “Wine Kings of Spain”, the Torres family. The countryside where these vineyards produce that drink that entices us all are so peaceful and uninterrupted by buildings or electrical lines or even people, you can’t imagine. We got to see the whole process of wine making: the cycle of the vine over a year, the picking, the fermenting, the aging in those dark, scary cellars, and the bottling with a pretty Spanish label slapped on. It is quite intricate and detailed.
After the trip, we were determined to make it to this English football game and see these crazy fans at their best. A long walk over and an expensive taxi ride brought us up to the Olympic village, a beautiful sight, but a disappointing ending as the game was sold out. All we were going to experience was the sound of the screaming 23,000 fans from outside the stadium. I started strolling away, trying to console poor Michael and his loss of the one truly, manly thing he wanted to do in Barcelona… and someone offered to sell us tickets – not to the game, but to the COLDPLAY concert! Coldplay was playing in the Olympic dome the very same night, by my luck, and we went!! Although all concerts will forever be jaded by my incomparable experience with U2, this particular concert may have given them a run for their money. A truly talented band, they sound just as perfect live as they do on the radio, and their improvisation with their music proves they are real artists with a love for making new sounds. They played all their songs from the new album, while making sure to please with all their old favorites. Chris tried with all his might to speak a little Spanish to please the crowd, and the Spaniards we sat next to were incredibly friendly and fun to share the experience with. Coldplay loves its fans, even jumping in the middle of the stands to play one of their songs, and bowing for five minutes at the end while applauding their fans. It was an unexpected, unpredictable joy …. Much like much of this trip.
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