Mom & me - Barcelona -Hostalric. Narbonne, Cabanes-Les-Fleury, "Catharie", Barcelona to follow...

Mom reserved a room for us through AirBNB - in an apartment owned by a designer in Barcelona. I learned about AirBNB through my neighborhood listserv in Austin and it's a very cool thing. People rent out rooms in their homes, or entire houses, apts, etc. Perfect for us, as we like to meet people and since the more affordable hotels in Barcelona look really unappealing. This place was really cool, and Miguel, our host, was super sweet.

When I got there she was napping - it was pouring rain, as it would continue to do for a couple of days, on and off. The place was one of those big apartments from the Belle Epoque - large enough for a family to spend a lifetime in. Long and narrow - it was one third of the entire floor of the building. It was on the 4th, top floor. To get up there we could walk the spiral, marble stairs, or take the ancient elevator. I love those old elevators that feel like they could break at any minute but will probably be working for another hundred years. You get in and close the metal screen by sliding it shut and then close the mini French doors and push the big button for the floor you want. The elevator starts with a little jolt and sails up to the top. It always makes you feel like you're in an old movie being in those lifts. A great way to get to the front door.

I wrote a little before about the rain in Barcelona so I won't go into that much here. But it was raining so hard it was coming in under the doors of cafes, so we were limited to hanging out, pretty much. We had some great coffee and some great meals in Barcelona. And hung around those adorable little bars that are about as big as a living room and have maybe 6 or 7 tiny tables or booths. Each one was so distinct - a tiny little style universe.

We went to pick up the rental car to head up into France. I think I commented before on our lack of a really good map, which turned out to be a blessing and a curse. We had no problems getting going in the right direction but didn't have much info about what was in between Barcelona and the French border. We stopped for a late lunch in a town called Hostalric. http://www.turismehostalric.cat/en/coneix_hostalric/pagina/34 One of those ancient towns that are so common here but each one blows your mind. Dating from 12th century, the town was built mostly along one road, so we walked up it looking for a place to eat. There were a few places, and we chose the most ancient looking one, the one filled with men only and where the waiter looked like Billy Crystal in the first part of Clean and Sober. When we peered into the place the front dining room was empty and looked, honestly, like it must have looked for eons. Heavy, dark wooden tables that looked like something Friar Tuck would have been seated behind at a dram shoppe in Nottingham. You get the picture. I hope. The kind of service where the waiter doesn't ask you if you'd like a table, but why are you standing there like that - sit down! Well, it's just that we have a question or two - we don't eat meat. No problem! No problem! Sit down and we'll find something for you. Mom looks doubtful - I've been in Spain long enough to know lunch isn't going to be good no matter where we go (Barcelona was far away, already). So we made our way through the deserted front dining room into the back room, which was about half filled with a few tables of guys, aged from about 30 to 65, all enjoying a very long lunch and who were visibly disturbed by our entrance. Deal with it, I say silently.

We order wine, and now a second waiter comes over - even more of a basket case than the first one - makes Billy Crystal over there look sort of fit. A person whose skin is truly a tribute to a lifetime of cigarettes, fried food and a total disregard for vegetables unless they're fried. Looks like he probably has a great sense of humor and appreciates a good joint. Definitely could be from Long Island if he wasn't from Hostalric.

The food part of lunch is yucky and mysterious and we almost can't deal, but we're hungry and they keep checking on us to make sure their fussy lady fishetarians are happy. We go through a plate of fava beans prepared in such a way that they are completely grey and drained of any trace of the flavor of fava beans. I can detect a trace of salt but alas it was added after the poor beans were boiled long enough to cook a goat, so you have to happen upon a grain of the salt by chance. It's a grain of salt in a hay stack situation. We've ordered cod, and when it comes out, well, it would've been great to have been able to run out the back door and go somewhere else, but there we were, with all eyes on us. We were champs, I must say, and made it through enough of it to be able to claim we weren't really hungry anyway. I can't remember if we had dessert but we must've because we hung around long enough that some of the guys were going out onto the balcony to smoke. This left an opening for the men left inside to strike up a conversation with us. Turns out one of them had been living in Ecuador for the last 20+ years and was home visiting his brother who was outside smoking. Absolutely freeking charming man,  around 55 or 60. His brother and a younger man (maybe 35) were outside smoking.We got into a lively conversation about the history of Spain. Those are the moments I'm glad I took out all those loans to go back to school - we had a great time and everyone relaxed and started smiling and they bought us a round of the disgustingly sweet apple digestif served so often in Spain. Not only is it gross tasting, but hard to turn down because it doesn't have alcohol, so you can't refuse on the basis that you don't want more alcohol. You either smile and accept it or out and out say No, I don't like that. You can guess which of those options is more conducive to making friends. Blech. We hung out there so long that the younger guy (who had had too much to drink with lunch) started to get a little twinkle in his eye and we had to split. Another amazing old Spanish man adventure. They're everywhere and I love them.

It was getting late so we headed back out on the highway North. We were headed to Narbonne (home of Charles Trenet) to see my lovely old friend from my year at the Universite de Toulouse 20 years ago. Unreal.

Apparently it never rains in Barcelona

...except last week. In spite of the weather we had, I wonder if it's possible to not fall in love with Barcelona. It's a place that can't be overly hyped. I thought for sure it could never live up to all my friends' raves and exclamation points, but it's an irresistible place. We spent a lot of time staying in out of the rain, but barely saw our room - we were out early every morning, going from breakfast to breakfast, of course... in the pauses between rain storms we walked and walked and walked - barely made it to any monuments because of course many of them are outdoors, but we made sure to go to the Sagrada Familia and the Casa Gaudi. I confess I'd never wanted to see either one of these (or any Gaudi, in fact) because they look so awful in photos. But there we were, and I didn't have the cojones to come back from Barcelona saying we didn't go. Neither one of us was excited to get on the line of a kazillion people, but we did it, and it was amazing. How something so incredible can take such a lousy picture, I don't understand. So if you're like me, and scratch your head when people go on and on about Gaudi and all you see is a bunch of enormous buildings that look like they were hand made by a fourth grader on Adderall, those buildings really do amaze in person.

Enough, though, about things everyone sees and everyone loves...obstacles are what great trips are made of, and they started before I even left the house. My horoscope said traveling on the 14th was a very bad idea. I got up around 5 that morning, giving myself a ton of time before the bus at 7:05. Triple checked all the things and documents and money I needed to take along, and even had a cup of tea with Sandra, who woke up to see me off. We walked up the driveway to wait for the bus, and spent some time chatting about the sunrise. 7:05 passed. 7:10 passed. 7:30 came around and Sandra went back inside and I walked down to the next village of Ventorros to maybe hitch a ride to Malaga. When I got there it turned out I wasn't the only person left behind by the bus. An old woman I'd met before was out there, and me coming along gave her someone to commiserate with about the bus not coming. She said it was probably that they were working on the "main" road and were taking an alternate route. Anyway, I had 3 1/2 hours to get to Malaga airport and the road was closed. My companion was irritated at having to go into town anyway, because it was just to send money to her son in prison who was being extremely demanding and she eventually decided to go another day. Luckily she is a very nice person and stopped someone to give us a ride to the turn in the road where I could hitch a ride to Velez Malaga, then get bus to Malaga and then a bus on to the airport. I did all of this, which took about 3 hours, so I was pretty excited to get to the airport on time. On the way there I was lucky enough to see one of the sweetest things imaginable - as we passed a man on his scooter he turned a corner and we could see two little lambs tucked into a blanket in a milk crate riding on the back.

The magic of hitch hiking just can't be explained - if you haven't been lucky enough to hitch hike a lot in your life I recommend it. It's probably about one hundredth as dangerous as people think (maybe less), and amazing things happen hitch hiking. Something about being out there, relying on strangers, and of course you only meet strangers cool enough (or wacko enough, I'll admit) to pick up hitch hikers. If you want my psychological self defense class I'll hook you up. Email me. Do not even think of emailing me your safety concerns - you're twenty five years too late and besides, you're wrong. These days I only hitch if I'm really stranded, but way back when I used to go everywhere that way in Europe, and not only did I learn all about self defense (of course), but I got to experience a kind of freedom that seems to be gone with the wind these days. I never see students hitching anymore - everyone is so scared of everyone else. When I was 16 I couldn't fathom deciding to stay home because I didn't have a car or a lift. No one could've convinced me to live like that - always worrying about people hurting you - I thought it was a crock then and I still do. And I get to tell stories about outwitting people with guns - so there. Last time I hitched a ride outside of Austin (long story about a yoga retreat with some seriously over zealous people - a fate worse than hitch hiking in Texas!) I got a ride with two young filmmakers who had always wanted to pick up a hitch hiker but had always been too scared. They were great and it really made their day (and mine, obviously, as I got to where I wanted to go). So it's rare these days, and usually sort of inconvenient, but it always turns out pretty amazing.

The flight to Barcelona was interesting - first time on Ryan Air. I'll just say that is definitely the airline of choice for people who enjoy hitch hiking as a means of transportation. Gives the expression 'bare bones' new dimension. But having said that, I'm in Spain, so the people working the flight treated everyone like gold - I used to say that Texans were the friendliest people you could ever meet. Sorry Texas, but you've been relegated to a distant second. And no, it's not up for discussion. How on Earth can a country that has been through the ringer so many times produce such an incredibly copasetic mood? In the States we have so many things easy, and we manage to be complete assholes way too much of the time. Go figure.
Barcelona airport, ditto. Nice people, it's clean, information is easy to get, and the lady (there's one working the airport train in NYC but she is awfully mean) helping people buy their train tickets was as nice as can be. And the train and subway tickets are integrated so you can use the same card for each, they just subtract more credit for train rides. NYC are you listening? Maybe no one who works for NYC transport has ever been allowed out of their cage long enough to go to Europe. Someone should go and take notes - they don't even make millions of people per year remove their shoes to go through airport security AND SOMEHOW THEY"RE NOT ALL DEAD. Hmmm...must be because only one jerkoff in the world would've ever put a bomb in his shoe. Seriously, America, it's embarrassing. I won't even get started on how fast the lines move and the general lack of needless frustration in traveling in Europe.
Then again, we don't post signs in Catalan, which has probably led more than one traveler to take a long walk off one of the short piers in the port of Barcelona. I speak French and Spanish, so looking at Catalan made me feel, for the first few days, as if I were reading something out of focus. I couldn't retain anything anyone told me if it contained any proper names. There was a lot of smiling, nodding, and asking the very same question several times just to make sure the answer seemed to have the same amount of syllables.  When it started to pour down with rain that pretty much solved the problem of trying to get to a bunch of specific places and we enjoyed many random cafes and bars. I do believe that each and every one was the best cafe or bar I've ever been to.

Leaving Barcelona was another matter, as we'd rented a car but neglected to buy a decent map. And for some strange reason we decided to just wing it with an assortment of small maps that if you put them all together would not have covered all the ground we wanted to cover. We suffered the consequences of this decision, of course, which led, as usual, to some tension and to some wonderful unplanned side trips.