The Pope of Chilitown's no-b.s. guide to city walkin'

I've always loved to walk. It's my favorite form of travel. I've never been one for bikes; I tend to zone out most of the time, and things come at you too quickly when you're riding a bike. I need more time to react. Walking is the perfect speed for me; I'm able to do some of my best thinking, and don't have to worry about getting smashed by a car or having to stop so suddenly I end up skidding along the concrete. I definitely have a profound respect for bicyclists, mostly because they seem to be universally despised, by pedestrians, drivers, and, I can only assume, other bicyclists. They're in the way of impatient car drivers, and are constantly nearly clipped by side mirrors as cars speed around them on the road. Ride on the sidewalk, and pedestrians dramatically jump out of the way and give them surprised and angry glares. There's no winning, and that's what I admire about them. The attitude is one of near-sneering arrogance, a me against the world kind of view that I think takes a lot of balls to pull off.

Not being that ballsy I instead walk. It's sometimes tough, because I do some of my best "writing" while I'm walking, too. I get a good internal narration going and find myself coming up with long passages as I stroll from one place to another. The problem is that it's nearly impossible to record any of these narratives. I tried taking a tape recorder with me for awhile, but people tend to look at you funny if you walk down the street talking to yourself. I suppose I could set it up so that it looks like a cell phone, and I could be one of those guys who walk down the street constantly carrying on a conversation on his phone. So my options are: 1) crazy guy, or 2) asshole. In the end, I'd rather just hope for the best and assume I'll remember at least some semblance of what I was thinking about by the time I get to my destination and can jot down a few ideas.

Which brings me to the actual topic of this composition: what should you bring with you if you want to get to know a city by walking over as many square feet of it as possible. Personally, I'm kind of a minimalist. All I really need is a pair of comfortable shoes and a map. I will have had to prepare before leaving the house for this to work, of course; google-maps actually has a great map of Barcelona, so I check where I'm going before leaving and map out the best route to get there from home. If I've done this, and marked some important places on the physical map I'll be traveling with, really that's all I need. It is never all that I take, of course...I guess how I'll put it is, comfy shoes and a map are the two most essential items to take.

Only slightly less essential is your metro pass or enough money to buy a ticket (singles or passes available in vending machines in any station). No matter how lost you get, you're never far from a metro station. And once you get underground, you can get anywhere you want in the entire city for the cost of a single ticket. There are multiple maps of the entire metro system in every station, so as long as you know which stop is closest to your home (crucial info), you're set. The most you'll have to transfer is twice.

The next step down is, in my opinion, the first level of convenience items. Things you can definitely get by without but which will make your life a lot easier and more comfortable if you have them. Some people will tell you that a mobile phone is mandatory, and I understand the logic. Personally, being the proverbial stranger in a strange land, there's rarely anybody I have to meet or anywhere I have to get at any particular time. So a cell phone isn't on my personal list anywhere. In Seattle, sure. Here, not so much.

It's a good idea to have a timepiece of some sort, which of course the mobile doubles as. But again, for me time is even less of the essence here than back home, so I often find myself in the middle of the city before I realize I've left my clock at home. Yes, clock. I don't have a watch or anything. I have a battery-powered analog clock that I keep in the bathroom to make sure I brush my teeth for two minutes. I try to remember to bring it with me, but generally I forget.

Anyways, back to the list. The items I like to bring with me for comfort and convenience are as follows:

1) Warm clothes. A sweatshirt or jacket and a warm hat at least. You never know when you'll find yourself staying out all night.
2) Money. At least enough to grab a sandwich and a beer or glass of wine if you find a nice little café you'd like to sit in for awhile. And enough for a cab is nice, too, in case you have a huge dinner with friends and a couple drinks and it's getting late and you're feeling exceptionally sleepy and/or lazy and indulgent.
3) Reading material for that aforementioned nice little café.
4) A bottle of water. I generally prefer it to be about half full, so it's lighter. I actually don't drink that much water while I'm traveling, I invariably would rather be thirsty than have to pee for the last hour of a walk. But it's great to have if you end staying out later than you expected, or it's hotter than you imagined. Not to mention if you end up vomiting in the middle of the street and need something to wash your mouth out with.
5) Food. Maybe a sandwich, a couple carrots and an orange, some nuts...anything you can snack on if you don't want to stop at one of those nice little cafes, but would rather save your money and keep moving. Just sitting for a few minutes on a park bench, consuming some calories and having a sip of water, and you're as good as new.
6) Paper and pencil or pen. I have a little book that I bring with me, which has interesting words and phrases that I write down so I can remember them for later; ideas for writing that I jot down when I stop to sit for a minute; the phone numbers of the two people I know in Barcelona in case I get hit by a bus and someone needs to be contacted (just kidding mom, that doesn't happen. Sit down, please. And while we're here, it wasn't me who vomited in the street. It was Dustin. And it wasn't because he was drunk, he was genuinely sick).

What else...it's cool to have some of that hand-sanitation gel. That way, when you stop and sit on a park bench to have a snack before continuing your walk, you can disinfect your filthy hands before handling the food you're about to stick in your mouth. And it's cool to have a camera with you for when you invariably stumble upon something new and interesting that your friends and family back home would love to see. Of course, you almost only stumble upon these things when you've left the camera at home. Actually bringing the camera decreases the odds of seeing anything photo-worthy by roughly a third, so sometimes you're better off leaving it at home and then just describing the midget riding the elephant while juggling two chainsaws and a bumblebee in 1,000 words.

Of course, by now many of you will have noticed the one thing I haven't yet mentioned that overarches all the other items if you're a hard-core pedestrian: a reliable backpack. This is the main reason I'm a minimalist. The fewer things you have to carry on your back for a five mile walk the better. This is a well known fact to hikers and backwoods campers, of course. As well as anyone who traveled somewhere for longer than about two weeks. Packing light is essential.

So there you have it. Don't say I never gave you anything. Who's got your back? Good ol' uncle Pope of Chilitown, that's who.

In other news: I wrote up a reaction at Crazy Melvin to the recent elections in the States. Go check it out if you have a minute.

Thanks to everyone who has stuck with this thing so far! Your continued support and encouragement mean a lot to me.