The Trip

Well. I think I am recovered enough from The Trip to try to reflect upon it.

I will continue to refer to the episode as The Trip, which encompasses several aspects of the journey of last week:

1. Literal: My brother Glenn and his wife Noreen, visiting me, Jerod, in Barcelona.

2. Slang: The surreal quality to the entire experience.

3. Literal: Stumbling around Barcelona in a food and alcohol induced stupor, bumping into walls and tripping over curbs, dogs, etc.

I will try to present this day by day. I can't promise things will end up in the right order, but hopefully most pertinent and/or entertaining events will be covered.

Wednesday: already covered in the previous post, but here is a picture of the fabled, fierce, loathsome beast:

Thanks to Noreen for sending this picture! Check out her photo-journal of The Trip.

Thursday: we walked up to Park Guell, which is the big spot on top of the (guffaw) "mountain" in the upper part of the city. Gaudi lived in a house up there for a long part of his life and designed an entire pavilion. Even though their hotel was fairly close to the park, it is still a long uphill hike to get there, and then we went off-road to get to the highest point. By the time we exited we were parched and tired. I think at this point we went down to Sagrada Familia to check out more Gaudi (the huge church in the middle of town that he's most famous for), and then had a quick beer and bite in a bar in the 'hood. Glenn, defying all expectation, had an egg and potato sandwich instead of pork.

At this point, things get a bit fuzzy. I am almost positive we went downtown. Yes, yes, I'm sure of it. We walked around on the waterfront, just chillin' and taking in the sights of Barcelona on a Thursday night. We ended up at two different bars this night, each about as different as they could possibly be:

Bar 1: the local Catalonians' hangout. We walked in and the only people inside were a group of older gentlemen and a few ladies, drinking beer and playing dominoes in the back. We ordered some food and drinks, and just relaxed for awhile.

Turns out there was a floorshow. This one Catalonian gentleman was quite intoxicated and clearly upset about something. He stormed away from the group at the table and went to the bar to settle up his tab. There was an exchange between him and the bartender, during which he would occasionally throw his head to the side to curse out the group at the table behind him. He ended up throwing his money at the bartender and cursing him out too, for good measure.

This was obviously a semi-annual occasion. Everyone pretty much ignored him, though sometimes one person or another would taunt him in one of those dismissive, sing-songy voices. As he was finally leaving, they all actually serenaded him, with what I imagine amounts to the Catalan version of "na-na-na-na-hey-hey-hey-goodbye." He was throwing the devil horns all around the bar, which is the equivalent to him flipping the bird to the bar in the states. Really, it was quite entertaining. Glenn was determined to go back over the weekend, but we never did make it.

We ended up at the second bar on accident. We were going to just head to the metro station and then home, but by some trick of the light I accidentally lead us all the way down to the water (a good four blocks too far). It's not as bone-headed as it sounds, there really are some extenuating circumstances... but still. I won't make excuses. Movin' on to...

Bar 2: Irish bar! Guinness on tap! Good times!

There are a whole lot of island transplants in Barca. Lots of Brits and Irish. Lots of British and Irish bars. This one was full of people having fun. We had a couple rounds of Guinness, and then... it's almost too terrible to recount...

Jello shots. Yes, that's right. It was like I was in 8^th grade again. I mean, seriously, wtf? What kind of Irish bar worth its salt breaks out motherfuckin' jello shots on a Thursday night??? Turns out it was the owner's birthday. You'd think that would just entail IVs of Jamison or something... that probably happened later.

The best part was when the bartender set his entire tray of shots down at our table because he didn't want to carry them anymore. Glenn and I just looked at each other, shrugged in that way when brothers resign themselves to their collective fate, and did our best to address the situation. (Noreen was off at the bar chatting with some of the regulars.) It's actually kind of touching when you think about it: brothers, back to back, facing a bar full of enemies determined to ruin their night... in this case, it was in the form of a dozen vodka-infused shot glasses of jello.

Friday: a blur. I think we went to the Picasso museum and had a traditional Catalonian-meal at the oldest restaurant in Barca (second oldest in Spain). Big piles of seafood and cannelloni for starters, I had a delicious salmon steak with potatoes for the main meal. I believe Noreen had lamb and Glenn had the beef. Glenn and I drank the first wine of The Trip.

The Picasso museum was fine, they had a fun exhibit about the influence of the circus on Picasso. The evolution of the charlatans in his painting, how they mirrored his own evolution as an artist, etc. The museum doesn't have any of the pieces people would generally think about when considering Picasso, but it has a ton of his earlier works (he grew up in Catalonia).

Friday night, I honestly don't remember. I think we tried to go see a movie but nothing was playing we much wanted to see, and they won't let you into the theater after the movie starts. Seriously, it's like going to a symphony in the states; even if you're five minutes late they'll turn you away. In the end, I'm pretty sure we just went home sort of early to get our sleep for the weekend (G&N were still dazed from the jetlag and hadn't been sleeping much).

The weekend? Lots of food, wandering around town, seeing museums; I didn't participate in all of the activities of the weekend. Honestly, I was still recovering from Thursday night. Here's the thing; I really haven't been doing any of these sorts of things while I've been here. I've been over this ground some before; I haven't been drinking or eating out hardly at all, been meditating and writing and studying and walking around town during the day, in the sunshine, rather than at night. I would say that might be the nicest thing about this town, especially in the winter; it's easy to choose a nocturnal lifestyle, sleeping all day and going out all night, but it's equally easy to choose the opposite. Spending as much time as possible in the daytime sun, which necessitates going to bed at a semi-reasonable hour since the sun sets between 4-5 for a lot of December and January. I had been doing the latter for most of my trip; suddenly switching was like jumping into a mountain lake. Ultimately refreshing, but a shock to the system.

I know at one point we discovered the cuppa chocolate. This was truly an amazing discovery. It's real, delicious, homemade chocolate melted into a cup. Nothing like what you picture when you imagine "hot chocolate." And I'm sure that everyone reading this is completely familiar with what I'm talking about, but it was revelatory to me. One of the prime moments during the trip when I said to G&N, "I am really glad you guys came at the end of my trip rather than at the beginning." Cause if they'd come earlier, well... let's just say I would most likely be approaching two bills at this point.

Jesus, what else happened over the weekend?

At some point we decided that Glenn needed to buy an entire leg of ham. One of those enormous haunches you see hanging in restaurants and meatoriams ("carneceria" in Spanish). We were going to dress it up like a baby so Glenn could carry it around town with him and smuggle it onto the plane home. I envisioned something out of Midnight Express; Glenn with 20 pounds of pork duct-taped to his body, trying to get past the dogs at the airport. Are they trained well enough to ignore the deliciousness? Would they let him pass because he didn't smell like drugs? Seriously, it's a suspense thriller waiting to happen.

Uhhhh, lesse... oh yeah! The sampling of the greatest sandwich in the world. That might have been Friday actually. Glenn had read about this sandwich in an article written by our favorite cookbook author, Mark Bittman. (Yes, we have a favorite cookbook author. Shut up.) The reason I think it might have been Friday that we went is that I can't imagine Glenn being able to wait any longer to try it. But it could well have been Saturday.

In any case, Glenn thinks he might have had a Monte Cristo in 2003 that was better, but that the flauta d'ibéric definitely makes his top three (as long as we're not considering hotdogs as sandwiches in the debate). I wish I were making up any part of that previous sentence.

For my money, a fine sandwich. I had two bites and it was quite nice. The bread especially is great; we went back later and I had a cheese sandwich on the flute, which I enjoyed even more.

There is a famous market off La Rambla (turn west at the Dunkin' Doughnuts) that we hung out in a couple times. We had lunch there once, I remember that... friend artichoke, some fish, eggs...

The thing is, when you're in any sort of food-store with Glenn, you have to be very careful. You can't turn your back for a second, or else, poof! He's gone. We contemplated one of the kid-leashes for him at one point, after losing him for fifteen minutes, only to find him with his face pressed against the glass of the artisan cheese display.

How can I describe this? Glenn is, at heart, a connoisseur. He devours films, books, art... and food and drink. And cross-sections of all of these; books and films about food and drink, for example. And he is also an anthropologist of sorts; when he discovered something new, he gets kind of obsessed until he has a chance to sample it. This can take the form of a new soul-food joint in Chicago, or a piece of fruit he saw from afar in a huge open-air Barcelonian market.

It tasted like a grape, by the way.

Monday night was highlighted by a really great jazz show called WTF (which stands for exactly what you think it does). It was really cheap to get in, and the drinks were really, really expensive. Cheap bottle of beer, 5 euro. Shot of liquor, 9 euro. But the music was great and the space was very cool; mostly people sat on the floor, but there was room for about 30 people to sit in some pews that were set up along one wall. If you're ever in Barca on a Monday night and are looking for something fun, I would highly recommended checking it out (just google "wtf barcelona"). It starts and ends early, too, so you can go out after if you are so inclined.

Tuesday was the official "trying to fit in everything that we wanted to do but hadn't gotten around to yet because the week flew past" day. We started out going to a museum we had wanted to check out that was having an exhibit about the Republican Spring, a worker's movement in the 1930s, pre-Franco. When Noreen went off to check out another museum, Glenn and I took a return trip to Montjuic to try to get to the elusive cactus gardens.

Remember when I said Glenn tends to obsess about new stuff when he gets his mind set on something? The cactus garden is the prime example. He saw a reference to it on Saturday I think, and then mentioned it enough that Noreen and I teased him about it at every opportunity. Every time we'd get slightly lost, one of us would make the "oh jeez, he's trying to steer us to the cactus garden" joke.

Turns out it was closed for renovations. So we hopped the fence and skulked around inside like a couple of clumsy ninjas for awhile and then headed back to La Rambla to meet Noreen. We got there early and decided to have a beer (big surprise, I know), thereby fulfilling another of Glenn's life's goals; sipping an enormous beer while sitting on La Rambla.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention: Glenn and I shared a bottle of wine with lunch and then drank some weird fruity liqueur things at this store that sells goods made by local nuns. Two things: 1) yes, local nuns. 2) I mean "fruity" in every sense of the word.

This is important only because, after drinking beers all night (since it was their last night in town), I thought back dizzily to that bottle of wine and (especially) those fruity liqueurs. I had a moment where I wanted to give myself a handmade tattoo on my forearm, Memento-style: "never, ever drink fruity liqueurs mid-day if you're planning to sit in an Irish bar all night." The Trip ended as it began: sitting in an Irish bar drinking Guinness. Only this time we had enormous stacks of chocolate and a huge bag of candied fruit (don't ask, and don't ask). Just in case the sugar from all the alcohol wasn't enough for a proper hangover the next day.

Suffice to say Wednesday was interesting. It would have been fine, but I had to write my horoscopes. Really, all day to write 3-4 pages of content shouldn't be a problem. But when the computer screen is all wobbly and you don't regain your equilibrium until late in the evening, well, it's not as easy as it sounds.

And that's all I'm going to say about that.