Barcelona, Tarragona, Valencia with the fam

I don't know where to start: my horribly epic (epically horrible?) journey to Barcelona, the amazingness of the vacation itself, the wonderful time with my parents, my continued love of Barcelona, or my slight despondency from being back here in Coria.

Well. My trip from Coria was fucking horrendous, but pretty damn funny. I apologize for the swearing (Tom Robbins influence). My intent was to leave Coria around 2:45, catch a bus to Navalmoral de la mata, then another to Barcelona, spending the night in the bus. This was cheaper than taking the bus directly from Coria to Barcelona, but with about the same travel time (about 12 hours). Well, I got to Navalmoral to find out that the bus to Barcelona was already full. I continued on to Madrid, but while waiting for this bus, I tried to figure out which bus station to go to in Madrid. By calling expensively on my cell phone, trying to navigate through voice automated machines in Spanish surrounded by buses entering and exiting the station at regular intervals. I finally got to Madrid at about 7:30, negotiated my way to the correct bus station (different from the one in which I arrived), bought the ticket, realized it was to Pamplona instead of Barcelona, got back in line, finally got the right bus ticket, and boarded the bus. I was told that it would take nine hours, due to get in around 6am. I got to Barcelona at 4:30. So essentially sweating from Coria to Barcelona due to the temporary, extraordinary heatwave across Spain, as well as a sweltering bus. The bus station was essentially closed; the only people there were homeless sleeping on the floor. I took a cab to the hostal, where we had reservations for Saturday night. The fat bastard at the desk told me I couldn't stay there until the room was ready, that it would be "disruptive" when the guests arose in the morning. Fat bastard! He told me I had to leave, but that things were open on Las Ramblas. Right, 5:30ish at this point. I left, pissed, but too tired to argue, especially in Spanish (and I didn't want to get kicked out of the hostel). Las Ramblas... amazing in the daytime, but sketchy at night/ass early morning. The only people there: drunk people and prostitutes. I walked up and down the area for about half an hour, trying to avoid everyone as best I could, until I asked a newspaper stand man where I could go and sit and wait. There was one café open in the open-air market. The camarero there was super nice and told me it wasn't a problem for me to stay there as long as I needed. But it was cold. At about 7 I started to wander, looking for breakfast, as the sinister had left Las Ramblas, replaced by the light and normal working people. I met a couple from some BC islands north of the San Juans, who bought me breakfast. I wandered around for several hours more, as I did not want to return to the hostel to be told that I had to leave again. I bought lunch and ate it on the street near the hostel. Some guy walking by stopped and began to guess my nationality: "English?" No. "Irish?" No. "Australian?" No. "Canadian?" No. "American?" Yes. He asked if he could sit down, and I agreed because he was semi-attractive. Then he, Mohammed from Morocco, commenced to try to pick me up by bragging about his language skills, his high rollin lifestyle, his drunk and alcohol use, etc. My lunch was not so enjoyable at this point. I got rid of him by tellinig him my parents were waiting for me back at the hostel. Hasty dos besos and he was gone. But seriously, why would he think that would work? Idiot. I went back to the hostel and slept.

The rest of my time in Barcelona was less eventful, but excellent. It was wonderful to see and travel with my parents. As I get older (shit, 23!!) I learn more about them and come to appreciate them more and more as people, instead of just as my parents. I love Barcelona. Its narrow streets and alleyways, its diversity. This was my third time there and each time it gets better. We went to La Pedrera, an Antoni Gaudí designed apartment building; the roof was marvelous. We also went to the Sagrada Familia (Gaudí, amazing), picnic at Parc Güell (Gaudí, life goal to visit), the Picasso museum, the waterfront. Random wanderings. Delicious food: Pakistani, Spanish, Japanese. Lesson learned: Spanish food doesn't have to be terrible, just the food from Extremadura. I was sad to leave.

Next we went to Tarragona, an hour and a half south along the coast. It has un montón de Roman ruins, including an ampitheater and forum because it used to be a major Roman city. It's smaller than Barcelona but still a good sized city. Huge cathedral. It was refreshing to be in a more tranquilo place with less tourists everywhere. It was also nice to be in a new city I had never seen before. Everyone was extremely nice. I love the accent in Cataluña, it's very lilting and sing-songy. It was strange to be in Spain but see a different and hear a different language everywhere. Catalán is similar to Spanish but distinct enough to cause problems.

Valencia is beautiful. It's further south along the Mediterranean coast. The weather was a little strange: bone-chilling winds and rain, then hot and sunny. We wandered a lot. We saw a procesión de Semana Santa: people dressed in robes with pointy hats (similar to those of the Klan), with marching bands and religious floats. These religious rituals are so strange to me. We went to the cathedral, of course. Also, the Ciudad de Arte y Ciencia, which is a series of futuristic complexes at the end of a huge river-bed turned park. There's also a huge playground play structure shaped as Gulliver. While there were children everywhere, it was still pretty cool.

We were supposed to come to Coria on Monday (work on Tuesday), but all the trains were full so we had to get up early early early to catch the 6:50am train to Madrid on Tuesday. We had 5 hours in Madrid until the bus to Coria so we went to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, which has an amazing collection, including Monet, Dalí, Picasso, van Gogh, Gauguin, etc. Excellent. Then bus to Coria = many hours of travel. And we're back! To crappy work. Oh well. Only two more months which should fly by if all goes as planned.

Pretty much, a fabulous, stupendous, phenomenal vacation. I apologize for spelling errors, the stupid spellcheck doesn't work, and I need it more than ever.