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April 27 - train trip to Barcelona
Today Josep is free, at least until early afternoon, so we accompany him on his morning rounds to buy magazines, cigarettes and to a photography shop. Even when he is off he is constantly moving. Then he takes us to the train station where we buy tickets to Barcelona. We want to cross into France at the start of May and that requires a train ride to shorten our time in Spain by saving four days of cycling. Mike was given conflicting information about which train can carry bicycles. With Josep's help we are satisfied that the 5:30 train is what we need.
Josep walks around with us afterwards, never resisting the urge to chat with every friend he meets. He has lots of friends and often keeps us waiting while they exchange news. The great majority of them are young women. He has a natural and easy manner in their presence and seems to have a glow when they are around. They seem to like Josep too. He tells me he doesn't have a girlfriend and doesn't want to marry as he cannot be faithful to just one woman at this stage of his life. I have noticed that some men prefer the company of men and others the company of women, regardless of sexual orientation. I have always preferred the company of other men. Mike prefers his own company over anyone else.
Josep leaves us alone at his place after 2, taking off with a friend somewhere. We
linger at his place until almost 5, when it is time to go to the train station. The trip to Barcelona is uneventful. We arrive at 10pm, too late to reach the special baggage office for our bicycles before it closes. At the train station I check my bags into a locker, all except my front panniers and sleeping roll. Mike and I head to the Café Zurich at la Placa de Catalonia, where we have agreed to meet our host Sonja. Sonja is Nuria’s cousin (Nuria from Almeria). The café is full but we have no idea what Sonja looks like. She is probably expecting us to have our bikes with us, which we don’t. Twenty minutes later she approaches us, since we were obviously looking for someone. She asks if we are from California, having confused information about us. She short, quiet, 22 years old and dressed in quasi-punk drag.
She leads us several blocks through the old section of town to reach her car. We load our bags into her trunk. We run into Sonja's friends, a girl named Isa and two drunk or stoned boys. The guys are not attractive but fairly friendly in their inebriated state. They accompany us to a punk bar where Sonja's sister and her girlfriend join us. The bar is packed and throbbing with British punk songs with lyrics as unintelligible as if they had been sung in Chinese. Sonja hangs out with her clique while we stood by idly in everyone else's way. I hate crowded bars. After a time that seemed like an eternity, Sonja returns and announces that we are going to another bar. Mike glances my way to see if I am as tired as he is. I am.
Sonja drives us what seems to be a long way in her car. She is very quiet and shy and says very little, and since Mike doesn't like to ask questions or share information he has been told I am in the dark about what is happening. I am just going along for the ride, literally.
We arrive at a rustic looking bar with western décor, if you can call it décor. Sawdust has been sprinkled liberally to soak up spilled liquids and the broken bottle swept aside towards the walls, but not removed. The place is empty at first, but it begins to fill up. Soon I can no longer see the broken bottles. Most of the new arrivals were patrons of the previous bar on their normal mid-week evening migration pattern.
I take refuge from the crowd in the unisex washroom. It is filthy. There is no doorknob and there are more piles of sawdust everywhere. I try not to think about the liquids being soaked up on that floor. There is no toilet paper and no toilet seat. I decide I’ve had enough of the smell and filth but the door jams on a pile of sawdust and I cannot open it. I dig at the sawdust with my foot until I am able to open it far enough to squeeze out through the crack. There are several punkers waiting outside to use the room. Three squeeze in at once and a minute later I catch a sharp whiff of a hash-tobacco mix drifting out the door. Until now I have innocently thought that only gays could create a bar this raw and raunchy.
Both Mike and I are sapped and not in the best of moods. I make an attempt to order a beer in Spanish. He explodes into criticism, annoyed over my Spanish pronunciation, and I blow up right back at him, calling him arrogant and stuck up. He tells me to shut up and we stand scowling, not looking at each other, arms crossed with our backs to the wall. But we are not seriously mad at each other, just over-tired. Ten minutes later we have cooled down and are laughing as though nothing had happened.
Our ordeal isn't over. Sonja drags us reluctantly to a third bar. I tell myself that once she's an adult she won't do this to others, but I'm not so sure. The third bar is similar to the first. It's called Max. Its unmarked entrance is off a narrow street in the old quarter. The walls are decorated with junk, scavenged from junkyards, I assume. A dismantled bike has been mounted on the wall above the door. The bartender, a lanky fellow in his late 20s, is wearing a cap with a Toronto Blue Jays logo on it. He asks us, in a Canadian accent, if we'd like a drink but we've already had too many. We try to talk but the crowd from the last bar follows us in and sidles up to the bar, and he is suddenly very busy.
We only stay here for an hour. Sonja says goodbye to her group of friends and they each say goodbye to us, which is the first thing any of them has said to us all evening. Sonja leads us back to her car and drives us to her mother's place 5 km away where we spend the night.
PHOTO 1: Josep greeting a woman friend
PHOTO 2: train to Barcelona
PHOTO 3: Barcelona train station
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