Week One: Nomads Gone Spanish
So, for those of you who didn’t notice the not-so subtle change in our itinerary, we did not go first to South America, but rather to Barcelona. The main contributing factor to this decision was that we didn’t want to go all the way down to the southern reaches of South America and then follow it up immediately with a 30+ hour trip up to Ireland, which is definitely the second spot on our journey. So, Sarah found and applied for a 5-week art class in Barcelona over the winter holiday break, and as soon as she was accepted, we booked tickets from Miami to Madrid. Oh yeah, about Miami.
Miami
We have decided to become residents of the Sunshine State. Florida is warm and beach-laden, and on the east coast. Sarah loves sweating and mosquitos adore me, so Florida is our new home-state. Also, it doesn’t hurt that they don’t have a state income tax by decree of their state constitution. So, we went down to Miami and got driver’s licenses, a CPA, and some minor sunburn (in January.) The hotel we stayed in was in South Miami Beach just a couple of blocks from the white sand and surf. There were a couple of minor SNAFUs, like the original hotel being overbooked and getting upgraded to a place that wanted to charge us a resort fee which was not included in the price of our booking despite the fact that the booking confirmation said, “There are no resort fees associated with this booking.” At first we were livid because we misunderstood the front-desk clerk’s latin-influenced pronunciation of “eighteen dollars a night” as “eighty dollars a night.” And there was no way we were going to shell out another $240 bucks to stay at a place which wasn’t even the hotel we had booked. Eventually, we convinced the booking agency to reimburse us the resort fees and life went on. Of course, the room also had a leaking refrigerator and a smoke detector whose batteries were dying which it was happy to remind us of every 2 minutes of the first 20 minutes we spent in our room while the maintenance man was making his way to the room to fix the thing. And by “fix” I mean “remove.”
Lots of our time in Miami was spent working on logistics and haircuts and dentist appointments and generally getting ready to leave the country, but we did have one very nice day on the beach to get our gooses nice and cooked. I really like the vibe of Miami. It’s sort of like if New York flew south and then just relaxed. It’s also got a great latin vibe. Sarah and I ate in one restaurant where everyone was speaking Spanish to us as though we should totally have expected it. It was good preparation for Spain.
Another great thing about the Miami trip was that we got to spend a few hours with my sister, Katie, and her arm candy, Josh. We had some really good bar food and shared a general sense of excited anticipation of our respective adventures ahead. They were leaving that Thursday night for Santiago, Chile and parts unknown. We were leaving the next night for Barcelona, Ireland, and other parts not yet known.
Travel
Our flight to Madrid was pretty uneventful, just the way we like them. At one point I had Sarah sleepily trying to get comfortable against me in the seat to my left and a passed out 3-year old stranger digging her legs into me on my right in her sleep. It was the most adorable simultaneous annoyance in recent memory. The movies were pretty good. Watched “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “Black Mass.” Enjoyed them both.
From Madrid it was a breeze to catch our train to Barcelona, so I got to haul all 84 pounds of the possessions we brought with us around the park surrounding the majestic Ministry of Agriculture and Sarah got to browse some books being sold from stalls on the way to the park. This is one of her favorite things to do, even when she can’t read the words.
On the train, it took a couple of minutes to get settled because there was a family of five who were struggling to get everyone and their luggage situated. At one point, after I had been trying to get by for a minute or two, the Mother of the family said to the lumbering father in Spanish what I reckon must have been, “Henry, get outta the aisle. Can’t you see this dashing young man just needs to get by quickly, you can futz later.” Okay, that’s not a good story, but I’m writing about the family now to set up the good story later. It’s called foreshadowing.
I love traveling by train. You just show up, show your ticket and get on your way. So much better than flying. There’s more space in the train cars, and you get to see beautiful countryside as you zip along from one destination to another. Plus, I got to sleep for probably 2.5 out of the 3 hours on the train since I’d watched too many movies on the plane the night before. At one point I was woken by two Nauseating American Travelers (NATs from hear on.) Now, I want to explain that not every American traveling abroad is a NAT. But, boy do they give the rest of us a bad reputation. These two were particularly annoying because they were the only two on the train using their outside voices. And the discussion was inane. Something about what one of them was watching on their phone or something like that. They were also willfully ignorant of the glowering every other person on the train was aiming in their direction. If it had lasted 5 minutes longer, I like to think I would have squished those NATs. Anyway, on to pleasanter things.
Barcelona
We arrived in Barcelona and met up with our AirBnB host Roger, his wife Marta, and their son. Marta is Italian, so for the next 30 minutes, depending on who was talking to whom we spoke a little bit of each of Good English (me and Roger), Broken Spanish (only when I tried to explain something to Roger for which he didn’t catch the English), Catalan (between Roger and Marta sometimes), Simple Italian (between Marta and Sarah.) It was a hoot. The apartment is lovely, and situated quite conveniently to some good restaurants, a grocery store, and only about a 8 minute walk to the studios where Sarah’s art class is being taught. More from her on that in another post.
Our time in Barcelona so far has been a mixture of taking in some of the touristy sights, Sarah’s art classes, working out some dangling Florida residency logistics, and my learning Spanish using DuoLingo. It’s been a lot of fun. I really like DuoLingo, although I’m a little bit suspect of it’s assertion that I’m 33% fluent in Spanish. However, I have noticed that even though it feels like I’m playing a video game, I might actually be learning a thing or dos.
The first touristy Barcelona sight we went to was La Sagrada Familia. The building is really neat-looking and quite tall. We frugally ordered the tickets online while in line to buy them from the cashier because Sarah saw they were cheaper online. I know it’s supposed to be a church, and there are even church services held there, but, come on, it’s really a tourist attraction, right? The interior of the building was bathed in colorful light pouring through the stained-glass windows. I think Gaudi, the architect must have been aiming for something that resembled those sandcastles we used to make when we were kids by taking wet sand in our hands and slowly dripping it down to form spires. The place looks almost like it is naturally occurring as opposed to something that has been designed and built, well, except for the symmetry and the stained glass. So, Sarah and I are sitting there in the cathedral and I start people watching. I look over and the youngest son and the mother from the family of 5 we saw on the train are right there like ten feet away form us. What a strange coincidence, right? I mean, sure lots of people on the train from Madrid to Barcelona on a Saturday are probably going to be going to La Sagrada Familia, but to be there within minutes of each other the following Tuesday. It was spooky.
On Wednesday, after Sarah’s art class, we went to see the Foundation of Joan Miró. He’s a big-deal artist and native son of Barcelona. Right after we got our tickets and put our backpack and coats in the lockers, Sarah and I were walking toward the entry to the exhibits, and she said, “No way! Look who it is!” And I looked, and it was the youngest son of the family of 5 from the train. This time the whole gang was there. Walking in just moments after us. If I weren’t sure they didn’t speak English or if I were more confident in my Spanish, we would definitely have had to strike up a conversation, but as the situation was, they probably just wondered why those NATs kept staring at them slack-jawed.
Okay, enough for now. I’ll try to make these missives more frequent and less verbose. Until next time, adios amigos.
