Barcelona trip: The Best Trip ever....Part-1

Barcelona - The magical city

Well..Here I am collecting the droplets of my memories an attempt to make it an ocean of treasure for the rest of my life. Spain was like an action-packed movie with all the ingredients of the human emotions: drama, action, comedy, speed, emotions, jubilation and a lasting bond between two brothers. This is a one-off movie where the movie did not have a script but the way the screenplay ran, there was an essence of joy and pinch of awesomeness to every reel. Every moment felt alive, every vein raced with energy, every heartbeat echoed the good times and every drop of sweat felt sweet with the memories of Spain. My attempt to encapsulate this wonderful experience of Barcelona.

Mumbai airport (12^th July 2018, time: 11:45 p.m.)

Fresh with a haircut, trimmed beard and that iota of excitement I lay on the rear seat of my Uber looking across the IIT Powai gate. This route to airport was a regular one during my Hyderabad days. But this experience was something different. Each trip through the Powai road reminded me of catching the flight to Hyderabad, attending office, doing meetings, brand plans, etc. In a nuts shell, the feeling sucked. But this time around, it was a different feeling. A more relaxed mind and a slight crooked smile on my face getting over the previous journeys and looking forward toward this event in life. Sidd was waiting at the Gate and with the hug started the best trip of our lives: “Espana here we come!!!”  

Barcelona - Day 1

Unlikely comparison: Barcelona immigration and the India Electricity office have some similarities. Multiple empty counters and long queues of people waiting for their turn. But then you can’t exactly blame them because it was a Friday evening and unlike we Indians they have a life beyond work. An Osama could come in the immigration lines and pass off but a Friday evening fun is an important part of a Spanish person’s life. 

Cleared everything, took our stuff and walked towards the exit. Entered the bus and made a long walk till the entrance of the hostel. Now I kid you not, but there was a kid on the reception. He was this 6 foot tall blonde hair lean and he had an air of laid back attitude revolving around him. He was 16. Now I can imagine myself being 16 and having a parallel image besides this kid. It would be fair to say that this image of mine was in black and white with differentials and calculus going in my mind. Whereas this colorful real image of the kid gleefully not caring a damn was the apt vibe for starting this wonderful trip in Barcelona. Now Sidd and I have been in hostels before in our education but that hostel was one spic and span place. Co-ed hostel is another concept we came across in Spain.

Walking through the cobbled streets

2 Sapiens Walking for miles

The Homo Sapien walked from East Africa to East Europe and Central Asia. It took him some million years to do so. True to that DNA, these two Sapiens also walked. Walked and Walked. It did not take us a million years to cover Barcelona or any other city but took us a solid walking of 15-20 kms a day to achieve that feat. Through the narrow lanes and the cobbled streets we marched through. Sometimes with amazement like that of an inquisitive child, sometimes with our dropped jaws and most of the times with the sweat trickling on the brow we walked. The first jaw dropping sight was that of Catedral Santa Del Mar. Now I have seen a humongous church besides my school (St. Mary’s), but this cathedral was at a different level. The neck muscles stiffened continuously watching the interiors and the tall towers but the amazement never fizzled out. Such a tranquil place!!. It exported me to the Gothic times where priests and common man came to this cathedral regularly for praying. 

The Santa Del Mar Cathedral

Gothic structures in Santa Del Mar

   The Sunday mass, the marriages, the funerals, the confessions, the hope it delivered to people in the last 500 years echoed from the walls and transcended into our senses to give us mental peace. The Catholic church was against science developments back in the day but the engineering of these structures is exquisite. With peace in mind we marched towards my favourite place (the beach!).

Hustling and Bustling Barceloneta Beach

Barceloneta beach is a vibrant place with people playing instruments, tourists cycling, men jogging and displaying their abs (much to our displeasure of Indian obese bodies), Families swimming on the beach, some tattoed guy roller blading, French people singing some songs and our very own Pakistani guy shouting out” Mojitos, Sangria!!”. It’s a circus of people. Funny story of how a Pakistani guy helped two Indians with beer at one of the most cheapest rates. So the rate started out with 5Euros for a can of beer and went down upto 1Euro for the beer. Now that is a Pakistan India bond that we would want to have. An 80% drop in price just because we are from the same subcontinent. The Pakistani gentleman helped us out with cheap beer and some amazing Lebanese food. The good part about Spain is that the day continues till 9 in the evening.

Barcelona - Day 2

Day 2 started with the interaction with the receptionist kid’s dad. Lets call him Rafa. Now we first saw him cleaning stuff and arranging all the items. We believed that he must be the elder brother of the kid we met yesterday. There is an advertisement of one of the cosmetic products in which there is a young woman doing some fancy stuff and people believe that she is so young and pretty and it later turns out that she is the mother of a child. This was that déjà vu moment and the pretty girl was none other than Rafa and the kid yesterday was his son. The guy looked so young and fresh that we thought for a second that he was an underage father. It turned out that he was nearing 40 and the child was legitimate. I think I looked a lil older than him. And then came the oath to become younger by the end of the trip. 

Cathedral: Start of our walking tour

We had planned for a walking tour which was supposed to start from a Cathedral. Now the problem was that there were many Cathedrals in Barcelona. With the imaginary background music “ Janne Jaa Dhoondta phir raha.. Main tumhe raat din…” we struggled to find the cathedral with the Google Maps. FYI: Google maps is also on vacation in Spain. Sometimes the walking routes go right through buildings and churches like we are CID’s Daya in action. The walking trip took us to many Historical places right from how “Barcelona” came to be known as the city’s name to Picasso’s first studio to a ridiculous piece of art right infront of the Barcelona harbour where we ended the trip. 

  

Historical monuments and posing with a structure of  human spirit

With a few suggestions from the tour guide we got passes for the famous “Pub crawl” of Barcelona. Also infront of us was the Post office building which pretty much looked like the Anderson House of the BPT colony. Gothic or Renaissance architecture, call it what you may but the building seemed like a mammoth structure with barely 2-3 floors. There is no concept of FSI but the beauty is boundless.

The Beautiful Post office 

We crossed the road to go towards the restraunt we had decided to try out for lunch. We stop to buy a bottle of water and find Mr. Amarjeet. Now to describe Mr. Amarjeet I shall just take a line “You can remove an Indian from India but never India from an Indian.” Mr. Amrjeet was this typical Punjabi who spoke in fluent Spanish but reeked of desi Hindi when nudged upon. He not only gave us an interesting lecture of the Sikh riots in the 1980s but also gave us water at a much cheaper rate. I realised that Indians or anyone from the Subcontinent turn out to be quite helpful to fellow Indians outside of India.

Sidd and I enjoying Tapas and Pallela

The Famous Prawns Pallela a.k.a  Dal Khichdi 

 The walking tour had made us hungry and to satisfy the colon we went to a restarunt called “colom.” Tapas and Pallela are the only 2 words in the Spanish culinary. Out of the million restraunts in the 1square kilometre area, 999990 will be Tapas and Palella places and the remaining 10 will be Chinese and Indian (Indians and Chinese have to be everywhere). Now we ordered 3 tapas and the sea food pallela. The hype was strong and the expectations even more higher. The patatas bravas, grilled mushroom and other tapas were satisfactory and the stage was set for the sea food pallela. Now instead of describing the dish I will describe Sidd’s expressions while eating it: So Sidd is quite a foodie just like me. Sidd tastes the first bite and his cheeks become stiff, eyes contorted and wandering as if trying to figure out something, head tilted a lil and entire posture as if he is trying to remember something. Then he says “This tastes worse than the Dal Khichdi we have at home.” The fact about the food is that it is extremely bland.From sea food pallela to aquatic life. We decided to take it easy and go to the Barcelona aquarium. It did not disappoint. In fact the Sand Shark even agreed to take a selfie with us. Sea Horse got up from his slumber and danced up and down. We did not fret since the evening was going to be the best part of the day. With that hope we returned to out hostel and there was a surprise in store for us!!!.....

To be continued.......