20.11.09

a good week ...



AIR Le Parc
Rob Annema and Els Zoon
14 Allee des Marronniers
81190 Pampelonne
France
Tel: +33 5 63 764409
Email: Rob of Els
Internet: www.az-leparc.com




room number 3. mine for a week.


work space


at work



mi vecina - fellow resident, artist anelys wolf ...
have a look at her work at animaleshumanos.blogspot.com


patio


take a look at the garden ...






in the summer time, when the weather is fine, we sit here to have lunch all the time ...


view from the outside ...



another entrance to the le parc parc ...


another seating area at the le parc parc ...




mushroom pie anyone?


structured tree ...


cat in residence - at work


chicken in residence at work ...


house views


walk around the house ...


down the hiking trail ...


the river that runs by ...


drops of pampelonne everywhere ...



when it pours ...




about town ....


back at your door ...


back at the house ...
the hallway ...


the other workspace ...


guest kitchen ...


as night falls ...


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shruti.cristina.barcelona - parte dos

The free flamenco concert by beautiful people turns out to be a good omen as my day becomes sated with many, many more free concerts …

However, right before that, I am still in food hell … Finally find a chicken-only Paella and decide to go all out and try it a second time even though the serving seems rather large. Err! Ain’t got the chicken one, we only have mixta with piscada, gambaaas … noooooooooo no no mixta. I’ll have a Mexican wrap please … First bite into it and I am thinking, serves me right for ordering a Mexican wrap at a Spanish bar. Pffff! Wash it down con some Coke Zero and some decent Spanish desert.

Coke Zero … Varun told me the story … Apparently they came out with some name for Diet/Light Coke which didn’t go down very well with the men, the ladies liked it just fine … so in order to maximize their market Coke came up with Coke Zero … I like ;)

Hop on, hop off the Metro … and we are on our way to Park Güell …

Now this is a park Gaudi built “The park was originally part of a commercially unsuccessful housing site, the idea of Count Eusebi Güell, whom the park was named after. It was inspired by the English garden city movement; hence the original English name Park (in the Catalan language spoken in Catalonia where Barcelona is located, the word for "Park" is "Parc", and the name of the place is "Parc Güell" in its origin language).”* … we are feeling all the love for Gaudi so we walk walk walk … but where is the park … its coming, its coming …eee … stop,
A la derecha …

Turn left and behold, an escalator. Whaaaattt? I did not sign up for that. Check all the signs … everything points and says Park Güell is up the escalator. Ohkie then! We climb, another escalator, ok, and another, and another, and then a slope (ohh I have to walk now? The escalators were doing just fine), and another escalator, and another … by this time all this seems like a very, very evil joke …

But eventually we make it to the park … and its worth the walk … you can see Barca from here, can even see the la sagrada familia … top view ;) … nice, nice we likes …



but hey what’s that we hear? Why it’s exotic music … we follow the direction where the sound of music is coming from … we walk some and we see a whole band … playing rumba and something else, it’s a bit of a mix and the band calls the music ‘originaaaaaaaaalllll’ … they are a very fun band called ‘el tumbao de juana’ … they entertain their audience to the T and it is quite an audience they have at the top hill of the park ... dancing, singing along, and clapping … we have a very good time with the band … the last song the band plays is a song for ‘travellers’ … oh we mucho mucho gusto! : )


we are sad to walk away from a band full of not-so-clean but very hot, and fun Spaniards … next up is yet another band … it’s a guitar trio … que bueno yet again … this time we sit, and relax, and let the guitar playing serenade us … we walk away again and just down the stairs, at the main and actual entrance to the park a man is playing an instrument we have never heard or seen before … it’s a metal plate that makes different sounds when one hits different spots on it … we like it very much indeed, the sound is beautiful … walk out and there is another trio playing the didgeridoo and a couple of other instruments … by this time we have lost the energy to keep track of all the instruments and the music … if we were a music collector we would have paid more attention … we would like to be a music collector but there is no space left on the memory card of our camera by this time …

so we walk away from the park feeling very, very musically and architecturally enriched …

we get back to our hostel … we rest a little …

at about 7 I begin to feel that my body isn’t feeling McDonalds heavy … so I begin to think about food … by now I’m desperately missing Indian food … I had thought that I’d be meeting Varun today as well … but he keeps busy at college until 8 pm on some days … yes you heard that right … that boy works hard at Uni …

So, I decide that I should go out on my own and look for some Indian if I can or else settle for some Tapas which I haven’t had yet… or so I think (later realize that I have actually had them)

A block away I see a shop that reads Omar something and I decide to give it a shot … inside I see the shawarma set up so I get the ‘hit the jackpot’ feeling again … I go to the counter and ask for a shawarma roll …

The balding man behind the counter figures that I’m Indian … and he tries his luck with ‘if you talk to me in Punjabi then I will give you a good shawarma roll but if you talk to me in English or Spanish it will be an ok one’ of course he says all this in Punjabi …

I’m a bit taken aback but I start talking to him in Punjabi. He gives me a roll, I take a bite and in my head I’m going, dude I thought you were giving me a ‘good roll’ because I AM talking to you in Punjabi.

Anywho having made the bad decision to have the roll at the restaurant and not have it packed, I listen to the bugger yap away about how nice it is to meet people from back home yada yada yada … all this time I’m literally trying to inhale the roll so I can scram from the place because by now the guy is beginning to seem creepy … but wait, there’s more …

I’m only halfway through the damn thing and he asks me how long I’m staying for etc. Since I’m only in Barca for one more day I safely say ‘Oh! I’m only here tomorrow, day after I leave …’
‘Why don’t you have a meal here tomorrow as well’ he pounces on the opportunity.
‘I don’t know’ I say, ‘I have a friend who lives here and I am going to go see him before I leave so it won’t be possible but thank you’
‘Well that’s dinner right, what about lunch’ he pounces again.
‘Erm, I will be looking around the city so I will eat wherever I am’. Since the restaurant is in Sants which doesn’t really have any tourist spots nearby I’m guessing he will understand that it isn’t possible.

But errrrrr wrong again. He doesn’t understand and insists and insists and insists.

By this time I’m very uncomfortable and since there is only one other customer at the restaurant … who erm is leaving now? Why? … I begin to get very restless … I somehow wash down the rest of the roll superspeedily and get up to leave …

And baldy starts off again about how nice it is to talk to someone in his own language and how it can get really lonely here, so far away from home, and ‘you must, must, must have lunch with me tomorrow and I won’t take no for an answer’ …

Now I am realllly uncomfortable. I go into protective mode and say ‘ok well, I will see you for lunch for a short bit, how about that’ … in my head I am making a mental image of him so I can get a restraining order against him …

‘Well what time will you come?’ he says.
‘Umm how about 2’ I say unflinchingly and convincingly.
‘Sounds great! When you come, just stand by the door and wait for me for a couple of minutes. Before we sit down for lunch, I will take you for a ride on my bike!’ he grins.
‘Oh yeah? Which bike do you own?’ I ask instinctively.
He points to a baby mopet parked outside the door and says ‘well it’s a small one’ feeling as small as the mopet I’m guessing.
‘I own two cars as well though. And I own this shop. And I send money home, to my parents every month’ he says ‘all that’s missing is some good company here’.

Alarm bells are ringing in my head so I say ‘well see you’ and jog out of the restaurant, and run back to my hostel, laughing all the way …

This was at about 7:30 pm

At 10 Varun calls and I go meet him at Barrio Gothica, taking the metro to Liceu estacion where he is supposed to meet me … laughing all the way … I’m still laughing when I meet him … and tell him about the incident. Its been quite an interesting evening, and he agrees …

We walk through some charming streets and make it to a pub where many 1st year and 2nd year students from his University are meeting for what’s called a ‘bao’ or ‘bar’, can’t remember … but they basically all get together for drinks …

When we walk into the place, Lionel and Daniel from the previous night are already there, along with some new people … forgive me new people, you were far too many for me to remember all the names … but I do remember Alec, Jonathan, Fabio, and sweet guy from Cochin … and we spot AJ and Elena, the girls from the previous night as well at some point …

After some nice MBA type mingling, we step out as the pub becomes beyond stuffy and spend the last 45 minutes outside, in the cool Barca night breeze … after which we call it a night, rather early, at about 2 : )

Back at the dorm, it’s the same scene … when I walk in everyone moves … spewing curses under their breath …

The next morning I wake up very late for some reason and miss breakfast at the hostel … not that I missed much …

Oh and the morning before when I woke up, around 9 … and stepped into the common girl’s bathroom, what do I see? I see a 14 year old dressed as a hooker … she is wearing a very, very mini skirt, some panty hose, a gunjee that is torn in various places, so she’s basically wearing the remains of a gunjee revealing an evocative bustier, the spots where the gunjee is torn are being put together with some rather large safety pins … of course the make-up is very noir, and the hair is big, and the boots are high … 9 a.m., teenager, dressed as a hooker … i begin to wonder how much I had to drink the night before, I know I didn’t drink too much … how is this happening … anyway I brush my teeth and make it to breakfast and the girl follows … soon after, a couple of more people dressed as inappropriately as her early in the morning walk in as well … and slowly it begins to make sense … Halloween is around the corner …. Ohhhhhhhhhhh all right, then its ok. But, still. Why are they doing this at like 9 a.m. Shouldn’t they go out in the evening or something … heck, I couldn’t be bothered.

This morning it’s the same thing … I walk into the girl’s room and there 5 more girls besides the teenager from the previous morning … I close my eyes!

After the morning’s delightful sights I need some soulful escape … so I head seawards …



As I walk towards the beach something in me begins to calm down so magically and quickly, as if I am home … I almost never feel this, anywhere … the sun melts away the layers of alertness that I wear since I am travelling alone … its warmth smoothes over the lines of smug worry that mark my face … and I sit down on one of the wooden decks to watch the fish make merry in the green-blue Barcelona waters …



by now I begin to feel like I’m living one of those cranked up shots wherein the protagonist is in slow motion whilst everyone and everything around her is in fast forward … Oh! What a feeling …

A fellow traveller comes and sits next to me, too close for comfort but it doesn’t bother me … with Marc Streitenfield playing some good old ‘A good year’ symphonies in my ears, I’m impervious …

And I sit there, at the deck for the longest time, not feeling hungry, or thirsty, or lonely, or anything … but peaceful and calm as a golden sun-bathed brook …

After about an hour or so which seemed like only a moment in time, I walk towards the bridge … still in that place in my mind, still impervious … the music playing in my ears isn’t too loud but I cannot hear a thing besides the music, the gentle sound of the ocean in my heart and the creaking of the film roll in my eyes … it’s a wonderful place to be …

At some point though I’m shaken into coming back … a man with his aggressive histrionics is trying to tell me something … I look around and I am the only one on this part of the bridge. The other people are cordoned off by two mini barricades on the two ends of the bridge … I look back towards the man and now realize that he is asking me to ‘move it’ … I hasten towards the nearer end of the wooden bridge and soon as I do that … the bridge splits open, giving way to a sailboat to pass through to the waterfront, which has been waiting for the bridge to do so … after the sailboat passes through into the ‘water parking lot’ ; ), the bridge closes up again, as if nothing ever happened … in my head I’m thinking ‘hmm! That’s one new thing I learnt today’ : P

After that it’s back to far, far away as I take a rather long walk, hand-in-hand with the Barcelona waters … and I feel … something beyond words …



After some time I find myself at an eatery at the beach … I order a yummy salad, herbed chicken, fries, tomatoes and cheese combo con beer … and oh! Yeah … we’re feeling good food-wise as well …

The need to continue to savour what I’ve just been through is so overpowering that I decide not to see anything else that afternoon and just be … so I take the metro back to the hostel and just lie in my bed, thinking, and wondering, and being … ‘need to be with myself and centre, clarity, peace, serenity … I hope you know, I hope you know, that this has nothing to do with you …’


In the evening I head out again in the search of that essence of Barcelona … after doing a round of laundry at the hostel of course … I’m leaving Barca tomorrow, I don’t know if I can do laundry in France …

I haven’t seen the Picasso museum … I should’ve, I wanted to … but now I don’t have the time … I need to walk my favourite part of the city one last time … So there I am lost and found once again in the cobbled tiny streets of the quarters … in and out of plazas … into lonely patches, and some not so lonely ones, some dodgy ones and some not so much … its wonderful, I’m saying goodbye to another friend, another new friend, another friend for a lifetime …

At some point I do take out my ginormous map of the city and realize that I am somewhere close to the museum … If I ask someone for help with directions I might just make it, its only 6 … but I cannot ask anyone, I’m not in that space … I just walk round and round, not understanding my map, hoping that I do …

Soon my left foot begins to hurt and my stomach finds a solution – find a place to eat and rest a bit …

I look for tapas … tapas, tapas everywhere … the choice is varied. Ideally I want to eat at an authentic looking taverna on a clandestine, dodgy road … and even though I see many, I soon find myself back at Ramblas … and oh! Here’s another restaurant and let’s just go in now …

I try my f***-all Spanish (I’ve realized that now) and the waiter sees through it and asks me politely ‘What would you like?’ … he’s uncannily polite, almost familiar … I ask him to give me a few minutes and scan the place … well of course, it’s being run by a bunch of Indians … A very nice one from behind the cash counter hollers at me and says ‘You HAVE to try our Sangria, it’s the best around here, ask anyone’ …

I smile at him, thanking him for the tip, and lying ‘Perhaps another day, I don’t feel like it right now’ … I have no idea why I said that, considering I’m leaving tomorrow … I enjoy white lies a lot … Soon I order some decent choice of tapas, and they turn out to be quite all right actually …

But at some point I can hear hushed voices behind the counters saying something in Punjabi … at this point I can’t understand what they’re saying … but soon I figure out … as the polite waiter goes to the people behind the counter and says ‘Sharam karo, bhehena wargi hai’ … (Shame on you, she’s like our sister) … he’s saying that because he knows that I am from India …

The nice man who had talked to me about the Sangria and who’s not part of the ‘shameful’ conversation at some point asks me where I am from …
‘I’m from India’ I say, ‘New Delhi. Where are you from?’
‘From Punjab. What are you doing here?’
‘I’m just travelling around’ I say.
‘Where do you stay now, UK?’
‘No, I’m from India’ I repeat.
‘But you stay in the UK?’
‘No I stay in India … just here on holiday’ … I assure him, befuddling the migrant in him who cannot understand how people from New Delhi can reach a standard of living that allows them to travel to Europe for leisure … Its beyond him and I don’t blame him for that … If only he came back to India and saw how things have changed in the last decade …

After that the boys behind the counter chat about me a bit more … a girl their age from India must feel like gold-rush in a foreign land full of foreign women they don’t understand … poor men! They are still talking in Punjabi about me, thinking I am Indian but don’t speak Hindi or Punjabi … Sangria man soon tells them in Spanish that I do understand Hindi/Punjabi and that I actually live in India and am here on holiday … the boys break off the party and one of them who is Pakistani tries to chat me up … but I am a closed book that evening … I’m in another place where I have no time, space, or slack to entertain a lonesome migrant …

I quickly finish my dinner, thank the polite waiter and Sangria man and leave … I text Varun and ask him the address for the place he had mentioned last night where I can catch a Flamenco performance for about 7 Euros … I also tell him that we could meet for a goodbye drink after the concert … he says we could but I can tell that he is beyond tired … Au revoir Varoon, take good care of yourself …

… I cannot believe that I don’t remember the name of the bar where I went for the concert but it was somewhere on Plaza Real, it costs about 7 Euros for ticket to a half hour concert and one has to book about an hour or a half hour before the show and then stand in a not so long queue to get in … the wise thing to do is to buy a ticket an hour in advance, go for a quick beer, and then queue up about 20 minutes before the show so you can get a decent seat … and believe you me, once you’re in ‘it really, really is worth it!’ … It’s a highly commercialized act wherein they give you a compact dose, a quick high and off you go but … for 7 Euros, I’m all for it.



Anywho after that, it’s a quite walk back to the hostel, a quite half an hour of packing, and zzz.

The next morning its back to lugging duties and … this time … we’re taking a 6 hour bus ride to France … Looking forward to it. In the bus I find an empty seat and no one comes and takes the seat next to me … I’m more than happy with that! Having carried the luggage from the hostel to the bus station, which was a 10 minute walk, I go off to sleep as soon as my behind comes in contact with the coach seat!

A little later I am woken up by the sweeeeeetteeessst man and he is asking me ‘Is this seat taken?’ in Spanish … I say not at all ... and then pinch myself. : ) No I am not dreaming!


* Wikipedia
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5.11.09

mariposa libre en barcelona

When I told my friends that I was going to Barcelona, many reacted with absolute, pure passion … Wow! You lucky dog! Stupid Cow! You must go to Parc Güell! Must have monster steaks which are a Catalan speciality! Why do you get to go! Etc. etc. etc. You get the picture!

All this got my really curious about the city. My first evening in Barcelona when I didn’t step out of my hostel, literally, I got plenty of messages telling me I must visit the football stadium. Now, all I know about football is that really hot men play it on Television, they are all after “one ball”, and that really hot men play the game! Did I already say the last one? Never mind. Doesn’t hurt to make a point. Anywho! I’ve seen a few films about football … I like films about sports in general … I don’t really watch any sport otherwise … other than Tennis of course, when Rafa is playing that is … for a Rafa game I almost feel like if its an important game and I am not watching it on me telly, he will feel really … what’s the word … Lonely! Yeah!

Coming back to football and Camp Nou! So, my first morning I decide to visit the stadium; apparently its like 20 minutes walking from the hostel. En route I’m taking pictures, walking around, la la la …
I make it to one of the gates and ‘it looks empty’ and I am thinking wow, is it just me or are there no other football fans like me here :P... I go to the man at the gate and say ‘tourismo’ and he instantly sees through me and says ‘gate no. 9, all the way around’ … ‘Erm Ok!’

Whoever said it’s a 20 minute walk should like “&£^£$£*&*%^$£%$£ do something to themselves … its been more than 20 minutes and now I have to walk all the way around the stadium … it better be worth it really, my back is still hurting from the sweet luggage walk yesterday …

Hah! Finally reach gate no. 9. See some action there, lots of people, lots of talking, a family playing football … watch it *^$&%£^%* … I see a sign that says Museum and I am thinking what? Who gives a damn about a football museum. I am just here to see the stadium, how big it is, take a couple of pictures … show them to boys back home. I am thinking all this and as I turn around I see a huge queue has formed right behind me within a matter of seconds … Oh boy! Well, I’ve come so far …

Wait for about 20 more minutes in the queue … its my turn and I am asking the man behind the counter ‘I OnLy wAnt To sEE tHe sTaDiuM !!’ and he looks at me as if I’m a fly and he is a fly-squatter, literally. Dude! If you’re sick of your job, quit! That’s when he says it … he says the forbidden words … and the forbidden words are anything above ‘12 euros’ … and he says ‘17 euros’ … I want to use so many curse words at this point that its not even funny. It would be ok if I was spending this amount to go for a concert … but a football stadium? Sigh but am here so let me just … Sigh!

I go inside the stadium and start clicking pictures with such ferociousness that people kind of steer clear of me.



Anyway … it's a big stadium. That’s pretty much about it. In the museum, they have pictures and stuff about the history of the club. All right! More pictures. I’m going to get my money’s worth dude!

I gladly walk out of the museum as soon as I am done and head to the food counters … I read the word ‘frankfurter’ and my eyes do the ‘hit the jackpot’ on a slot machine drill and I can hear ‘kching’ somewhere in the background …

‘Not so quick my dear’, says my frankfurter when it arrives on my plate … why? Why? You ask … and I say … because my dear frankfurter is made up of a pequeño baguette … the hard European stuff … and inside the baguette is a measly, skinny sausage … and to the right hand side of the cash counter are two menacing dispensers – one for tomato ketchup and one for mustard sauce. Sigh! Still relying on the French fries by the by!

After this disastrous (foodwise) morning, I go back to my hostel and rest my poor back a little bit …

At around 4 I set out, to head to the infamous barrio gothica or gothic quarters …

My first trip in the Barca Metro … I’ve become quite a pro at it by now by the way … You just need one day to figure out the metro system in a European country … Once you do that you’re sorted because the systems are usually pretty efficient and once you’re tuned into that system … you start walking fast, running even to catch the metro much like a local … you don’t do the touristy slow walk thinking, looking at every possible sign, not understanding it, not knowing where to go … the whole metro ride deal becomes piece of cake … la la la

Now, in Barca I can see that my hostel is not walking distance from all the touristy spots … it actually could be if you’re big on walking because Barca is actually a very small city … but if you are about 5 metro stations away from your destination, just take the damn metro … so I go and buy this sencilla billete or some such thing which basically gives you about 10 rides for about 7,40 euros, whereas a single ride is about 1,35 euros … so the sensible ticket is a sensible option indeed … and I did use my ticket fully and satisfactorily … : )

I step off the metro at a station called Catalunya and when I step out … phew! This part of Barca looks very different from the area called Sants where my hostel is … The first thing I see is this wild market … the land of surplus … fruits, meat, chocolates, candies, spices, chillies, chilli peppers, mushrooms, everything in hoards … it’s a sight but a little too strong for me …



A few pictures later I am out of the market and start looking at the buildings … every building, every balcony is beautiful to my untrained eyes …

And this is when I truly start feeling something … the song Barcelona starts playing in my head automatically, on repeat …

Barcelona te esta's equivocando no puedes seguir ignorando
que el mundo sea otra cosa y volar como mariposa.

Soon I lose myself in the streets of the Gothic quarters, I go in and out, out and in … clicking pictures all through … of balconies, street lamps, streets, shops, statues, some palace under restoration …

At some point the body seeks rest but the mind keeps making it go on and on for soon it will be dark and then it will be quite difficult to take pictures with my camera … at some point the body wins … a soda pop (very difficult to find in the land where beer flows eternal) and some crisps … junk, junk, I love junk … A not so bad looking man laughs at me, literally, blatantly because I’m ordering soda pop when everyone else at the taverna is 3 beers down and he is ordering pitchers … $%^$&%£^$%&£$ … Its only 6 you know, its not a crime to order soda pop!

Gobble Gobble and out you go!

Walk around some more … beautiful, beautiful Barcelona … by this time I’m feeling it … what Sol meant to me in Madrid is what the streets of barrio gothica mean to me in Barca … … … y volar como mariposa. La la la la la …

Oh and back on the main street again and oh! My god! I almost have tears in my eyes. I’ve reached a McDonalds outlet.

The devil and the angel fight an ugly battle and whilst I wait for them to finish I pass by the store at least three times, almost entering and then retracting my steps. Finally the devil wins and tells me ‘hey you’ve been in food hell for 5 days now, go for it, and indulge in some toxicology tan tad dan dan, tu un, the burger is only going to sit around in your stomach for about 2 days and the fries for about 5 … Sigh! Un (some Spanish name) burger for me please!

I superspeedily eat a superburger and step out of McDonalds … feeling all right!

7 o’ clock, tring tring … don’t hear it. Don’t actually remember that I’m carrying a phone these days.

8 o’ clock – look at the phone and hey Varun called. Call him back and ‘hello! Hello’ he has a plan.
He has a plan, he has a plan,
And we’re not going to go eat flan … (like the beginning of one of the songs from my musical O_O?)

Well, the plan is to meet at a Mexican place (I can hear my heart crashing into smithereens when I hear the words ‘it’s a good place for Mexican food’) … serves you right for listening to the devil. 9 o’ clock at the Mexican place then …

8:30 we take the metro to where the Mexican place is (we = me and the McDonalds shit in my stomach) … 2 minutes to 9 we are at the Mexican place called ‘Bar Panchito’ (I think) at Aribao street (I think) …

A very warm welcome by the hostess, she loves Indians and 2 minutes later, precisely at 9, enter Varun con Gurvir … its so good to see a face from back home … a face we haven’t seen in quiiittteee some time … exchanges, what brings you to Barcelona, what have you been up to, what’s new, what’s next …
And the others arrive.



A J is from Turkey (sweet girl, not in the picture)
Elena is from Russia (sweet girl, not in the picture)
Lionel is from France (first from left)
Neel is from Mumbai, India (second from left)
Daniel is from USA (third from left)
Varun (first from right)
Gurvir is from Mumbai, India (second from right)

After Bar Panchito the party moves to ‘the philharmonic’ because it’s only 11 and no club is going to even be open right now, they’d probably open at like 12:30 … plus we were out till about 7 this morning and are a bit tired … you should’ve been there yesterday :D

Nice bunch of students, all studying their MBA’s at various universities, some of them on exchange here from other universities … some like Varun study here at the ESA in Barcelona (think that’s the name he said repeatedly …ESA)

Anyway Varun is a very, very good host … and he is a traveller at heart so he has lots of stories and insights and is fun to be around … his friends are a bunch of funny MBA’s, the sorts I haven’t met before and have interesting business ideas …

The evening continues till about 3 am (creating history here – in my world) and towards the end we are all teaching each other cuss words in each other’s languages … Lionel takes the cake by learning ‘a lot’ of hindi ones … I learnt one French one which I cannot remember now, it was very difficult … fuis de puit or something to that effect … don’t know …

At 3:30 when I open the creaky door of my dorm to get into bed, every bed is occupied … and everyone moves. I know they will be going back to sleep and in their dreams will be doing some very nasty things to my body … but hey c’est la vie …

Goonight young night … the next day I find out that after finding me a cab home the boys went out drinking again. Phew! Not my cup of tea :P

La Sagrada Familia it is the next morning. Since I am a pretty crummy traveller as far as research is concerned I don’t know that the temple is under ‘construction’ still … I think its under restoration and I sing to myself ‘well there’s another 11 euros not so well spent’ … later that night Varun tells me that its still being constructed … but the engineers today are finding it so difficult to follow Gaudi’s principles and techniques because well they were simply magnifique … and the construction will end in the first third of the 21st century … holy guacamole … I step inside and I hear some stuff, and I read some stuff … and I see how the design elements are taken from nature and by the time I step out … my head is going ‘Gaudi is god, Gaudi is god’ …



So I go to the museum store and buy the first and the only present for myself from Spain – the cheapest ring based on design elements from the temple … to remind myself, that I was here, and I saw it, with my own two eyes … and that ‘Gaudi is god’!

Across the temple is a park, and in the park is a free flamenco concert by two of the most beautiful spirited people I’ve ever met … and I can see this in their eyes … in the way the girl’s face lights up when she is playing percussions, or singing … the way the man is consumed by his guitar and the music … the way he looks at her and she looks at him … Sigh!


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4.11.09

Shruti.Cristina.Barcelona

Madrid to Barcelona on Renfe’s AVE, Bogey Number 8, Seat Number 4. Sigh!

I made it to the train station and my compartment in time but I was so tired after carrying my luggage all the way that I had to sleep for at least 15 – 20 minutes each time I carried it for a certain distance. So I went from the taxi to the terminal lounge and slept a bit … fortunately I had the time. Then I went from the terminal lounge to my train seat and slept again.

When I woke up we were outside the city, and the views were different. Fields of gold welcomed us on every side … some would call them fields of dirt but not me. I would like to believe these are fallow farms (that sounds cute, fallow farms) … Anyway it’s sort of non-interesting landscape and my mind drifts back to Madrid …

It really depends on how long you stay in a new city … how much, and how well you get to know it … for me it was fine to walk twice through each of the 4 – 5 major streets or plazas of Madrid that I walked into … the area around Palacio Real, Plaza Mayor, my lovely soulful Sol and hostel Los Amigos Sol, the area around Museo del Prado and Reina Sofia … those will form my memories of Madrid.

I may get back home and people may ask me ‘did you see this, did you go to that place’ and I may say ‘no I didn’t’ and they may exclaim ‘Whaaaattt? How could you?’ … but I couldn’t be bothered.

I realized that for me, whilst travelling, the idea is to attain objectivity on a very subjective journey. I chose my destinations and I want to see them well enough but there is only so much that time, my budget, and most importantly my body will allow … I need to listen to all three. It sounds a bit difficult to achieve and be objective on a subjective journey but there comes a point when one sees the light … and I have, oh yes sir!

Soon my mind drifts back to the scenes outside the train … I can see in the landscape the face of the beautiful middle-aged gentleman who helped me keep my luggage in the upper luggage compartment … I was struggling with it … he appeared out of nowhere, said ‘tranquilo, tranquilo’ and sweeped my heavy bag effortlessly onto the compartment … : )

Breathe …

Now, the landscape has become a mélange of various types of vegetation … green, red, multicoloured farms, tree plantations, train tracks, misty patches (I’m travelling in the afternoon by the by) , lonesome houses, factories, beautiful breathtaking patches of green, followed by lifeless ones of gold … solar panels, strange complicated looking farming equipment … Yann Tiersen is still serenading me with his Tabarly symphonies … and I feel like singing ‘All is full of love’ … (stop barfing, you guys are absolute idiots)

I think my hands smell European by now … it could just be the phirangi perfume Nidhi gave me as a present … whatever it is, it’s going well with the location … its going well with me …

I wish you could see all this with me …

There is an old woman in the same train compartment as me and the criss-crosses of years that define her face tell me that she is my maternal grandmother’s, my nani’s age … this woman is travelling with another woman who looks just like her and is wearing similar clothes as the first woman, just in a different colour scheme … they could be sisters no?

I can never imagine my Nani being these women … they are travelling ALONE by train, answering their phones with youthful dexterity, and not displaying any signs of pre-destination paranoia … my Nani is not capable of such feats … she is ill and spends all her time in the one room of her studio apartment, with my Nana … I feel like people in our country age too soon, I am not judging anyone or anything, I just wish things were different …

Ting Tong … “Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to reach our final destination Sants Estacion, Barcelona. Please remain seated until the train comes to a complete halt and then indulge in strange histrionics to get your luggage off the compartment above your head …” … OK may be she didn’t exactly say it like that :P

So I am out of the station … P.S. I have finally learnt how to use one of these damned trolleys … you stick a euro coin into the slot and it disengages itself from the chain of trolleys, press the bar, roam around … outside the station, escort your trolley back to the chain of trolleys, engage it with the others and ‘pop’ comes out your coin … the first time I realized it cost a euro fifty to use them trolley, I was like No way José! Over maah dead baady! … but now that I know the coins come back thoo yaah, its all gooood!

So I am lugging my bags to the taxi stand, which is quite a task in itself … I know my hostel isn’t far from the station but I DO NOT want to carry my luggage even over a short distance … ‘come mr. taxi man, take me to my hostel’ … What the fish!!!!!!!!! Mr. Taxi Man say, he no take me. He show me direccion and tell me to walk it … what the …

I walko but somewhere in the background Paulo Nutini singo ‘my little fish don’t cry, my little fish don’t cry …’ Sniff. Hic.

Huff. Huff. ‘Donde esta carrer de Melchor de Palau’ … Aqui … Aqui … no aqui … no a la izqierda … no a la derecha … no no no …

10 minutes of walking around with 23 kilograms on my 53 kg body … I stop a taxi, put my luggage in the boot, and just tell the man to drive … ‘donde’ he asks me … I show him a small hand drawn map … he doesn’t throw me out of the cab, and drops me to my hostel … alberguinn! Nice man, I say ‘gracias Señor’ to make the 2 euro trip worth his while …

Enter hostel, room is pink, couldn’t give a damn …





Tour of the hostel … And Behold !!!!!!!! There is a laundry room … Bhagwaan ke ghar mein der hai par andher nahin …

Visit the ladies room and dash into the laundry … Err! Please go buy detergent first. Ok! Run to reception, buy detergent for 1 euro (what the …) just buy it, and run back … When you’re carrying 5 pairs of clothing and have already used four, a laundry machine is a miracle …

Sigh! So it cost me 3 euros to wash my clothes, 3 euros to dry them, and don’t forget the 1 euro I paid for the detergent cakes which you crush and put into the machine … That’s how much Rampal earns for washing my family’s clothes back home for a WHOLE month … I’m feeling it Rampal, you’re da Man, maah brother maan!

For some reason I am feeling at home in Barcelona. No its not because I was able to do my laundry as soon as I landed … Its because my friend from back home lives here, he is doing his MBA here at the University … I am happy to be able to meet him … give him a call and he tells me another friend from back home is in town so we could all go out later in the evening … which by the way in Spain means like 11 o clock … that’s when people step out for a drink or ten … the real partying starts around 12:30 and beyond …

But whilst talking to Varun I begin to realize that I am feeling a bit dizzy, so I tell him that I will have to see him the next day …

Back to my common room routine … I go and buy some food first … and voila! I couldn’t have possibly bought a shittier Pizza … Yuck with a capital Y! And some even shittier sweet, fried Spanish desert … OK Fine! The sweet thing was all right.

My bad luck with food has to end at some point!!!

With a large map of Barca replete with bright red circles around all the touristy spots I am pacified that the next day is going to be all right …

In the meantime whilst I sit and upload photo etc. in the evening as per my common room ritual three very interesting (linguistically) girls ask me which language I would like to watch the film Moulin Rouge in. First they ask me ‘Would you like to watch Moulin Rouge in English’ and I say … ‘Whatever, its fine by me’ … Then one of them asks me ‘Parle plu plaise plaah Moulin Rouge bleh’ and I say ‘Hain?’ … then they ask me ‘¿Te gustaría ver la película Moulin Rouge en español?’ and I say ‘Erm! I’m leaving in 10 minutes’ …

Finally they do put on the film. Thank you lord!

A few minutes into the film ‘Voulez vous’ picks up pace … and I smile an all knowing smile … Some more minutes into the film and I am still smiling … I really like the way I smile here … Since I spend most of my days alone wandering, thinking, taking pictures, writing … I smile all knowing smiles or virgin smiles only … depending on the freshness of the event that induces the smile … and so my smiles are beautiful, genuine and not solely practical or practiced …


I do believe I’ve seen this movie before but the kind of emotions its inspiring in me at the moment are magnifique …

No, I am not feeling or feeling for romantic love, which would usually be the case when I watch such a film … it’s a feeling of complaisance, a feeling of pleasance, a feeling of something more fuller than romantic love … something more … something else … its something I rarely feel and I must say that I like it … and I hope this feeling lasts longer than this journey that I am on … this journey of growing a little, of finding something, of finding the world and something else … I hope this feeling lasts … and …
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