Plucky Survivors See Europe Day 48: Barcelona

A combination of events kept me from doing a lot of what I wanted to do today in Barcelona. 

The first involved my guts.  I won’t traumatize you with the gory details, but let’s just say they’re gory and traumatic, but absolutely nothing I’m not used to.  14 years ago, a bunch of guys with knives hacked up my digestive system to get rid of a touch of the cancer and then put it all back together.  Ever since then, what’s left of my food pipes sometimes revolt and say, “let’s torture Rick.”  Today was the day they decided to do that so straying too far from my hotel room was not an option.

The second event was a looming deadline.  I have a hard time saying no when people offer me money and I need a bunch of it to pay for this trip, so I agreed to do an “emergency” rewrite of a Christmas movie that is slated to start production next month and be on this year.  I told them I’d have it done by Monday.  That’s not going to happen, but I still feel like I need to come as close as possible.

By late afternoon, I had made good progress on the script and the gut meds I dashed out to find at a local pharmacy seemed to be helping so I risked going out to catch at least some of the Barcelona Pride parade.

The gays here have a much better idea of when to start a parade.  Most of the time they happen at noon or early afternoon, but here it didn’t start until 6pm, which this being a parade of gays and drag queens meant 6:30ish.

It was another festive event with lots of people and good vibes.  I have to say I’m really happy that I’ve gotten to experience these on my trek through Europe.  It gives me hope that maybe things will get better at home.  Or, if nothing else, it gives me ideas of where to move if they don’t.

My guts were still playing nicely, so I decided to torture them with dinner since I hadn’t eaten much all day and what I did eat didn’t stick around long.  I was craving something with substance and relatively mild, so I found a place called 9 Reinas that specializes in hearty cuts of beef.

I figured everything would go to hell anyway, so I started with a grilled provolone because I have a hard time saying no to hot cheese.  Then I had a steak and some gratineed potatoes.  It was all delicious although I didn’t eat a lot of it and once again had to reassure the wait staff that it wasn’t because the food was bad, it was because my guts are.

I walked around a bit, sticking close to the hotel just in case, but since things were still holding, I decided to visit Casa Batllo, a home in Barcelona that was designed – or rather a redesign of an existing house – by Antoni Gaudi.  It’s considered one of his masterpieces and showcases his ethereal style with Baroque elements as if seen underwater but more importantly in that moment, it’s only two blocks from my hotel.

There are several immersive spaces that speak to Guadi’s talent, but the bulk of the experience is following a carefully laid out path through the different rooms, staircases, and outdoor spaces of the building.

It’s all stunning, but I have to say not very well run.

They gathered a group of us and allowed us to go through the first couple of rooms and then stopped us and said we had to wait until the group ahead of us had cleared the next space.  Ten minutes later we were allowed to move on and then stopped again before we could go to the next one.  This happened four times, with one wait of almost 20 minutes.  My guts were getting annoyed and so was I, so when we were told yet again that we needed to wait to continue, I bailed.  A problem with overtourism or just poor planning?  Hard to tell.

Tomorrow is my final full day in Barcelona, and I know that a big chunk of it is going to be spent working, but I do intend to get out and catch a few more sights.  What my guts intend to do is an entirely different question.