Barcelona

There will be very few times in my life where I will be actively excited to leave a place as amazing as Morocco only half explored, however I was now entering the part of my trip I had been most looking forward to. Solo travel had been good to me so far, and had made me come out of my shell, meet many awesome new people, and allowed me to have some time to myself to really clear my head and just be completely hedonistically selfish. However, as much as I love travel, it will never replace my friends and family in making me truly happy, and while facebook had made the world a sufficiently small place that I could keep in contact with everyone almost daily, I was really longing to be able to share some of my experiences with some old friends. And what better way to experience Europe with my friends, than a couple of crazy European festivals. 

The first friend I was meeting up with was actually someone I'd been travelling with before, my Swiss friend Tabea. Tabea had decided that she'd enjoyed escaping the cold neutrality of Switzerland for the warmer climes of southern Europe when she'd come see me in Croatia, and so she decided to see me again when I came to visit Barcelona. As I'd mentioned earlier, I absolutely love Spain. The food, the laid back lifestyle, the mind bogglingly fun and insanely dangerous festivals, it really is an amazing place, and by all accounts from people I'd met while travelling, Barcelona was the city that most sustained this lifestyle throughout the whole year. 

I was due to meet Tabea around midnight at an apartment we were renting, however due to a delayed flight and the Spanish attitude of 'mañana' (Translation: Meh, I'll do it tomorrow), I ended up getting into town around 4am. Compounding the inconvenience of this delay was the fact that I had no way of contacting Tabea thanks to the airport having no free wifi, and the payphones only working with Spanish phone numbers, meaning that when I buzzed the doorbell of the apartment I was greeted by a friend who I would describe as woefully un-neutral. 

Despite this rocky start to the trip (made even worse by the emergence of a very grumpy 'morning Caedyn' the next day), we had an amazing time in Barca (that's what us locals call it). Barca is a perfectly representative microcosm for Spain as a whole. It combines the ambition and modernity of a first world economic power with the laid back, communal living and natural beauty of the rest of the country. Thanks to this combination you get a wonderful city full of culture, endless things to do, beautiful architecture and non stop partying. However you also get the flip side. Rampant homelessness, high levels of unemployment, and allegedly the pick-pocketing capital of the world (at least 50% of backpackers I met who traveled to Barca were pick-pocketed or mugged, a fact I was very aware of as I walked through the streets at 4am with everything I owned on my back, and a knife, with which I have no idea what I would've done, in my right hand). 

The problem I have noticed with southern European countries which has led to much of their recent economic struggles, is that there are two contradictory sections of the population. There is the segment which is probably a little steeped in the past, whose mentality is one of 'live first, work out of necessity'. Thanks to the amazing natural resources and climate this is a perfectly feasible way of life, and is the only explanation for their ability to have traditions that include pouring gallons of wine over each other, and throwing tonnes of tomatoes at one another. It is a lifestyle aimed at happiness out of community, not money. However, there is a powerful segment of the population, mainly located in Barcelona and Madrid, which yearn for Spain to become an economic powerhouse, and to compete financially with the elite economies of the world. Unfortunately for Spain this has necessitated an increase in working hours, infrastructure development, and I can only imagine Tax rates, and there is a real resentment between the two sides. This has of course been brought to a head by the financial crisis, which has led to finger pointing on both sides, with people who have lived simply and unchanged for decades resenting being forced to pay with austerity measures for what they perceive as mistakes by the people with power and money, whereas the people attempting to bring the nation into the 21st century as an internationally competitive economy, resent the rest of the nation for their lack of work ethic which has meant their investments have not produced any advancements in the economy. There are of course many more complexities to this, and quite a few more subgroups of the population in a country that historically hasn't ever really achieved lasting unity, but dammit this is my blog, and I'll generalise if I want to. I have absolutely no idea how you could marry these two ideals together, and the hippy in me definitely has a massive soft spot for the people who live life first and are not concerned with greed, however for the sake of someone else having a chance of winning the next world cup, I sincerely hope that the Basque and Catalonia regions both secede.

Anyway, enough geopolitical pondering, because Barca thankfully provides enough sensory overload and cultural experiences to allow you to forget all about any such issues (seriously, it's so much fun you don't even notice the hobos!!). If I could give one bit of advice to anyone meeting up with friends while travelling, it would be to make sure your friends work in the catering industry. Tabea had already enriched my diet of bread and cheese while travelling in Croatia, even allowing me to taste truffles for the first time while there, and she continued my culinary education in Barca by arranging for a couple of wine tasting excursions with a couple of her contacts (I'm assuming this helped her claim the trip for tax purposes, although she probably didn't dare mess with the Swiss taxman. I've heard that Swiss accountants were the only people more feared than the SS in WWII). Thanks to Tabea and her wonderful business contacts I got to see that despite the romanticism I'd previously attached to them, Spanish vineyards couldn't hold a candle to the beauty of the Hunter Valley

Mmm, you can really taste the highway and the power cables

I got to ride through the heart of Barca in a convertible 

and I found the best cellar to get locked in on New Years Eve. 

We also spent a lot of time wandering around the streets and seeing Gaudi's Barcelona. Gaudi was an artist who was allowed to make Barcelona his canvas. His style could be described as an autistic kid having an acid trip while building sand castles on the beach after reading a Dr. Seuss novel. The man was absolutely prolific. I'll get to his quality of work in a second, but the sheer quantity of his work was the first thing that amazed me. The city is just covered in his signature style, and from what I understand he did most of it by his own hand. Park Guell for example is a park overlooking Barca that is full of sculptures, architectural structures, intricate hand sculpted mosaics and Seussian houses (If Seussian wasn't an art movement before, then it is now). The whole things has a feel of someone getting bored in class and producing a doodle that ends up covering an entire page of an excercise book, and then, with nowhere left to go, exits the page and comes to life on top of a hill. There is no single piece of Park Guell that will stick in your mind as a piece of world class art, but the cumulative effect of so many otherworldly pieces stacked on top of and beside one another turns the park into a truly remarkable work of art. 

For artistic effect, the steps were a tad uneven, hence Tabea's concentration in this photo.

An example of a mosaic Gaudi whipped up one afternoon when he got a bit bored

'A GECKO, A BIG FLUORO GECKO, THAT SHALL BE MY CENTREPIECE!! Oh and this LSD sure is something isn't it' - Antoni Gaudi

We also toured a couple of his buildings which he had built. Again they were visions of Suessian bizzarity, which wouldn't have been out of place hosting a green eggs and ham party, but the true beauty came in the attention to details. Every aspect right down to the banisters and the door knobs, even the furniture, was designed to be a work of art in its' own right. 

We saved Gaudi's crowning achievement for last. The Sagrada Familia is a Basilica built by Gaudi that began construction in 1882, and is set to be completed in the next fiftyish years (give or take thirty years). This construction time is a testament to both the ridiculous intricacy of design that is the signature of Gaudi and to the stereotypically unhurried Spanish work ethic. My favourite description I heard regarding Sagrada Familia is from an art critic who described it as (and I paraphrase, very very poorly) 'One of the most hideous examples of architecture, which every person absolutely must see before they die'. The place really does combine every technique, every nature study, every media Gaudi ever worked with into one glorious testament to his God. To describe it as 'busy' would be an understatement. I absolutely loved it. Having been through more churches and mosques than any human need visit, it was so refreshing to finally witness someones' place of worship which actually felt personal, and individualised. All the other major churches of the world I've visited, while still beautiful examples of architecture, all felt like efforts to impress their fellow man, and be held as proof of the terrestrial claim to power of their God. Say what you will about Gaudi's cathedral, you can't accuse him of trying to conform to anyone's standards bar his own and his Gods', and there is something earnest about a construction so ambitiously designed that even the designer acknowledged that it would probably never afford to be built, and which has only been continued thanks to the donations of visitors who want to see the vision completed.  

The Jesus sculpture was so brilliantly tacky, it would  have been more at home in a Mexican bar, but I thought it was brilliantly Gaudiesque.

How Gaudi conceived the design. As you'd expect it took a lot of dime bags to come up with this concept.

While walking around and exploring the intricacies and allowing the sheer magnitude of the structure to overwhelm me was brilliant, I think my favourite event my time in Sagrada Familia was getting photographic evidence of the Photographic Lemming Effect. The Photographic Lemming Effect (or PLE for short) is something I've discovered while touristing it up across Europe. It is described as follows:

Photographic Lemming Effect: The phenomena that occurs when one tourist, after happening upon another tourist taking a photo which they have themselves not yet taken, will then proceed to take the exact same photo. This is borne out of a fear of missing out on any aspect of a tourist attraction, specifically an aspect which a friend or family member may ask about later which you will subsequently be unable to produce any photographic evidence of having experienced. There are two sub categories: 
* The Artistic Lemming: A tourist who upon seeing another tourist take a photo from a creative angle, will then attempt to identically replicate said creative photo. Below is an example:

Here is a photo taken of Sagrada Familia which had been intended on being used in a traveler's hilarious blog, probably accompanied by some humourous caption about Gaudi's deep hatred of turtles.

Here is the attention the previously ignored tortured Turtle received seconds after the aforementioned zany blogger had moved on to get a snap of a statue of Jesus in a compromising position.

*The Ignorant Lemming: The Ignorant Lemming has little knowledge of the tourist attraction they are witnessing, but has decided to forgo hiring an expensive tour guide who probably won't tell them anything new anyway. The ignorant lemming is worried that they are missing out on interesting features, and therefore will replicate any photos taken by people walking ahead of them, just in case they're missing something of great importance. The ignorant lemming can be taken advantage of for hilarious effect by a tourist who notices that their every photo is being replicated. This can be done by pointing in amazement at any random feature before taking a photo and wandering off talking excitedly. Even more fun, is to walk after someone walking through a tourist site and pretend they're famous, excitedly taking plenty of sneaky photos, until the person finds themselves in the centre of a paparazzi scrum, despite the fact they were just looking for the toilets.
(Before anyone accuses me of becoming a travel snob, I fully admit to continually being both an ignorant and artistic photographic lemming).

The rest of my time with Tabea was spent hanging out with a few of her friends who happened to be in town at the time, eating our body weight in tapas, experiencing the 'It's a small world' effect when bumping into my friend Hollie from Australia while walking to the beach, and generally just walking around and relaxing. Apart from that, there wasn't really much going on in Barcelona........ Ha, just kidding. This is Spain. Of course there was something cajone endangeringly dangerous and elbow chewingly insane going on. For those who can recall my previous blogs about Spain, you will know that you have about a 90% chance of encountering a festival on any trip to Spain, and by necessity, that festival will involve you risking at the very least physical impairment, and possibly death. Tabea and I completely fell upon this particular festival by chance. We got into town and were told that apparently there was some kind of religious celebration for the end of summer and something about banishing the devil from the city for another year. Naturally that meant they formed human towers by day and then dressed up as Satan and let off fireworks at night. 

Dressing as the Devil tricks the actual Devil into thinking he is already here, so he buggers off and invades Valencia instead?

And the human tower is to try and catch the sun so that summer doesn't end? I don't know, you try and explain these people.

In true 'lucky bastard' fashion I managed to happen upon the city when they had free concerts and firework displays every night. This was great, and turned every night into an event. The cultural events during the day and early evening were also awesome, with the human towers a particular highlight. The funniest thing about the tower was the logical necessity that the people at the top of the tower be lighter than those at the base, which eventuated in the people who would risk the most being a ring of three seven year olds and one brave five year old all perched three stories in the air. I'll be honest, as impressive as it was, there was definitely an element of motor racing ethos in the crowd, which while supportive of the tower peoples' attempts, was yearning for a crash as much as anything else. The towers were awesome from ground level, but even more impressive from above, as I found out from a paper the following day:

However, as with every Spanish festival, it was the dangerous part which I really loved. Tabea and I only really went to the firework parade out of curiosity, and out of a feeling of 'Well, may as well'. We'd had it described to us as 'A religious parade with a bunch of people dressed up, and some big animal made out of paper, walking along with sparklers and some marching bands.' Here's what that looked like:

As it hadn't really been described adequately to us, Tabea and I weren't exactly clothed correctly. We were both wearing t shirts and I was also rocking shorts. Tabea wisely stayed off to the side while fireworks were near and managed to escape the night with all of her hair, however since I'd been travelling for a while, and was looking a tad wild, I figured I'd let the city of Barcelona do my manscaping for me, and despite taking a bit too much off the eyebrows it went pretty well.

Basically the parade was a repetition of the following elements:
First a group of people dressed up as the devil, would dance around with military strength catherine wheels pinned to the end of sticks, which they would light up and shower the crowd (even the spectators on the side, willing or not) in sparks and embers.

Some things are universal.

Then a drumline would come through the crowd and everyone would come out and dance, but be careful not to get too caught up in the rhythm lest you fall behind and get swamped by:

...a series of giant paper mache animals clearing a path by spurting curtains of fireworks from their nostrils, ears and anywhere else the locals could shove them.

In true Spanish style, you could pretty much have as much fun as you desired. You were free to bathe yourself in as much hellfire as you pleased, with the only proviso seeming to be that you don't bitch about it if you get burnt. Not that they were completely reckless, there were firemen there to look after anything that got out of control...

Sadly they were all set on fire by a dragon.

The night was unbelievable fun, and while I ran around happy snapping and singing hairs from my body, Tabea danced the night away with the drum lines. It was the perfect end to a great time in an amazing city. I don't think either of us really understood the religious significance of the festival, but I think this just goes to show the religious mentality of Spain, maybe life is just meant to be enjoyed, maybe our time here is just meant to be a laugh. No matter if we're here a long time or we push our luck at one too many Spanish festivals, we should just enjoy the moment without searching for any deeper meaning. I think this 'religious' festival, made me realise once and for all, that seeking extra meaning from a world that is already filled with natural beauty and wonder makes about as much sense as putting tits on a dragon.