Mon Coeur

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Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

This city is officially cemented as a place that I want to live one day. It was a very different experience than the first time around - partly because it was warmer, partly because I was more touristing than visiting, partly because our collective language skills in this nation pale in comparison to those of Andrew and Ben. Still, though, having such a different experience of it, it made my heart burst. Catalunya here I come, hopefully, someday.

My camera battery died immediately. I had foreseen this and packed my charger, but a pretty important piece of the cord didn't make it to Spain, meaning that the majority of my photos are actually Bri's photos. She did such a good job though!

When we arrived it was rainy, and the sole of my boot legitimately, completely fell apart. Like, my toe sticks out. Time to either go to a cobbler, or buy new shoes. We wandered around, up and down the Rambla, in and out of the Boqueria, which is a big beautiful market, by the cathedral (where, incidentally, someone was getting married - must have been weird with all the tourists floating in and out), into a parlor where the waiters wore bow-ties and we ate chocolade (which is like a cross between hot chocolate and chocolate pudding - so rich - it took us a long time to finish), went back and hung out in our hostel. We were calling it the "treehouse," although it wasn't wooden, because our beds were lofted and behind curtains and it felt like we were five and fort-building. It was so cool! The staff were young and punky and there were murals everywhere and there was always loud music playing in the common area. Bri went to bed and Whitney and I attempted to venture out - we wandered not very far, to a bar that looks like a forest and is hidden away behind the wax museum. There are trees and stumps and stuff inside, it's very surreal and lovely and ambient. Retired early.

Day 2 was Tibidabo - you take the metro and emerge into sunlight and buildings that you wish you lived in, and then you hike up an urban mountainside for awhile, and then you take a funicular. And when you get to the top, surprise! There's a huge church with an observation tower, and a charming amusement park! The weather and the views were amazing and we just sort of wandered around in awe for awhile, and took the ferris wheel in awe, and wandered up by the church in awe. Walked to Parc Guell, which was more of the same (beauty, and awe). Afternoon brought us to the Boqueria and the supermercat to buy lunch fixings - Whitney bought a KILO of strawberries for 1.69, which is ridiculous. They were great, became a hassle to carry around though. After some time at the beach they wound up getting sat on, and met with a sad end. We also bought a half kilo of the BEST chorizo I have ever had, and ate it. All of it. Just the two of us. It's amazing how cheap good food can be in Spain - we bought a veritable feast, certainly enough food to last us 24 hours, and it only cost us about 8 euro each. Most of that cost was the meat and cheese - fruit was 1 euro in the market, and bread was 43 cents, and I bought a jar of olives for 83 cents, and it was such a change from Albert Heijn (which, while I am obsessed, costs significantly more). We spent all afternoon blissfully lying on the beach and eating and all evening blissfully wandering from beach to beach. Saw Whitney off on her night bus to Bilbao and retired early, again. We were not party animals, this journey.

Sunday Bri and I had dubbed "animal day," which meant we were going to the zoo and the aquarium. Oh man. The walk down Passeig de Luis Companys and through the Parc de la Ciutadella to the zoo is really beautiful. You walk under the Arc de Triomf and down a palm-lined passageway and then you meander through a park that looks like it belongs in prehistory, or would if the scale were a little bigger. Meaning, the trees have gargantuan trunks and roots and big flat leaves. There is also a mammoth statue! The zoo was big and we spent a lot of time there. There were European bison, and an escaping tortoise, and angry macaws, and tapirs! The aquarium was cool too - there was a shark tunnel, which means that you step onto a slow-moving walkway and there is a huge tank above and in front of you, full of sharks, manta rays, and other gigantic fish. This lasts for about ten minutes. My favorite was the guitar fish, which I can't really describe. But he was cool. Google him! A lot of the sharks had big scars, which made me wonder about their lives before captivity. Or if, perhaps, they fight each other. Being in the shark tunnel when a shark fight broke out would be pretty terrifying. Afternoon was supermercat and beach again. We sat in the same spot on the beach every day, and the beer dudes who roam the city would wander past us with their backpacks muttering "cervesa-beer?" We also witnessed a pretty strange phenomenon, which was a lady roaming the beach selling 5 euro massages. What would that even entail? She was so persistent. "Ola, massagia?" "No, gracias." As she wandered off, clutching her red baseball cap, she would mutter a menacing and drawn-out "Yesss..." This happened to us every day. At night we stumbled, sunburned and exhausted, into one of the numerous beachside eateries. I ordered razor clams, but there were only six of them and my seafood craving hadn't subsided, so while Bri got dessert, I got steamed mussels. A GIANT pot of about 45 steamed mussels. I was shocked at first, but they were unbelievably delicious. And talk about good value! 6.90 for a full tummy that carried me through to the next morning. On our way back to the Metro we saw the Sagrada Familia in the distance and decided to walk there so we could look at it at night. What a good decision. The weather was balmy, the walk was perfect, and the cathedral, lit up at night, is truly the best concrete, man-made expression of awe of heavenly power that I have ever seen. I doubt something more miraculous exists anywhere in the world. We wandered around it in circles, staring, for probably close to an hour. The kind of mind that it takes to put something so ornate and seemingly incongruous, and yet so beautiful, together, is mind-boggling. What I would give to have known Gaudi.

Monday was our last day, and we were spending the night in Girona to catch our early flight back to Nederland, so we wanted to make it count. Got up early, said farewell to the hostel, and climbed to the top of Mont Juic. I think that beach + mountains + city is about as good as it gets, for my soul's odd combination of need for urban grit and natural majesty, old things and new things. Spent the afternoon, again, on our little stretch of beach, but were driven away by wind and clouds. We went to bed super early once we got to Girona, in preparation for early rising. But the hotel was really cool! Even though it was next to the airport. The woman insisted on PACKING US a continental breakfast, because we would miss theirs and it was included in the price of the room. What service!

Came back to Amsterdam, which, while cold in comparison, was still shining and welcoming and wonderful.

How do I contend with such a big part of my heart having been ceded to these European cities? Moreover, how do I contend with such big parts of my heart being ceded to so many places - to Buffalo, to Glacier, to North Truro, to Eagle, to Minneapolis? When will it reach capacity, when will it burst, will it burst? I am only 20. Imagine what could happen if I (godwilling) continue to explore my country and the rest of the world and find outlooks, people, streets, buildings, skies, oceans, graffiti, friends that I cannot bear to always leave behind. And how, when so many places grip my heart, do I decide on a place to settle?