Wednesday Sept. 30th:
The Museu Nacional D'Art de Catalunya is amazing. It's palatial and gorgeous, but unfortunately, we've been invited to accompany Emma's friend on a tour she's guiding which only covered the Romanesque and Gothic portions of the museum, not to mention it was mostly in Spanish so I had no idea what they were talking about. It was also long.
Emma and her friend wanted to spend their time together afterwards and being hungover and having eaten so little I was feeling a little defeated because I was also so tired and in an area of the city I wasn't familiar with. I wanted to see more and her friend would've arranged for me to be allowed to look through the rest of the museum, but I opted to head home and recoop thinking I'd be back later in the week.
I head back to my temporary neighborhood, the Barri Gòthic, call Giannis who'll meet me in a little while and decide to get food at a cafe I walk by daily called Venus. I'm a bit frustrated with my situation for a few reasons. The whole doing everything on my own is getting to me. I'm just not a solitary person for long. I want to get out in the city more but the little to no Spanish I know is really limiting, my hip is bothering more than I ever thought it would and that's actual pain and Ben also left me a note today saying there are paying tourists coming thru so I need to find new digs. I expected that to happen at some point, but it's just another thing to arrange. He recommends the hostel across the street and says it's super cheap and clean. I'd rather stay in the same neighborhood anyway and with having to pay for only five days of a 10 day trip, I feel pretty lucky. It was really generous of Ben to host.
My food is good and I eat like I'm starved. I meet up with Giannis for coffee afterwards and then we go back to the flat so I can check in with Ben about details for packing up, etc. Afterwards, Giannis takes me to the El Born district for a drink.
Today feels strange. It's slow. My hip is kind of killing me and though Giannis has been sweet to show me around and I'm getting more familiar with the area, our language barrier is becoming apparent. I talk too fast so I find myself sometimes talking in more broken English and I see sometimes he gets a little frustrated with me. The whole thing is a bit exhausting. We go back to his flat where I check my email and then he walks me out and we make plans for maybe tomorrow. I know how to find him.
I'm homesick. I miss my friends, would love to talk to Eight because I have this slight missing of Boy rising up within me. He'd certainly challenge me to do more, but then again, so would anyone else. I'm just lonely and tired of doing things on my own.
I make my own bocadillo at the flat, visit with Emma and her husband, Keano, and their cute little dog, Donnie, who leaves tomorrow. They're shipping him to Australia six weeks early. Poor little guy.. he's the sweetest. It's been nice to have a pet around being without Miss Emma Kitty and hoping she's doing fine without me.
People have little dogs everywhere around here. Lots of pugs, terriers, and French bulldogs. I see some shepherd types and pitbull mixes too.. but not one single cat. Not even a stray. Birds are popular and they usually sit out on the little porches of everyone's apartments in their cages. You hear them calling out when walking thru any given neighborhood.
I wander out on the town a bit after midnight. I give up easily tonight not finding a place I really want to sit and write. There's a cozy looking place right around the corner but no one is there and I need people around in order to be social. La Ria, the place Simon and I went to, seems too bright and a little too crowded for me to find a spot.. or I'm just being shy. My hip bugs me, but I keep going and ask the Syrian man outside the falafel place we've been eating at frequently how to get back to El Born because I can't seem to find it. He tries, I attempt to get there, and just feel lost and like the area's pretty sketchy tonight. Most of the men don't bother me, but it just feels dodgy. I walk by Sukūr and tho they're closed, I wave to Alejandro, Giannis' co-worker, who I met last night. I walk by the falafel joint again and Amer and I get to talking. He's the owner and I tell him between his place and the Belgian crepe place down the street, I'm getting fat because they're both so good.
I'm tired. I've taken enough ibuprofen to fell an elephant so I give in to the end of the day. The neighbor's next to Ben's flat are still up as they usually are in the wee hours always sounding like they have nothing better to do but party all night every night. I've met one, a guy from Portugal, and they're super nice, but I haven't really talked to them much. I see there's a few bright pink post-its on their door and each has one letter on it spelling out 'FUN'. I go to take a picture of it and the door opens suddenly. It's the roommate I haven't met, they invite me in, but it's awkward as I make small talk with them and a female friend of theirs inside. After about 10 minutes, I make an excuse about being tired, which isn't really an excuse, and head back to my own apartment to plan my day tomorrow. I'm still frustrated, but maybe having no plan isn't always a good idea so this is kind of exciting laying out the map and deciding if I should try the Picasso Museum and the Sagrada Família before the week gets on too far, when I should move from this apartment to the hostel, and thinking about buying a new camera. This one I just bought before the trip off craigslist is smaller than my old one, but really not great. The hostel also does laundry! Can I please say how excited I am for clean shirts? SO excited! I can't even explain!
Ok.. bed. Sleep. Now.
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