Barcelona: Getting Lost on Purpose

Today's goal was to get lost (on purpose), to learn about my neighborhood and how to get around. I took a look at the maps Cristina had given me, and google maps and figured out a general direction that I'd like to go. I decided NOT to ask for directions from Reception because the purpose was to GET LOST.

Fun little side note about me. It doesn't take much for me to get lost. I'm like Marcus Brody in Indiana Jones - who got lost in his OWN museum.

So, I walked out of the hotel, turned right and right again thinking that I was going in the general direction as planned. NOPE. Immediately wrong. Getting lost....so easy for me.

I decided to go with it. I knew early on that I was going in the opposite direction I meant to, but I didn't care. After 7 blocks, I happened upon a Metro Station and proceeded to buy a ticket.

The ticket machine had an option for English (awesome) but you had to pay by Zone. I will save you the detailed description of looking confused for 10 minutes - just picture me looking at all kinds of different train maps with a furrowed brow. I chose a ticket that would allow me to go 10 trips of a distance of 2 zones (having found a map that showed me I would only ever need to be in Zone 1 or Zone 2). I then proceeded through the turnstile, down some stairs and stared at a map again. There were two platforms. One going to Plaça Catalonya (the side I was on) and one going everywhere else (or so it seemed). I was ALONE on my side and thought I should maybe follow the crowd a little and go to the other side. So, I did. I picked a train and rode it for 20 minutes, all the while having NO idea where I was going. Eventually, figured out that I was going north. I felt like I'd gotten on the Dublin/Pleasanton line train and was heading away from everything, into the suburbs. It was a nice train ride actually but completely the opposite of where I wanted to be. I got off, turned around and went back...eventually getting off at (you guessed it) Plaça Catalonya. A 40 minute train ride to go 1 stop. Totally worth it though. The view was beautiful. Green trees and hills. Suburbia.

I had lunch at Woki Organic Market and then head out to wander. Basically, I ended up on a popular street with shops (fancy expensive shops). It was a nice street with restaurants and benches and lots of people. I turned right and right again. I stopped on the corner, not sure of where to go next. I saw a hop-on/hop-off bus had stopped and everyone sitting on the top in the open air section was staring at the building right next to me. I looked at the street and saw that they were all staring and taking pictures too. I looked up and found that I was at Casa Batlló, which (after "discover the city by foot") is the top "thing to see/do" in Barcelona (aka "Discover Gaudi and Modernism").

The Catalan architect, Gaudi, created this home (yes, it's A HOME!) with no plans for the design. He gave direct instruction to the masons based on drawings he had done and a plaster model.

Every design inside the house, every touch point is intentional, artistic, functional. The door handles or window handles form to the hand. The banisters are soft to the touch, they are the right shape for a hand. The house is also known as the house of bones. Dali said it is a house of sea shapes.

I have not studied architecture, nor design, and though I have studied poetry and prose, there is nothing I can write to explain to you the magnificence of this property. I suggest you read up on it here. And I highly recommend you take the tour if you ever get the chance.

This is what happens when an artist is unrestricted.

From the window handles, to the wrought iron fencing on the patio, to the stairwells and stairways, Modernism spills throughout.

Skylights inspired by tortoise shells?

A fireplace set into a mushroom-shaped room, two seats (one for a chaperon, one larger one for the couple being chaperoned)

A model of the facade

A narrow hallway given the illusion of space by steep archways

The rooftop: Chimneys

Beautiful and Functional

Those are glass pieces

Gaudi built an indoor...I don't even know what you'd call it. It's a stairwell around an elevator. It's a 6 story shaft of light. He created the roof in such a way and the walls in such a way and the choice of colors and materials in such a way that the sun bounces and shines from the top to the bottom magically allowing for light throughout. The glass gives the impression that you are underwater.

I loved this place so much that I might go back again. It felt like Disneyland, where no detail was left unfinished (and it spat you out into a store, where I wanted to buy everything).

Terrace art, that's a pool of water to the right reflecting the fence

An interior window

What are we even looking at here? Amazing.

La Roche Sur Yon France to Barcelona Spain: Riding the Rails

Yesterday, I woke up in France and was driven to the La Roche Sur Yon train station. As always, I wanted to be there early, but this was a little pointless due to the punctuality of the train system. I took a TGV train (fast train, not a local). It was due to arrive at 9:47am from it's previous stop, and due to depart at 9:49am. TWO MINUTES to disembark and board. These trains don't mess around.

I had requested forward facing seats for the three trains I would be taking. Unfortunately, two of the seats were backwards facing. Ultimately, this was fine. The TGV trains have a maximum service speed of 300kph (186mph) and watching the countryside zip by at this speed is not something my brain can process backwards. I get disoriented and a little dizzy. I took a 1/2 a Travelcalm pill, which took all the nervousness/confusion out of what was happening out the windows. I ate a sandhog on my way to Bordeaux (special thanks here to Christelle and her dad for hooking me up with goodies for the trip). I switched trains in Bordeaux, and again in Narbonne. Each ride was about 3 and 1/2 hours long. My final train from Norbonne to Barcelona was only 2 hours. For the most part, the trains are all the same. They're clean, spacious, with plenty of room for luggage, etc. I believe they have food carriages, but because I was all stocked up, I didn't look for one. On the last train, there were headphone jacks at the seats so you could watch whatever movie was playing on the two TV screens hanging from the ceiling. It was a French Movie with Spanish subtitles. I passed. There are also power jacks to charge your phone, or whatever.

I traveled from 9:49am to 7:30pm by train. About ten minutes before getting to Barcelona, I had the thought, "Maybe I should've looked at where my hotel is on the map." I had printed out the reservation paperwork, ready to hand the address to a taxi driver in case he didn't speak English. I hadn't thought of giving myself an idea of distance. I left the train station and ended up in a taxi rank. The taxi driver did not speak English and when I showed him the address he said (in Spanish), "too short". The hotel was too close to the train station for him to drive me. I asked him "where" and he pointed in a specific direction. I walked back through the train station, out the other side and onto a road which turned out to be the road my hotel was on. It was about 7 blocks, or a 15 minute walk but I didn't mind because it was light out, it was a nice temperature and it was free. 

Arriving at my hotel, the receptionist (Cristina) was wonderful. She spoke English, gave me two street maps, a subway map and offered to give me directions if ever I should need them. I had heard good reviews about her on Trip Advisor and could see why. She was great. 

My hotel is the Ámister Art Hotel. I suggest you look it up/click the link, because it's cool - as seen in the bathroom mirror.

I ordered room service off of a limited menu. And then I found that the power cord was missing from my TV. Both of which were delivered in reasonable time. After I scarfed down my delicious burger and chips, I took a shower (powerful!!) and sacked out for the night. 

Next blog: Casa Batlló. If you ever have the chance, you MUST go to this. I don't even know how I'm going to blog about it because it was indescribably magnificent.

France: Observations

Random Facts/Observations:

• Voice over actors in France will often get a role for a specific actor or actress and maintain their sole voice over actor for the remainder of their career. For example, Samuel L Jackson's v.o. guy is always the same guy.
• American shows (like The Nanny, How I Met Your Mother and The Bold and The Beautiful) are voiced over and on all the time. But the voice over guys range from pretty good (soap operas - they're dramatic anyway, so this just works) to pretty lousy (How I Met Your Mother - you don't get Barney's special delivery style or Marshall's boyishness. It's just fast over-talking.)
• CNN and SkyNews are on in English, so if you're craving a language that you understand, look for news.
• Lunch and Dinner in a home in France have three parts. Entré, Main and Dessert. They might be small, but they are FILLING. Lunch has typically been after 1pm and dinner around 8pm.
• When greeting someone in Paris, it is typical to kiss on both cheeks. It is slow and precise/deliberate. Not rushed like the one cheek kiss in Australia. Because of the speed, it is not at all uncomfortable or confusing, like you might've seen in the movies or on TV.
• French kids have to learn two foreign languages in school. Mostly they choose English and German, but they start earlier than high school so by the time they're done with school, they are pretty good at English at least - and I really appreciate that.
• Every car I've ridden in has been a small, two-door vehicle. Mostly Citroën. Looking around, I see that MOST cars on the road are compact size or smaller. There are the occasional full sized cars, but very rarely will you see an SUV or larger.
• The French drive on the right side of the road with distance measured in Kilometres.
•  It is exhausting to listen to French conversations and not speak french but try really hard to understand. It just wipes me out, but I feel really good when I "get it" by context or by recognising the few words I do understand. Totally worth it.

France: The country, the beach

To be honest with you, I have no idea where we went today. I got in the car and was happy for a long time. The weather was warm again (at least 81 degrees F, as it is right now). The sun was shining and the ocean was blue. Blueish/green. It was "colors" as I said outloud, as opposed to Californian water which is brown.

First, I should tell the story of the train ride here from Paris. I had taken one train in France before. It was New Year Day 1995 and I was playing Trombone with the Foothill High School Marching band. We were attempting to play the longest distance, non stop, of any Marching Band thusfar. So, we hopped on a train in Paris and played all the way to England via the "channel tunnel" which had only just opened in 1994. So, it'd been 20 years since I'd been on a train in France and it all came back to me when we passed our first farm with those beautiful white and black cows. Unfortunately, I was fighting off a cough/cold. It was early days and I didn't feel like eating or staying awake. Even more unfortunately, we had seats that were facing backwards, which my brain/stomach just couldn't handle. 3 seconds into the train ride, I knew I was in trouble and closed my eyes, but 2 minutes later, I knew I couldn't stay there. So, I took 1/4 of a travel calm pill (calms the stomach and makes you drowsy) and went to the nearest vestibule to find a seat facing forwards. In the vestibule was a german shephard (mixed, maybe) with a soft muzzle on. He was laying down and lifted his head to look at me, saw that I was ok and put his head back down. For the next 20 minutes, I tried to get comfortable being on this super fast train. The view out the window was beautiful and I felt 100% ok facing forward, so I went back to my seat and tried again. NOPE. Not 5 minutes later, I had to give up the backwards facing seat and took another 1/4 of the pill. I went back to my forward facing seat in the vestibule to find the dog, unmuzzled. He barked once. I was not afraid at all because he was just saying hi. His owner was there; a man wearing camo, a baret with a star on it and very in charge of the dog. I sat there with them for the next hour and half. We didn't speak, but we acknowledge one another possitively and that was good enough for me. The 1/2 a pill kicked in good and I was drowsy but awake enough to enjoy the ride in a sleepy haze. We had to switch trains to one which had no assigned seating. Luckily, we found forward facing seats and I could 1/2 snooze for a bit. Before I knew it, we were there! Here!

My cold has since gotten a lot better, but I'm afraid that because of the warm weather, I'm having alergic reactions to the pollen/grasses/blooming flowers. I don't mind that at all. My nose is stuffy, my cough is minor and my head is 100% clear, which is GREAT. I'll happily put up with a stuffy nose if I can think clearly.

So, yesterday's post contained pictures only of what I saw. I'd give you more words/explanations around it, but I don't have the foggiest idea of where we were really. And today is much the same. The great news about that, is that it doesn't matter at all. I've had a great time. 

Here are some pictures from my walk this morning.

Here are some pictures from when we went to the sea/beach.

That's my footprint having nearly stepped on a jellyfish.

A day out in the country: A church, a castle and flowers

France: Venansault - Now this is more like it

I'm sitting outside in the sun on a park bench. There is a garden to my right. Christelle's father has planted the following: strawberries, raspberries, peach trees, plum trees, thyme, bay leaves, flowers of all kinds, sizes and colors, olive trees, tomatoes, lettuce...I can't even remember what else. It is impressive, but it's only the middle of April, so I'm missing out on the bloom of May. To my right/ahead of me is a neighbor's farm with cows. The birds are chirping, the sun is shining and the house/feral rescue cat and I have already made friends.

Prior to arriving here, I booked a week long trip to Barcelona. I immediately regret not spending more time here. That is a silly thought of course as anywhere I go on this trip has been and will continue to be perfect.

Before I started this adventure, my hairdresser (who I love to pieces) told me "You won't recognise yourself when you get back." Meaning, I am going to be able to be me entirely on this trip. I can do and see the things I want to and I will learn and grow the whole way. So far, I have realised that just because I'm on this amazing trip, doesn't mean I'm going to all the sudden make friends all over the world. I am still me, and am shy as hell when it comes to speaking another language. I am ok to talk to strangers on a whim but I haven't felt like it yet. As a matter of fact, I'm looking forward to Barcelona because it will be a week of alone time. Time where I can sleep in late or skip sightseeing and enjoy room service. I have also learned that being here, in the country, is more my style. It is where I find peace. Just as incredible as Notre Dame was (and it did completely blow my mind), I am as joyfully in awe of beautiful green grass, song birds, walking on gravel and watching a flower bud open in the morning.

I have three more days here and I am going to enjoy every minute of it.

P.s. I have a head cold, but my cough is almost gone. The slow pace of the country and the warmth of the sun (plus neurofen and panadol and the occasional cough syrup) will heal me right up.

France: ok. I'm sick.

I've been fighting a cough for a few days. First, it was a dry tickle. Then it was gone. And yesterday I felt like I was trying to cough up a stuffed animal that did not want to let go of my lungs. I took cough syrup which said nothing about "causing drowsiness" and then I fell into the coma of naps. For the last 24-48 hours, I've been just plum wiped out. Today, my cough is come and go. My exhaustion is also come and go. I wanted to believe I was healthy/just tired from being on my feet, but I've resigned myself to the truth. I am sick. Some French bug got me and I'm going to aggresively fight it with sleep and a trip to the country for some fresh air. Today, Christelle and I are taking the train to La Roche Sur Yon to visit her father. 

I didn't want to write about anything crummy like having a cough (or the plane crash that happened while I was in Florida), but we are human after all and these things do happen.

I have confidence that I will recover quickly. I have medicine and faith.

Ok, off to the train.