BARCELONA – Spain (Tues 29 Sept)

Took an early morning drink this morning … yuck … this stuff is worse than Syracuse. They must have dumped a load of chlorine, and every other possible chemical into the local water supply overnight.

Over breakfast we got talking to a teacher that was here from Germany with her Spanish Language class. Now wouldn’t that be cool. A week long class trip to Spain by train. You realize the opportunities that we miss out on being so isolated from everything in NZ.

We took the car in for a service this morning, and we were extremely thankful that Rosa from the monastery had rung ahead for us as they didn’t speak a word of English, and or Spanish is no better. We were limited to “Yes”, “No”, “Thank you”, and lots of gestures, from both sides.

It was while we were there that I had a ‘Fiscal Panic’. When we were trying to communicate the price, I discovered that my wallet was completely empty. And with all the talk of pickpockets I immediately thought that I had been relieved of its contents. So instead of catching the Metro from the garage to the city, we did a quick 45 minute sprint back to the monastery. After a quick check, I remembered that I had emptied most of the contents out into another bag for safety. Phew!!!! Panic over.

After the panic had settled we headed into the city and spent most of the day browsing around, trying our best to avoid the inevitable siesta partaken in by most businesses. We did manage to find one place still serving cheap lunch. Half way through the owner came over to us and reminded us about the pickpockets. He said “Those two women sitting next to you, they are known pickpockets. In here they behave themselves, but out there they are like a little mafia”. Everywhere you go people and shopkeepers are reminding you, there are even signs up in cafes. But what surprised us is that these two women are known for what they do.

One of the main roads through here seems to be always lined with stalls of various shapes, descriptions and wares. However the wares seem to be themed depending on the day of the week. One day it will be fruit and veges, tomorrow it will be something else. Well today it is pets. These stalls are all set up like miniature pet shops, which is kinda cool in it’s own way, however the animals on offer are a little different to what you will find at home. Chooks, guinea pigs, rabbits, mice, hamsters, fish, birds, turtles, iguanas, ferrets and scorpions. Yes that is right … you can buy your own pet scorpions. But you will need to catch your own crickets to feed them. What we didn’t see were any snakes (much to Justine’s relief), however they may have already sold out of those, as they seemed to be selling their wares hand over fist.

On the interesting item list, we also saw for sale, two big matching pieces of Amethyst standing at about 1800mm high, and weighing in at 700kg each. You can have them both for a mere 19,000 euro.

What has become blatantly obvious to us over the last few days, is our ignorance of all things Spanish. We don’t know the language, we don’t know their history, and we know very little about their culture. We keep asking ourselves, how this could be, how did this great country pass us by. Every country that we have been to so far, we have been a little prepared in a general sense. We have a big broad brush idea of their history and what to expect, we have read things that relate to it over the years, and we have met people who we have learned things from relating to their country. Once there we have just polished up on what we already knew, and filled in the gaps on what we didn’t. But Spain … nothing! Is this just us? Or is this a void that is shared by others? What ever it is, it makes us feel really bad.

The most notable thing that we have been learning about whilst here is the Franco regime. A remarkable time and dark days. Highlighted by the fact that on his death, the Spanish royalty, instead of taking up that power, handed Spain back to the people, and democracy. No wonder they love them so much.

But all this talk of dictatorship and Franco has made us wonder why we didn’t hear more about Mussolini and his crew while we were in Italy, after all he was a contemporary of Franco. Perhaps we were looking in the wrong places, or perhaps we were more focused on the ancient history rather than the recent history whilst there. Regarding Franco’s regime, what happened, what was it like living here?

There are so many things that we want to know, so many places that we want to go to, and yet there is so little time.