Barcelona

This update comes weeks after our return from Barcelona, so I must apologise for not remembering much of what went on. There's certainly a few things which stick out in my memory, which won't be too hard to relate. I do expect, however, that the usual subtlety and depth of meaning to which you, the avid toeslikefingers devotee, is accustomed, may be a little lacking. Please do try to compensate with a stiff brandy or two. As it happens, I'm sitting here watching the women's final at Wimbledon on telly. Obviously the Williams sisters have a little more to worry about with regard to their average performance than I, but - much like the sisters William - I have come to regard myself as one of the very best in the field. Salman Rushdie may have sold more books than I (more than none) but merit is an artistic measure, not a monetary one. And when one has scaled such lofty heights as "april 16, 2002" one can but despair as one approaches the old ink-and-hammer type writing machine, knowing that one is expected to do it all again.

So I had a few beers after art class, and yeah, I'm a little drunk.

Onward!

We showed up at the airport on the 11th expecting that everything would be easy. I had the easy Jet confirmation numbers in my phone and we were ready to rock. Of course that wasn't to be expected, what with easy's vaunted "fuck you, we know we're no good" customer service policy. Indeed, I had been booked onto the wrong flight. Arrogant* of me too assume things would go smoothly, I suppose. Anyway, the next flight they could get me on was going to require five or six hours of sitting in the lounge bitching, so I paid the £80 to get on the flight I'd already booked.

We got to Barcelona and the hostel, which was pretty good, actually. It featured a couple of interesting items such as a hollow column in the centre of the building, where many of the rooms' windows faced. In the middle of the afternoon, Liz and I were treated to a woman's grunting as she extracted whatever bodily fluids some poor chap had left in him by vocal influence alone, somewhat amplified by the hollow chamber at building's centre. This orifice also came into play later when, liz and I having been given separate single rooms for the first night, I woke to find a large cockroach not merely visiting, but evidently attempting to nest in my right armpit. I threw it vigorously across the room, only to feel something scurrying at my feet, still in bed with me. I jumped out of bed and across the tiny room to the light. I couldn't see anything, but when I pulled back the bed covers, a large cocky started scurrying around my bed. I threw the large book I was reading and scored a direct hit. This, of course, served only to enrage the bloody thing, which scurried about my bed - refusing to leave - yet more. After some time staring at the evil fucker, I grabbed my stuff and went to spend a very hot and crampt night in Liz's single bed being kept awake by another grunting shagger - this time definitely baritone.

You may have noticed that I failed to express just how the emptiness at building's centre contributed to the presence of cockroaches making their home in my body hair. Well the day after, our friend Katie checked in to the same place. We finally had a room to ourselves, but Katie had been moved into my old room. Freaking out slightly, I waited for Katie to drop her things upstairs before asking about the vermin issue. Neither of the women behind the desk knew the word or seemed to understand my charades, and asked me to find it in their dictionary. I facilitated matters by hastily drawing a four-inch long cockroach on their notepaper. Both of them stood back from the paper three feet with their mouths open, thrusting their index fingers at the picture in disbelief. Evidently cockroach armpit infestation isn't quite the problem these days it may have been in the past. Anyway, they checked it out, and we realised the the little bastard didn't live under the bed, but was apparently playing rush goalie for an airborne invasion force. I think both the receptionists needed showers afterwards, judging by the horrified look when I described where I found the creepy crawlies.

So Barcelona is a great city. The Catalonians seem to have a bit of a chip on their shoulder which the central Spanish lack, though alot more of them speak English and the place is quite alot cheaper. So getting served isn't so easy, but the bill tends to be smaller. There's an amazing breadth and depth of culture there. We visited the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's famous unfinished cathedral, which has been under construction for over a hundred years. As I've mentioned in the past, I've begun to fall out of love with the Rennaissance and older architecture and art having seen how uniform so much of it seems throughout Europe. This was more true in Barcelona, looking around some of the old Gothic churches. But the Sagrada Familia is completely different. Gaudi's style is evident throughout Barca, and his weird blobby style places the cathedral in a place outside the staid churches you get so used to throughout the continent. We climbed it inside one of the spires, which was well worth it and I'd recommend anyone in the city does the same. Liz was reticent, being afraid of heights, but I remember being more freaked out by the heights than she was at any point.

One of the reasons we were in Barca was Sonar, Europe's biggest electronic music festival. We tried to get tickets to Matthew Herbert's Big Band the night Katie arrived, but it was sold out. The next day we got around to picking up our tickets for the main festival, after some frantic running-to-Internet-cafes by yours truly. That night, Friday, was the night Bjork, Aphex Twin and Richie Hawtin were playing. After meeting for dinner and a few drinks, we tried to head out to the site. The buses proved woefully inadequate, however, and after walking all about the city, we managed to convince a cab driver that 20 euros wasn't a gigantic sum for four of us to split and finally got some transport. By the time we made it, Bjork was half way through. The rest of her set was good, though, especially the gems I hadn't paid attention to from the end of the Homogenic album.

The night progressed, with Liz going missing for over an hour and freaking me out. Scary how easy it is to think you're standing in one place when you're not. The best bit of the night for me was probably LCD Soundsystem, who I'd never heard of before. I've since heard a mix cd by them in their Death From Above guise, which I have to say couldn't be more different. Live they were a huge mix of influences from Shadow to Two Lone Swordsmen to every other thing you can think of. Quite reminiscent of some of the kog boys at home.

The trip saw us being mistreated by waitresses and treated to some of the best seafood I've ever had, as well as checking out Sonar Day only once, but thankfully getting to hear Pulsoprogramming play a wicked sunset gig outdoors. After that, so many people had had difficulties with transport and from the night site it was apparently nearly deserted, and reputedly a much better crowd. We also found the only bagels in the whole city - country, for all I know - which kept us happy for breakfast most days.

I'm sure I'll think of alot more to put here later. Memory is leaky.

*See above