October 12, 2010
We are off to Barcelona today! The Hartleys are bleary-eyed because they just got the news that Stephan’s son has a particularly aggressive form of melanoma last night. His surgery will be in a month so they won’t know until then how extensively it has spread. We tell them to go the London right away but Stephen wants to wait until the end of the month when he has business there. Stephan thinks it will worry his son if he drops everything to run to London. That must be the “keep calm and carry on” British philosophy but I wish he and Cat would go sooner.
In the midst of trying to get everything ready to go and finding out about Stephen’s son, we read an e-mail from the Barcelona landlord saying that they will see us tomorrow. That’s not good since we’re arriving today. In my panic, I call the building manager, Blanca, not the check-in lady, Clarisa. Blanca speaks little/no English and we both get ourselves entirely confused as I try to find out if they expect us to arrive today or tomorrow. “You arrive mañana?” “No, I hope that you are expecting us today.” “You will be here right away?” “No, we are still in France; it will be about 4 when we arrive.” I sign off by repeating that we are arriving TODAY at 4pm but I am concerned that we will find our apartment unavailable. Later in the morning I get a hold of Clarisa and she confirms that we are expected today. Whew!
The two cats, Hundai and Harry, must stay at the 5-star cattery while we are in Barcelona. Catherine puts harnesses and leashes on them and I think they remain pretty calm but she is concerned about them. (I can fully empathize with the heart-break of leaving “the babies” behind that!) We reach the cattery property and it is a very isolated rural place. I try to shoo the pot-bellied pig out of the dirt road so we can pass—and I’m not too successful. (I even try my pig calls: Sooooeeeee! Here pig, pig, pig! Maybe I needed to do that in French.) The owner rushes up to help and is more successful in pig-herding than I am.
It is raining off and on and we hope that the further south we go the warmer and sunnier it will get. We head for the Costa Brava (Wild Coast) in Spain. Catherine says that most of the coast villages are populated by ugly high-rise apartments but they have a favorite village that is lovely. So we head to Calella de Palafrugell. And it is a beautiful little village…that is filled with children and their parents enjoying a national holiday. But the inclement weather has created huge waves that crash against the rocks and the beach—very picturesque. It’s not super cold—just overcast and a little windy.
We walk the promenade looking at the huge lovely homes (shuttered because it is the off-season—in fact most of the apartments and homes are closed up). We stop to peruse the menus at several restaurants. We choose Restaurant la Vela because it has a seasonal mushroom menu. But we decide on other choices for our lunch. Howard gets risotto with squid ink—surprisingly good. The rest of us get seafood fideos—pasta with seafood. But Catherine is very unhappy with the fideos. She will fix us “proper” fideos while we are here in Barcelona. (The dish is good anyway even if it’s not made in the traditional way.) We must nearly shout to be heard above the din of disruptive children. I say that the French would not put up with such behavior!
We order a very nice Spanish white wine. Stephan asks me to pour—now I’m under pressure. Stephan is an elegant wine pourer and I am a savage in comparison. I take great care in making sure that I know everyone’s water glass from their wine glass…and then I pour wine into my water! A couple of other faux pas of mine during lunch make Stephan exclaim: “Christine, your activity at lunch time has been less than cogent.” Well, that made us laugh until we drooled.
We arrive in Barcelona to pretty nice weather—at least there is no rain. Catherine does an outstanding job at negotiating the traffic and parking the car in a very small garage. The apartment is lovely and very conveniently located. We have a little “argument” with the Hartleys about who gets to sleep in the master bedroom with its spacious bath. The Hartleys insist that we take that bedroom and that they will be perfectly comfortable in the bedroom in the back of the apartment. As we relaxed with a bit of wine we notice that there is a lot of noise outside and in the building. I guess we should expect that since it is National Day (Columbus Day to us)—the day that Columbus set foot in the Americas. So maybe we won’t get so much sleep tonight…
At about 7pm we take a walk to see the Rambles—a lively pedestrian drag that runs through the heart of the “old city.” We didn’t spend much time there because it started to drizzle with heavy rain imminent. As we passed the hundreds of cafes and restaurants, the wait staff is calling to us to lure us into their place and not let us pass by. We settle on a little tapas place because it’s close to home and there are fresh sardines on the menu. We have little plates of olives, fried squid, cod fritters, Serrano ham, sardines, Russian salad (a nice tasting potato salad), and garlic bread. H and I had very tasty Sangria and the Hartleys had beer.
We headed off to bed at about 10pm—just when everyone in Spain is eating dinner. At 11pm the fun real begins! Loud music (sounded like a cross between Pink Floyd and the Doors at the beginning of the night and followed with what sounded like cats howling), maniacal laughter, karaoke, and shouting. Howard is blessed sometimes with his hearing problems. He was not awakened until 12:15. I was sure that the Hartleys were equally disturbed and it reminded me that the last time they were our guests in Brantome, France, the apartment we rented was so cold that they cut their trip short. In other words, this would be strike two for us in apartment selection.
Just before 1am I can’t stand it any longer. What incredibly inconsiderate neighbors are carrying-on so late? I am either just going to find out who it is and “report” them to the apartment manager the next day, or I’m going to pound on the door and plead with them to be quiet or, I guess, the 3rd alternative is to join them! I discover that our building is completely silent. I look out the front window and see that there is a nightclub on the 1st floor under our apartment. So it will be this way every night??!! The music has stopped. It’s exactly 1am so it must be that nightclubs are required to close at this time.
I dread the next 3 nights and I dread hearing that the Hartleys had the night from hell.