Barcelona. The name itself has a ring to it. When you say it
out loud, you get that exotic image in your head, even though you may know
nothing about it. A friend of mine who’s been there pronounces it like a dreamy-eyed
girl thinking of George Clooney.
Naturally once you step into a city with that mindset, you
expect to be blown away with the innate Barcelona-ness of the city. You’d
imagine people don’t just walk on the pavement, they’d dribble past you and
scream ‘Gooaaaaaaal!’ (Okay, that might be specific to people who know FC
Barcelona better than the city)
What I mean is that one expects a full tilt cultural blast
in every aspect. Reality was different as Barcelona turned out to be quite metropolitan.
The roads are spacious and pristine enough for a flight to land comfortably. And
being predominantly full of tourists at every hour, you’d find it hard to spot
locals. In fact streets next to my hostel brimming with Indians & Pakistanis,
and the rich aroma of their delicious food.
Like with any other city, Barcelona comes with a must-visit
list of places. From TripAdvisor to the receptionists of the hostels you check-in,
they all sing the same tune. A normal routine for backpackers is to start their
experience of the city with a free walking tour, and then one by one ticking
off the suggested hit list.
Now I had given a walking tour a try in Granada, and it was
clear that I wasn’t interested in listening to stories, walking and stopping as
instructed. In fact, throughout my three months in Europe, I didn’t join any
other walking tours – free or not. Thanks, but I’d rather sing my own tune. I
may miss a few notes, but hey at least it’d be original. It would be mine.
Day 1:
All other things aside, the one single thing I was looking
forward to in Barcelona was watching my first ever live football match at the incomparable
Camp Nou. Three of our company had
booked tickets for Barcelona vs Levante, and we could hardly wait.
The day of the match, I showed up an hour early at the metro
station next to the stadium and skipped the pre-drinking session with my friends, because really, isn’t it for
evenings like this that God gave us adrenaline? Together we walked a road that
gradually tapers down, and at the end of which the contours of the stadium were
visible, with noisy crowds in sixteen million colors sifting in gradually. Inside
the stadium, we are all now on our heels to our seats, with the announcer creating
goosebumps with every word he uttered.
“Alves. Mascherano. Bartra.”
“Neymar”
“Messi!”
Roaring with the rest, we settled into our seats and
enjoyed the 4-1 spectacle, with Messi scoring twice and gliding off the turf as
if from an entirely different planet. We screamed, waved, chanted and soaked in
the electric evening. It is incredible when nearly a hundred thousand
supporters across borders and boundaries toast their lives to football as one.
Day 2:
The next day was unwisely planned by us for a stadium tour
of Camp Nou. Being Barcelona fans, perhaps
my two friends would’ve still thoroughly enjoyed it, but my excitement had
peaked at the match obviously. How psyched can you get for visiting the same
stadium again the very next day? Still, the tickets had been previously
purchased, and the experience stood dim in contrast to my stadium tour at Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid. While Real
Madrid allows to you practically walk anywhere you want, the access is highly
restricted in Barcelona. They don’t even allow you to walk through their
dressing rooms, which really was a let-down.
At this juncture, I parted from my friends for the day and
went back to my hostel for quick nap. Once evening had set in, I fancied the
beach all of a sudden. And the way I looked for the beach was by observing the
blue on the map. Yep. In my earnestness to find the beach through such an
indirect method, I ended up walking a lot and came across what looked like a
port. Upon crossing a bridge with silvery-white sinew, I ended up in front of a
shopping mall, right on the edge of the sea. The real sight of the evening
however, was waiting right behind me. An empty bench invited me to savor in the
view for a while. Such is the beauty of randomness, and the evening was
evidence that it’s okay to not know where you’re going.
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| Rambla De Mar, Barcelona |
Day 3:
The next day my companions all went to scuba dive in Costa
Brava, so it was just me and Barcelona that day. So I got dressed, packed a few
things like my Kindle and camera into my backpack, and set off to the beach. It
was bright, sunny, crowded, and teeming with sunbathing folk, most of whom were
topless. (I don’t know whether there’s a nice way to say that) Of course being
from India this isn’t your typical beach, but still you have to act all cool
and be like, ‘Oh you are naked? I didn’t even notice.’ I found a grocery store
nearby and got myself a big bag of Lays Paprika chips, and a one liter tetra
pack of Sangria, which to my disbelief cost about the same as a Tropicana Tetra
pack in India.
And so it was me facing the sea, amidst a sea of tourists,
reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau, munching Paprika and sipping Sangria. A
fine way to spend the morning. An hour and a half later, the sangria was
kicking in, and I headed off to the Sagrada Familia, the famous then-unfinished
Church by the well acclaimed Antoni Gaudi (by well acclaimed I mean a name I
first heard when I set foot in Barcelona). And this is where I must stop to
make an important revelation I had.
Beauty is not something you can see with sheer force of will,
and a face screwed up in concentration. You can look at the greatest works of
art in the world, and not be overwhelmed. It’s okay, really. Remember how I was
talking earlier about everyone singing the same tune? Well the same people will
tell you to visit this church and admire its inexplicable beauty. But you know
what? I’m not really into art, and especially medieval and renaissance art
forms. So the fact of the matter is my reaction to most churches across the
world would be similar – beautiful, peaceful, places of worship. Same is the
case with museums. And reading a couple of wiki pages does not make anyone an
art connoisseur.
So I stood in front of the church for a few minutes, and
kept walking. There was a small park, and a pond next to it. I took a siesta
there, while other tourists bustled to get inside the church and take pictures.
A daughter was plucking flowers from a bush and bringing one by one to her
doting mother. A delightful bunch of old-timers were playing a game on the
street together, their joy as obvious as the white of their hair. The message could not be
clearer.
Follow your heart, because no one else knows the way. Not even TripAdvisor.
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| Busy doing what they love. |
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