Spain - Barcelona

I chastised myself in my travel journal on the plane flight here to Naples for not writing in it for about 6 days. The six days I spent in Barcelona in fact. You'd think I'd have something to say about it wouldn't you?

You'd be right!

Barcelona isn't so much Spanish as it is Catalonian. Catalonia (Catalunya) was an old country that was absorbed into Spain a while ago but the citizens are NOT HAPPY about it. There are flags all over the place, everything is in Catalan before Spanish, and it's all up there in government to try and reclaim their independence. This essentially means that whatever Spanish I picked up on my trip was rendered useless. Not really. Kinda really.

(You tell it graffiti-ist! I trust everything you say.)

You know I'm in two minds about Barcelona. I feel like towards the start I didn't really enjoy it as much as the other Spanish cities but then when I spent some time alone walking around, chowing down on some bread, cheese and chorizo, I really started to get into it. The first few days I spent there were Easter Friday and so on which meant there were crowds everywherreee. Religion is a massive pain in Spain. Pain in Spain.

DID YOU KNOW - that before the Barcelona Olympics (1992) there were no beaches in Barcelona? They had the sand brought in from Egypt; The Palm trees are from Hawaii. I was walking around the Olympic site to see if it matched up to the more recent Olympic sites (not that I've been to them) and concluded that the stadium itself was very underwhelming but the actual Olympic village was really pretty. I had a nap on a patch of grass in the sunshine.

Of course about halfway through my time in Barcelona I got a scratchy throat - to which I responded by getting pretty drunk - to which my body responded by just plain giving up the good fight. I'm still sick now as I write this. I am coughing like a madman which isn't really conducive to an 8 bed dorm room now is it? Also it kind of made me lose my appetite a bit so when I climbed a mountain the other day (Mont Serrat - beautiful, beautiful place) I got those pre-fainting heart palpitations but I made it in the end! I'm sure Mum is beside herself reading this but honestly it was only in the last 300 metres or so and we had pastries at the end to celebrate (and get my blood sugar levels back to normal). No sweat!

(See?)

A few days before the end a German guy moved into my room. We had a really awkward initial conversation because, and get this, he thought my accent was German and then was confused why we were talking English to each other. I was half asleep at the time which didn't help. We became quick friends. My accent has gotten a lot weaker it seems but I'm told I'm super understandable because of it by a butt load of foreigners - I wish there was a trophy for understandability. Not that I'd want to carry it around in my pack or anything... or maybe it could be a ribbon.

I've arrived in Naples earlier today and am about to do the slow move upwards through Italy! Hopefully I get well soon.

(I saw this in Barcelona, too.)