Barcelona, Spain

Our trip out of Paris to Barcelona was through Port Bou at the border of France and Spain. We stopped at the train station for slightly over an hour and had arguably the worst tasting pizza imaginable. So much so that even Vilas (The Spaghetti Addict) commented on the poorness of his Spaghetti. We continued on to Barcelona where we stayed at Barcelona Mar Hostel. Nice place, but shady neighbourhood. but then again, the entire city of Barcelona was shady in my eyes. It's a weird city, with modernism and traditionalism mixed in together. We stayed about a 30 minute walk from the beach so as soon as we checked in, we got out in search of sand and saltwater. Walked through some of the historic buildings in the city. (no we did not go see any of the gaudi masterpieces since we were only in the city for the day)

The beach was colder than we anticipated. It was not the warm mediterranean waters we were promised but we jumped in anyway. How often are we gonna get a chance to jump into a beach in Spain? What threw me off guard was the number of times we were offered beer for 1 euro by people who looked Indian at the beach. I later found out that they didn't just look Indian, they really were Indian. (More on that later) After the beach, we decided to grab dinner at a local restaurant and the only one we found was definitely very shady.. we went in and ordered a plate of nachos and something else. (TERRIBLE FOOD.. UGHH) To make things worse, as we were eating, we noticed cockroaches crawling on the wall behind us.. but we had already eaten the nachos so if roach eggs were to hatch in our bodies, there was nothing we could do about it now.

We got out of the roach-infested hole in the wall as fast as we could and noticed a liquor store across the street and rushed in. After walking in, we find out that it's not a liquor store but a grocery story whose entire front wall was stocked with CHEAP CHEAP liquor. We ended up getting a 500mL bottle of Lychee Liqueur, 500mL of coconut Rum, 1L of Sangria, all for 6-7 euros. UNBELIEVABLE.. we took it back to the hotel and decided to head out that night to some bars. This was the first time in the trip when I really had too much to drink. I don't remember a whole lot from the night but I do remember walking to the club and walking back. EN route to the club, more desi dudes tried selling us beer on the street. When we got out of the club, we were quite tipsy and decided to ask one of the beer-sellers directions to our hostel. This was the conversation.

Raj: We're looking to get to carrer sant pau. (that's saint pau square)

Beer Seller: haan haan.. you speak hindi?

Raj: No, but she does. *pulls ashita to the beer seller*

Ashita: *Asks the guy in Hindi*

Beer Seller: *gives directions entirely in hindi and says* "When you get to that corner, you'll see another Indian guy selling beer. Ask him and he'll tell you the rest of the way"

Raj: *stares in amazement*

sure enuff, we followed the directions and reached the other indian guy, but luckily we didn't need his directions since we knew where we were at that point and just walked our way back.

The next day we shopped and learnt the value of bargaining and boy were we good. We used our desi instincts to get deals we never knew we could have. We started the day with a nice authentic spanish Paella meal. (no we didn't have tapas because it was full of meat) The Paella was tasty and was sure enough prepared by an Indian. LOL. (welcome to Barcelona) We then went to a few souvenir shops, and bargained our asses off. I think by the end of the day, we bought 10 shot glasses, 4 t-shirts and a bunch of keychains all for under 50 euros. (that's cheap for the place) The souvenir shops were all owned by Indians again and they certainly enjoyed talking to us in Hindi. After talking with one such souvenir shop owner for some time, we found out that Barcelona has more than 100,000 people of south asian origin (mostly indians and pakistanis). What's even more surprising is that most of them speak as many as 6 languages. The store owner we were talking to spoke English, French, Spanish, Catalonian, Italian, German, Portuguese, Hindi and Gujrati and was able to make sales in all these languages. IMPRESSIVE..

We decided to finish off the day by going back to the beach and just sipping some sangrias and sitting on the deck overlooking the bay. It was relaxing and peaceful to say the least. We slowly walked back to our schedule 7PM meeting point and found some members of our group were missing. We waited for about 45 minutes before realizing that we had to hurry in order to catch our Cruise to Rome. But luckily, en route, we met the other members and were able to give them their cruise tickets and they promptly took a cab to meet us on the cruise with more than enough time to spare.

Stay tuned for the Cruise.. :)

Paris, France, Part 2

I know it's been almost a month since I last posted but in my defense, it was a very busy month. So I talked about the first night in Paris and the beauty of the city. It was arguably my most favorite city in the trip as everything about it was just right. The perfect weather, the wonderful people, the delightful ambience all added to the charm of the city. The second day in Paris, we decided to check out the louvre and sight "la jaconde" (the mona lisa) with our own two eyes. I must say that I wasn't quite as impressed with the louvre as I was with the british museum but i think it's safe to say that it was still far beyond anything that I had imagined. Walking through the halls of the palace felt rather odd. it seemed in some ways as though we were transported through time to the 1500's solely by the art in the room. A story behind every painting.. a room full of nothing but portraits of Christ.. followed by one filled with pagan sculptures.. To think that these two worlds couldn't co-exist and tore one another down is a pity. To think that the last remnants of the pagan society can be found in a handful of museums like this is, to say the least, depressing. The audio tour at the louvre was definitely worth it although I must say that the mona lisa was a lot smaller than I had expected her to be.

After walking through the "largest" galleries in the world for 5 hours or so, we decided to head to the infamous Tour Eiffel with a brief stopover at the Notre Dame Basilica and the Tuileries. Parisien art and architecture quite simply blew my mind. There was art in every nook and cranny of the city. There was historical architecture on every road.. When we took the subway to the Eiffel Tower, it was already fairly late. Around 10 PM if i'm not mistaken because the lights were blinking as we got to the base of the tower. I have to say that a person has to see it to believe it. This was the second place that I got conned. I was walking with Ashita, Vilas, Meera and Maryam towards the tower. Ashita and I were slightly ahead of the other three. Sure enough, a guy walks up to us and tries to sell a rose, we casually nod our heads and say "non merci". but here comes the stupidest thing i did on the trip. 2 seconds later, I look to ashita and say "unless you want one." and i have no idea how this guy heard what I said he turns around instantly and starts walking towards us and harassing us to buy the rose. We say "non merci" a dozen more times. He leaves the rose in Ashita's side pocket and leaves. I walk about telling myself. "hey, free rose.. " LOL.. Guy turns around, and comes back and says "please sir" in english and puts out his hand. At this point, i'm a little embarassed so I pull out 1 euro from my wallet and give it to him, he laughs at me and signals for more money with his hand. Now this is when I showed my true brown instincts. I pull out a 2 euro coin from my wallet, take the 1 euro coin that I had put in his hand earlier and give him the 2 euro coin and say "you're welcome" and walk off.. I think his facial expression as I pulled away the 1 euro coin was priceless and worth the extra euro I paid. LOL. Anywho, we went up to the top of the tower, and the view was breathtaking. If paris by day was beautiful, paris by night was magnificent. Lit up from one end to the other, the view was breathtaking.

We came down and went to a nice little french bistro/cafe for dinner. It was family owned and had a flaming crepe on the menu. It was basically a sweet crepe sprinkled with sugar on top. When served, the waiter pours about 4 shots of grand marnier on the crepe and lights it on fire. It was bliss. Amazingly tasty, and definitely made us a little "happier" when we got out of the cafe at around 1 AM. At this point, it was just myself and Ashita as the other three had broken off to go somewhere else. We walk to the metro to find out that we were just in time for the last train of the day to get back to our hotel but as we waited on the platform, we were told to get out because the last train had been cancelled. We stepped out and decided to take a cab and found the nicest guy who quickly picked up that my french was not that of a local. We chitchatted for about 20 minutes on the way to the hotel as he complained about how the implementation of the Euro has made life miserable for the working man in France. How everything had suddenly become three times as expensive overnight. How he used to be able to buy each of his children 2 toys for christmas with a few hundred francs and now he is only able to buy one present for all his kids combined. He also gave us some cool tips on what to do for our next visit and suggested we stay longer and check out les miserables, or some of the other cabaret shows that play year round in the city.

We went to bed that night and woke up early the next morning to check out the church at Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart). We then headed to Versailles which was almost a 1.5 hour metro+bus ride but it was definitely worth it. Only 4 of us managed to make it to Versailles that day. The gardens at Versailles were probably 60 times the size of the palatial compound, totaling 800 hectares, with 200,000 trees and 50 fountains. It pretty much housed french royalty at the peak of their power from Louis XIV through Napoleon. We got a glimpse of the hall of mirrors in which the treaty of versailles was signed which pretty much imposed reparations on germany for most of the 20th century, and ultimately one of the primary causes of the Nazi Regime under Hitler. Versailles was truly a palace in every sense. The immense size, the golden entrance, the large protective barriers at the entrance. It was strategic and grand, everything a king/queen would hope for and it was very clearly evident that it was built with that in mind. After Versailles, we came back to our hostel and just relaxed until it was time for our night train to Barcelona. Stay tuned and I'll try to keep it updated more often.