I went into the Boqueria market yesterday and found out the place is full of fruit stalls all offering fruit salads and fresh fruit juice for very reasonable places – so I could’ve gone on a detox diet (probably wouldn’t hurt after Morocco) and spent less than 10€ on food everyday – and with all the vitaminy goodness I might not be sick now…. Oh well, too late now…

I’m sick. I don’t even know how it happened, didn’t even pick up on the signs – feeling exhausted (but that’s common when you walk everywhere all day), painfully sore throat (I thought it might’ve been oral thrush), getting chills but then also feeling unbearably hot (but then Barcelona’s been bright and sunny but also had lots of chilly winds), sniffly runny nose (I thought that was just from being a little underdressed for the chilly winds) – until this morning, when I woke up completely congested and all I felt like doing was sleeping despite getting to bed early last night. But out I went, to explore the Joan Miro museum, do a little shopping, check out a little church even, and now I’m buggered.

Having changed my travelling to overnight buses I’ve got 5 days in Barcelona, and I kind of feel like tomorrow I really should go out to Figueras to check out the Dali museum. But I can see myself just collapsing if I have to do the 3 hour return trip and then the overnight train to San Sebastian. I wish I was at home in bed… minor detail – I don’t have a home…

I really am feeling pitiful…

‘Still life’ in Spanish is naturaleza muerta – ‘dead nature’ – not exactly inaccurate (and neither is ’still life’) but just a little… I don’t know, morbid?

Oh, and the tiles on the pavement on Passeig de Gracia – Gaudi.

I had the cheapest meal ever today! For 7.90€, a starter (I had seafood pasta, and I expected a tiny serve but it wasn’t at all tiny), fish (I can’t really comment because I never order fish when I eat out, but seemed ok), a desert (a scoop of lemon sorbet), and a drink (water for me, but I could’ve had wine) and a coffee (if I so chose). That’s a bargain in a city where the cheapest tapas are 3-4€ a serve (and then go on to 5€, 7€, even 9€ – ridiculous given in Seville cheap was 1-2€, expensive 4-5€)! And because you always have lunch late anyway here (and I had another ice cream a couple of hours ago), I won’t have to have dinner (saving more €€€)!

I forgot to mention that yesterday the place I had paella was quite notable for the loo – it was mirrored all the way around so you can catch yourself with your pants down from every angle. Ancora on Passeig Joan de Borbo, if you’re ever in Barcelona.

I don’t like the hostel I’m in – it’s one of those purpose built institutions with push button showers, and they charge for sheets and blankets – come on! for 20€ you can’t even include basic bedding?! And it’s too big to easily meet people… although I think my apparently aloof (but actually shy) is quickly becoming real aloof – you just have the same traveller conversation over and over again: where are you from, how long are you here, where have you been, where next – and really, if it ever was interesting, it’s not anymore.

And anyway, whenever I leave the hostel, it doesn’t matter! Barcelona is so beautiful that once I’m outside and walking around, I’m in this state of bliss! If I had someone to talk to, I’d be gushing inanely about everything I look at, the buildings (more on this later), the plentiful greenery, the lamp-posts (in Passeig de Gracia, where the hostel is), the pavement (again on Passeig de Gracia – does anyone know what the story is behind the patterned pavement, if there is one?). And the Gaudi buildings – well that’s why I’m here, I mean I know Barcelona’s a great city but it wouldn’t have been a can’t-leave-Europe -without-visiting-it city if it weren’t for someone showing me their Barcelona photos, including some of Gaudi buildings, and I don’t know anyone who can see a photo of say the Casa Batlló and not go ‘wow’ (or ‘what the fuck is that?’). Anyway, I’ve managed to resist this sight-seeing overdrive (and it’s not just Gaudi, there’s a Picasso Museum, a Joan Miro one, a Joan Miro park as well as Gaudi’s Guell Park, and too many other things!) and just walk around Barcelona a bit.

Yesterday morning I did a bit of the Modernista walk from the brief tourist office brochure (couldn’t afford the proper one) – looking at (and looking for) some of the buildings in my area, happened across an amazing temporary exhibition of sculptures outdoors – all these fantastic sculptures (by a Polish artist) standing on the island in the middle of a boulevard (apparently the exhibition has been to Seville as well). This on my way into the square in front of the cathedral to check out the Catalan national dance which is apparently danced there every Sunday at midday – completely disappointing, and only made me think how much I wish I’d used the video function on my camera to take video of people dancing during the feria in Seville (like the couple that danced with attitude, challenging each other a little, with moves I hadn’t seen others dance, or the group of older people dancing in the street the opening night of the feria). Then had a look at the Palau de la Musica Catalana but decided I wouldn’t go in, headed down through the charming little streets of the old town (even more charming because apparently Sunday is laundry day – the number of photos I’ve taken of washing on lines in various places…) to Port Veil (it seemed like a Sunday thing to do), had paella for lunch (passable, but nowhere near as good as the one I had in Bayonne that had really good fish, and almost every kind of shellfish possible – mussels, prawns, langoustine, and even sea snails, all for 14 euros, but at least not the disappointment that the ’seafood rice’ I had in Portugal was – for 13 euros we only got seafood filler (!!!), clams, and shrimps – not even prawns – which I couldn’t understand given that Portugal is supposed to be cheaper than Spain which is supposed to be cheaper than France, but oh well, there you go), gelati (which I had to throw away, I don’t know what possessed me to get ‘roquefort’ flavor when I’ve only recently been able to eat blue cheese) then headed to Park Ciutadella (not that fantastic, and it was a bit windy so all the sand on the paths was blowing around) before going to the Picasso Museum. I think I generally did a good job of my Sunday.

Today, Gaudi.

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The Wikipedia feature photo of the day is one of Toledo! How freaky!

About travelling alone – it’s a little bit scary but so far it hasn’t been too bad. I’m meeting people; although I have to say that I’m still not so good at initiating contact and half the time it’s thanks to them that I’m meeting them. Like the Chilean businessman who offered me his salami (haha I didn’t intentionally mean to sound dirty there!) in a Museo del Jamon bar, then followed me on my very brief walk around Madrid; he was good company despite his freaky Seinfeld-esque horror of a laugh (nothing about him to warn you that a high-pitched giggle would come out when he laughed).

But then there are times when the people that you wish would talk to you don’t, eg the cute guy who looked up from behind his SLR camera (who says size doesn’t matter – guys, if you didn’t know this, it can be a chick magnet if you know how to use it… eh-hem) to stare, and the ones who you wish wouldn’t do, eg the sleazebag who followed me around with his mobile phone camera pointed at me (and I couldn’t for the life of me remember what Kike said was the Spanish equivalent of ‘fuck off’).

And then the people that are good for a short time, like the sadly dull Austrian guy who was fine for my visit to the Reina Sofia (a beautiful converted hospital and a must if you want to learn a bit about Spanish art – Dali, Miro (that guy tried his hand at just about every style in the book!) Gris ( think I’ve found a cubist I like!), Gargallo (amazing sculptor!)) but when he came to Toledo was a bit of drag because he was keen to visit museums and cathedrals, while I was more for just walking around and seeing the town, and finding an authentic non-tourist-trap tapas bar (and find one we did! The odd tourist walked in but the place was mostly filled with locals, and I even tried oreja a la plancha which was actually deep-fried when it came out). I feel really bad because I denied him the Museo de Santa Cruz, which I didn’t feel like doing yesterday having done the massive Reina Sofia the day before, but was ready to tackle today (mostly because I was curious about this El Greco character that’s one of Toledo’s local heroes, and wanted to know what his paintings were like), and well it was good (not because of the El Greco paintings – they were generally of the religious kind). I thought being free (yes free!) it would be crap, but it was really good (better for the fact it was free! - not sure if this was a rotational thing with the tourist sites in Toledo – although the other two I went to, the Monasterio de los Reyes, and Sinagoga St Maria La Blanca (the oxymoron of a name comes from the fact that it was a synagogue that was subsequently turned into a Cathedral) were both only 2€ but for a reason – or maybe because part of the museum had work being done on it?). The best thing probably the old building with courtyard (/cloister maybe?) it was housed in, but the way they set the displays up was also impressive. Oh well – who was to know that the Spanish would be so good at setting up museums?