The Processing Process

Hola again from Barcelona…or Bathalona as the Spanish would say! Soo…I’m sitting here with my lap top and free wi-fi (woo hoo) in the lobby of my hotel, enjoying the cool breeze coming in through the open doors that lead out to the balcony and a nice view over this end of the Gothic Quarter. 

My room has one small window that faces into the rest of the building, so unless I have the fan on, it’s like a sauna in there! So I realised that all my blogging since Uganda has been all about going here and there and doing this and that, but I haven’t really put many of my thoughts into words. Maybe that’s a good thing for all of you out there? But anyway, I’m going to give a quick rundown of the last couple of days and then we’re going to journey into my mind…it’s a scary place and almost as big as Barcelona ;)  

 Yesterday I had a nice relaxing day at the beach, swimming and sunbaking with a million other tourists…and probably a few locals thrown in for good measure. Headed over to the ‘Olympic’ part of the city to see some of the sights like the stadium and the national art museum. I’m too much of a tight-ass to pay to get into anything here, so I perused a small free exhibition and on I went. More walking! Got a great view all over Barcelona from the top and had a nice chat with Chris on the mobile, thanks to my new Spanish sim card with pretty decent international call rates. Wandered through the park area with the plan to visit the castle, but stopped off to get some food and realised it was ages away and my legs were literally numb! Plonked myself down by the harbour with a peach frozen yogurt cone (my new obsession) and took in the view and people-watched for a bit while my legs recovered somewhat. 

Managed to walk back home again and get myself ready to meet one of my Dutch friends, Dieuwke, who just happened to take a 3-day mini break to Barcelona by herself this week. Good timing! We met on the famous La Rambla (basically a long street covered in tourist shops, over-priced restaurants, delicious gelati outlets and more buskers than you can poke a stick at) and wandered into the market I had stumbled across the previous day where I found massive fruit salads being sold at the end of the day for one euro! Yeah baby. We were hoping to try out one of the tapas bars there, but it seems they are only open for lunch. Thankfully I had googled some good eating places beforehand, so we walked to a nearby place that does pintxos – basically slices of baguette topped with various amazing things. 

There’s everything from prosciutto to smoked salmon to deep fried cheese croquette to tuna with mayo, red capsicum and fried leek to goats cheese with pesto and pine nuts etc etc. There was even a dessert one with lemon cream cheese, nuts, thick berry sauce and crunch little caramel wafers in it – I didn’t have one but my friend said it was amazing! You just kind of stand at the bar where all the plates of pintxos are set out and you take what you want and at the end you count up your toothpicks (there’s one in each pintxo/s) and pay accordingly. They were all 1.80 euros each at this place, which seems pretty standard in Barcelona. I had the goat cheese one, a hot (as in warm) mushroom croquette one and the one with tuna/mayo and fried leek etc. They were all delicious! We ordered a cider each with our food, expecting the usual Bulmers or whatever, but instead we got about 2 inches of some pale yellow liquid each in the bottom of a glass that tasted somewhere between a white wine and cider. Weird. After our “entree” we walked to the nearby ‘Les Quinze Nits’ (check it out http://www.lesquinzenits.com/) which is a fancy looking French restaurant on the edge of a plaza that is actually very cheap! I think the most expensive main is around 11 euros. It was my second visit and I opted for the salmon fillet with sautéed greens. Mmmm so good. We shared some sangria and at the end of the meal when we saw the dessert menu, we buckled and ordered one each! I had a cataluyan dessert which was nougat ice-cream covered in custard that had been scorched on top to become crackly like a crème brulee, surrounded in dark chocolate sauce. So healthy! Lucky I had done a lot of walking that day ;)

 Wandered around a bit with Dieuwke looking for a place that sold camera batteries for her and phone credit for me, but to no avail. Parted around 11pm with plans to meet up the next day (today) to either do a walking tour of the old town or have some more beach time before Dieuwke flew back to the (cold) Netherlands. 

So this morning I got a text saying we would meet at the metro stop near the beach and just chill there before she took her bus to the airport. We were supposed to meet at 9:30am, so I walked over and opted not to take my phone in case we both wanted to swim at the same time – never leave anything of value on the beach in Barcelona! Not the greatest idea. I got there on time and waited but she never came. I stayed til around 10am then figured she’d changed her plans, so I went to the beach and sunbaked and swam by myself for a bit. Returned to the hotel to find 6 missed calls and about 5 messages from Dieuwke saying she was running late and to meet at such and such a time instead, which was all a little bit late. I had no credit, so I couldn’t call to explain my absence, so I got some frozen yogurt (with fresh mango and muesli) and tried to find a place that sold mobile credit. Again, to no avail! Headed to Park Guell on the metro, which is a park that Gaudi designed – payed for by his rich friend Eusebi Guell! 

It’s got some cool stuff in it and from the very top you get a spectacular view all over the city (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Guell). Had a look around and almost died from heat exhaustion! Decided to walk to the Sagrada Familia but took a wrong turn and ended up going the even longer way to get there! I was pooped when I arrived, but it was a good chance to sit down and get a better look at the building…and enjoy my fresh raspberries and lemon Fanta zero! Eventually got some phone credit and apologised to Dieuwke who was probably already back in the NL by that time. Went back to the beach for a stroll and to tip my feet in the Mediterranean one last time. Walked back home, got some dinner to take away and here I am back in the hotel, fed, watered and pooped!

 The latest on my travel plans is that I will probably fly to Amsterdam tomorrow rather than Eindhoven for two reasons – a) the friend I am staying there with had his holidays this week, but they end tomorrow when I would now arrive and b) the only flights there are in the morning, before I would be able to get my passport, meaning another day/night in Barcelona and then fly on Friday morning. So Amsterdam seems the better option at the moment, and logistically it makes more sense to start at the most western point of my visits and head east into Germany to see Wolfgang, rather than zig-zagging back and forwards. I haven’t booked anything yet because I want to be sure that my passport will be in my hand tomorrow morning! Nothing like leaving things to the last minute hey?

So that’s pretty much Barcelona all wrapped up in terms of being a tourist. Now for the voyage into my mind that I promised you all. I know you’re all itching to jump aboard!

Well, at first, being stuck in Barcelona for 3 days alone seemed like a sucky situation. I know it’s not the end of the world or anything, it was just unexpected. But after having some “me” time and having a good chat with Dieuwke last night, I think I needed some down time apart from all the touristy stuff and being around people all the time to start processing things. Maybe God knew I needed a bit of unwinding time before I start gypsying my way through Europe, visiting all my friends. I know that I haven’t processed a lot of what I experienced in Africa but I think all that will come with time, it’s not something you can force. 

At the end of my time in Uganda, I knew that coming to Spain would be a bit of a shock to the system, which it was, but what I didn’t expect was how quickly this ‘western’ way of living just became so normal to me again. It took literally about a day to readjust back into the same old way of living and always being so comfortable and not really talking to strangers and all those things we do on a day to day basis. It was almost as if my time in Uganda had never happened. Not to say that I unlearnt everything or that it was all a waste of time (because that’s not true in the slightest!), but it was just scary how quickly I just fell back into what I was used to. I mean, it’s not like I went out on a shopping spree or spend hundreds of dollars on expensive hotels or anything, but those little thoughts re-entered my mind, like “oh, that girl there looks so stylish, you’re such a dag compared to her”, or “hey, those earrings are nice, I don’t have a pair in that colour, I must buy them” etc etc. Everything in our culture tells us what we should look like, what size we should be, what clothes we should wear and what soft drink we should consume. I guess being in Mbale was a welcome respite from the constant bombardment of advertising we normally get that we have become so used to that we don’t even realise how pervasive it is. Everyone walks around here, enjoying the sunshine and the good food and the gelati and all the sites and sounds and the beauty  - seemingly oblivious to the fact that the vast majority of the rest of humanity do not get to live like this. And the scary thing is, I have done the same. It troubles me how little I’ve thought about Uganda since I left. I had amazing experiences there and made some really good friends, but I feel like part of me has detached itself from the continent…maybe it’s too hard to leave too much of myself there because it’s difficult to be part of it all from a distance and I don’t know when I will be able to return.

I’m not really sure where I am at the moment. Yes, I know I’m in Barcelona, but I’m talking figuratively here! I don’t know where I’m heading and I don’t feel pulled towards anything specific at the moment. I want to enjoy my travels and these new experiences – which I am – but there’s always that bittersweetness to it. That not knowing what happens afterwards and whether you’re in the right place at the right time or if what you’re doing is meaningless in terms of the bigger picture of the universe. I think the key to being content in life is feeling like you’re doing exactly what you should be doing at that given point in time. Even if that’s just being at home with a casual hospitality job or being a mum or a cleaner or unemployed – when you have that sense of peace about it, it gives you a satisfaction that you don’t necessarily get from doing more adventurous things like travelling the world or having a high flying career. I guess I haven’t really found my “thing” yet for this stage in my life. I love travelling, I really do, but at the end of the day, if all you’re doing is taking things in without really giving out, it seems a bit hollow and selfish. Maybe I need to be more proactive in finding ways to give out while I’m moving from place to place. Any ideas anyone??

So I think I’ll leave it there. It was a bit of a short journey, but sometimes if you just keep going, you’ll never stop! So I will save you all from a lengthy spurt of incomprehensible psycho-babble ;)

Hopefully by the next time I write, I will be in another country, in the home of someone I know! Ahhh, a house. A home. What a nice thought. Until then, signing off from Spain for (hopefully!) the last time…adios!

Lou :)