Home » Spain » We Disembark, are Accosted by Gypsies, and are Unable to Purchase a Car Due to Concerns Over Possible Terrorist Connections

Barcelona, Spain
May 16, 2001
Scoreboard: 11,100 miles; 5 Countries, 20 states

We Disembark, are Accosted by Gypsies, and are Unable to Purchase a Car Due to Concerns Over Possible Terrorist Connections

Claytononboard
2005-11-18 12:55:30

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Spanish due process allows for imprisonment of several years if a car registered in your name is used in their activities. It didn't help that when the nice guy at the bus station looked up I was wearing a t-shirt depicting an exploding blimp.

Of course we're not actually residents of anywhere, but a gentleman at the British Embassy thought we might get around that trifle. "It's a bit of a sticky situation..." he conceded.

Of course the office where I need to get the papers is doing something entirely different today, "Come back tomorrow. We open at 9, come here at 8."

Ok, no problem. I'd found parking (a miracle in itself), I can do anything. I can come back tomorrow.

In a situation that demands changing answers our strategy is....flexible or foggy depending on your perspective. We hope to leave Barcelona by next Monday (this Friday would be nice), and head into France, to Montségur, Lourdes, Brittany, and then Paris for the French Open. From there to Great Britain, France, Germany, Denmark....

Don't be shocked if next week's offering is headlined Freiburg, or Stockholm.

Barcelona?

Couldn't ask for a better spot to be stuck. Many of the locals are very friendly, during the disaster day a guy at the bus station must have spent three and a-half hours on the phone (at work) trying to find a VW van for us. The director of the train station made three trips (at half taxi price) back and forth to the campground with our luggage.

The city is full of beautiful structures; a vaguely (perversely misshapen?) phallic sculpture by Miro, the many buildings of Gaudi, the government expenditures at the houses of functionaries that do things other than process residency papers today....the southern train station is more elegant than anything in most American cities.

There's a rhythm and manner of dealing with the locals.

"Hola!" is the classless, ageless greeting. Everybody does it. It's incredible how much individuality can be crammed into two syllables. There is the quick feminine "Ho-la", and then the braying "oh-LaaAAAAAA" of the guy at the gate, and a hundred thousand variations in between.

I've learned never to follow with "Habla Ingles?" It's a 50/50 proposition, but a lot of guys respond vociferously with a declaration that they're in Spain.

Even if you only know five Spanish words, arrange them in a manner calculated to get something akin to your point across. When it doesn't work furrow your brow, shrug your shoulders, and in abject frustration ask if they speak English. Turns out that a lot of people who would have initially said "no" really do.

If you're in a hurry it's ok to do a shortcut: "Hola!" then the furrowing and disgust with your lack of ability to communicate, then the question. Never, never do as some British and Americans do - show up speaking English like an occupying force that assumes that everyone knows it. People that do will claim they don't.

I saw a British lady with a horrible attitude wait for twenty minutes as the gate man looked for anything to do besides tell her what he'd just discovered on the phone. When he finally told her it was an improbable "They say they called here five times to leave messages, but we never answer!"

I'm not entirely sure what to offer you next week. Probably some beautiful shots and stories of my children in Barcelona, the aesthetic palaces of Gaudi, hopefully a few words on our caravan and a dateline in France....

Tune in next week when we bust out of Barcelona and head someplace else! (be it by train, bus, gypsy cart, etc.)