Barce! Barce! Baaaaaarce! The voices of 110,000 Spaniards chant this in unison at every FC Barcelona home game. The air in Camp Nou vibrates with an energy akin to that in an NFL stadium on Superbowl Sunday. Every call the referee makes is a matter of life and death, and at times you feel like a spectator in the Colosseum, deciding the fate of the warriors below with the opinion of the crowd and the strength of your lungs. When Barcelona wins, which of course they do, the fans beam like proud parents. You half expect them to point out a player and say, "see number 10? Messi? That's my boy." We wear the Barce scarves we purchased only hours before as if we've always had them, as if we belong to this clan of victorious soccer hooligans. Riding the subway back to the hostel, still basking in the glow of European futbol glory, we're quiet and content like children in the back seat on the way home from the circus. We anticipate describing the event to our friends and family, but realize that nothing we can say can capture the magic of that stadium on that particular February evening.
While less momentous than the soccer game, the rest of our Barcelona weekend was one of my best yet in Spain. Our hostel was a bohemian hideaway a ways from the city center, complete with Tibetan prayer flags, hammocks, and a guitar for guests to strum. The ten of us slept on bunk beds in a 12-person room with a communal bathroom down the hall. We began our Barce exploration by hitting some of the major tourist stops, eg their Arc de Triunfo and the castle Montjuic, and rounded out our day by stopping for chocolate con churros- molasses-thick hot chocolate with fried funnel cake-esque dough for dipping. When the churros are gone, the Spaniards actually drink the cocao concoction. We opted for spoons and scooping instead.
Our first night in Barcelona was both serendipitous and hilarious, involving everything from accidental entrances to gay clubs to 5 a.m. to exuberant street performers. At one fateful moment, a friend from back in the states even happened to emerge from the taxi we were trying to hire. The next morning, the troops rallied splendidly and we set out for more wanderings. Starting with the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's yet unfinished cathedral, we made a day of all things Gaudi. From the Sagrada we walked to Park Guell, the hillside menagerie for many of Gaudi's fanciful creations. A "gingerbread house" sits across from a giant rainbow mosaic lizard, spewing water from the intricate fountain upon which it perches. Spires of strange shapes and colors punctuate the horizon and you feel as if you've wandered out of the city and into a fairytale. Our time in Park Guell was limited by the soccer game that evening, but we had time to get lost (both literally and figuratively) in the tangle of nature and Gaudi.
We spent our last day in Barcelona visiting museums. The Picasso held works from his childhood and early schooling. My favorite was his first entry to a major show, a photo-quality and nearly life-size image of a child's First Communion. While overall slightly underwhelming, I'm still glad we went to the museum. The collection served as a reminder that Picasso meant to make every brush stroke on his strange works from later periods. If he wanted them to look realistic, he would have done so. Sometimes I think, "well I could have painted that silly thing," but now I realize that old Pablo really did paint with purpose. Another academic highlight from our last day was the History Museum, a tiny building hidden on a narrow side street. The modern architecture actually sits upon ancient Roman ruins that you can descend a staircase to explore. Lit like the Bat Cave, cold and eerie, you could walk through them on a winding platform. If you looked closely, you could catch writings etched in the walls, sometimes in latin, sometimes in Hebrew. I had a little tinge of cultural pride when I recognized this and was able to point it out to a fellow traveler. Our time again hampered, we were soon forced to leave the city center for the train station to head back to Alicante.
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