Once again I awake to pouring rain, but yesterday the precipitation tapered off by mid-afternoon, so I don’t stress about it and just go downstairs to see what our free breakfast buffet looks like. My understanding was that the continental breakfast you get at an American hotel (coffee, juice, pre-packaged pastry) was so named because of breakfasts provided at hotels on the European continent, so I don’t have my hopes up, but whoooooooooowheeeee are my expectations ever exceeded. The Hilton spreads a top-of-the-line meal with delicious fresh-squeezed juice, all kinds of meat and smoked fish, fresh fruits, several kinds of yogurt, varied croissants and other pastries, and even American cereals. And it is all free, all-you-can-eat.
Very little makes me happier than a huge, delicious breakfast, so I am already in a good mood when I take a seat across from a Norwegian guy who looked to be in his late 20’s or early 30’s. We exchange pleasantries, which includes sharing Stars screen names, and when I tell him mine, he starts to laugh. “You were at my table, in the satellite I won,” he says. “I kept stealing your blinds.”
Son of a bitch! This is the guy I described in my first e-mail, who had me and another big stack to his left and kept raising the button with impunity. I smile. “If you ever had raised me, I would immediately. Anything,” he tells me.
“Well yeah, I know that now, but did you see how the other table was playing?”
“Terrible,” he agrees. “I knew I could outlast them.”
“Right, but for all I knew, you were just some idiot, too. I figured I could fold my way in, so I didn’t need to re-steal from you. I folded Queens once.” He laughs. Yeah, laugh it up, buddy.
His name is Yurian, and he actually turns out to be a pretty cool guy who works with asylum seekers in Norway. I didn’t ask for too many details, because I want to like this guy, but I’ve studied the treatment of asylum seekers in the US, and suffice it to say that if Norway treats theirs 1/10 as bad, they do some pretty inhumane shit. I have no idea what his job is, but I’d rather just assume Yurian is one of the good guys and not get into details.
By the time I finish breakfast and take a shower, the sun is out. I’m planning my day when I happen to glimpse my information sheet from Poker Stars and see that as part of my registration for the tournament, which I thought I had completed, I was supposed to sign some TV waiver. I’m tempted to ignore it and assume there will be some way to take care of it tomorrow, but they were such hardasses about the passport that I convince myself I should plan to get to the casino by 4PM, when registration closes, just in case. That should work out alright, as my plan for the day is to go to a park called Montjuic which looks to be walking distance from the waterfront area where the casino is located.
I enjoy a clear, sunny walk to the train station, but by the time I disembark, it is once again overcast. I can see a few blocks off the large hill that is my destination. There’s a beautiful palace built up the face of the hill, and thankfully escalators that will spare my bad knees the trauma of climbing several hundred stairs. I’m about halfway there when I feel the first drips of rain. I’m tempted to ignore them, but I soon learn that these few drops augur an abrupt downpour, and sure enough I find myself gathered with a bunch of well-dressed businesspeople beneath the overhang of a convention center.
It pours for a few minutes, then lets up. To my dismay, however, the escalators seem to have been turned off on account of the rain. I make it up two flights of stairs before I need a break. Conveniently enough, there’s a tourist attraction on this landing, a building designed by Mies van der Rohe. Apparently it is completely open, but he uses non-adjoining walls to close off the space, blending the inside and the outside or some such thing. From outside, I can see the contours of a single room, the gift shop, and a fountain beyond that. Looks intriguing.
I head over to buy a ticket and find that the “ticket booth” consists of some kid sitting outside on a chair collecting 3.50 euros (~$5). I pay him and step inside, where I can see three chairs inside of the room, a statue in the fountain, and NOTHING ELSE. There are no more rooms, there are no more fountains, there is no more furniture, there is FUCKING NOTHING. Ninety percent of the building can be seen from outside, so I gave that little bastard $5 to look at three chairs and a fucking statue. It reminds me of paying the American Indians $7 to stand in four states at once, except the Spaniards have no right to rob me because I don’t fucking live on land stolen from them.
I walk outside, grab the kid out of his chair, and drag him through the single room to the fountain out back. He figures out what’s going on and starts screaming, but I shut him up quick by plunging his head face first into the water. He struggles a bit but I hold him under firmly for a good minute or so. I don’t want to kill him, just give him a scare to let him know I don’t appreciate being hustled.
I’m not really looking to give the Mies van der Rohe Institute any more money, but I need to find a gift for my girlfriend somewhere, and she likes architecture, so I stop by the gift shop. Everything proves to be as absurdly overpriced as the admission to the building, and then I see the shirts that the cashiers are wearing. They are all black, with the slogan “Less is More” emblazoned across the front in white letters. Son of a mother [censored] [censored] [censored] [censored] [censored] [censored]!
Now it’s raining again, so I have to stay in the shop for a few minutes until it stops. At last it does, and I go climb more stairs to the top of the hill. From this height, I can get a lot of good pictures of the city spread out at the foot of the hill. Unfortunately, I feel a few drops of rain but have the good sense to take cover under the palace’s awning. This time the rain goes on for quite a while, so I take a few notes for this trip report. My plan is to report the number of times that I think to myself ‘it couldn’t possibly rain any harder than it is right now,’ but I get the message and stop counting at five.
Great gobs of rain continue to splatter onto the steps below me, and at long last the recede into a drizzle. It’s past noon, though, and I still need to see the park and get to the casino by 4, so I figure this is the best I’m going to do. I brave the elements one more time and head off in the direction I believe I need to be going (there aren’t really streets as such on this part of Montjuic, so my map isn’t too useful).
I make it as far as one of Barcelona’s Olympic stadiums before I am once again forced to seek cover. Wait wait wait, the rain slows, no sooner have I started walking across a wide plaza near the futbol stadium than I hear a boom of thunder in the distance. It looks like I’m getting near an overlook from which I’d like to take some photos, but I’m still a good 200 yards away, and I’m at least that far from the nearest shelter. I pick up my pace, but then I feel the first few tentative drips. Shit. I turn and run back to the first stadium just as the rain picks up and make it to dry land before the worst of it starts.
This time I remain vigilant, and the moment the precipitation slows to a tolerably drizzle, I sprint across the slick flagstones and reach the overlook. It’s less scenic than I was hoping, but I’ve come this far, so I snap a few photos. The sky actually seems to be clearing up, but I’m further away from the waterfront than I thought. It’s about 1PM, and I don’t think I can walk there by 3, but I don’t really feel like walking back across Montjuic to civilization either, so I decide I will just walk down the back side of the hill and find a train station or a cab or something.
Initially there are some stairs and trails leading down the hill, but they become less and less well-defined and seem to be leading me towards a large road but not any kind of area where there would be any kind of transportation. Shit. Now I really don’t feel like walking back up and across the hill, but I also have no idea where I am. I’ve still got three hours to spare, though, and the weather is clearing up nicely, so I just start walking towards the waterfront and figure I will come across something eventually.
Soon the path I am on goes from being paved to being little more than packed dirt. It passes a tiny, picturesque cemetery, and then ends abruptly at the top of a small cliff that is covered in cacti and brush. Shit. I backtrack and try going up and over the top of a different part of the hill that stands between me and the waterfront, but this path ends at a boarded up old building. There’s nowhere to go but back, so I finally retrace my steps all the way back to the road and follow that to a little neighborhood.
I obviously know nothing about the topography of Barcelona, and certainly don’t know what is and is not a dangerous neighborhood, but I’m definitely picking up on some warning signs. There are some boarded up buildings and vacant lots, but there are also a lot of people (including some families) out and about, which is a good sign. Also, there is construction equipment in some of the vacant lots, suggesting that they are actively being developed and are not just abandoned.
Still, I intend to be cautious, because as a foreigner who does not speak the local language, I’m an easy target. Thankfully I don’t have my passport with me and left a lot of cash as well as my driver’s license in my room safe, so my liability is limited.
My work with urban debate leagues has taken me to enough unfriendly neighborhoods in the US that I’ve developed a simple but effective set of precautions to take when in a potentially unsafe area:
1. Walk quickly and deliberately. I have no idea where I’m going, so I’ll have to fake it.
2. Stay on large streets where there are people out and cars driving past. I’m trying to find a cab or a train station, so that’s where I want to be anyway.
3. Don’t stare or make contact with anyone. This is triply true when it comes to women. No matter how attractive they may be, it is essential to do nothing that could be interpreted as checking them out. Looking at the wrong person’s sister or girlfriend is provocative in a way that virtually nothing else is.
4. Generally avoid exposing yourself to vulnerable situations. This means no asking for directions or taking out a map, unfortunately.
If Barcelona is anything like major American cities, then the public transportation system will be specifically designed not to serve this part of town. I look at my watch. 2:00. I should be near the waterfront now, though not the part where the casino is. Once I get there, hopefully I can just walk along the shore until I get where I need to be. It’s a decent walk along a highway to get to the waterfront, and as I approach, I realize this area is completely industrialized. There are lots of factories and warehouses and roads, but virtually nowhere to walk. I try to follow a street that’s going generally in the right direction, but soon the sidewalk disappears, and after a few trucks zoom dangerously past me, I realize I am essentially walking along the shoulder of a highway. No good.
I have no idea how to get anywhere from where I am now, and I am sure as hell not going to get a cab or a train here, so I’ve got no choice but to turn around and head back to the residential area. The sun is out now and at its zenith, and I’ve been walking for hours with nothing to drink, so I’m feeling hot, tired, and dehydrated. Good thing I decided to put on short pants today. By the time I walk back into town, it’s past 3:00. Now I’m frustrated, too. I’ve got no idea where I am, I’m supposed to be at the casino in less than an hour, and I have no idea how to get there.
Cultural Fact 5: Cabs in Barcelona are black and green, with little lights on the top that tell you when they are available.
I haven’t seen one of those in hours, but I see a yellow car with a sign on the top (ie what in the US would be a cab), and get excited.
New Vocabulary Acquired: “Autoescuela”- Driving school
There must be one near here, because I see about a dozen of these cars in the next forty-five minutes as I follow street signs to Montjuic, which seems to be my best option at this point. I’ve given up on making it to the casino when look at my watch and realize I’ve been miscalculating the time (I haven’t set it for Barcelona time), and it is actually approaching 3PM, not 4PM. It takes nearly half an hour more, but I finally spot a cab and flag him down.
There’s only one casino in Barcelona, so once I successfully communicate that word to the driver (which sadly takes a minute, even though it is “casino” in Catalan), we’re off to the races. He tries to tell me something that seems to be about the route he is going to take, but I can only smile and nod. At this point, getting ripped off is the least of my worries.
Cultural Fact 6: Traffic in Barcelona is a nightmare. It’s an old city that’s experienced several population booms, so the roads are just not prepared to accommodate the number of vehicles that travel on them.
I know we are not that far from the casino, and the driver doesn’t seem to be giving me the run around, but it takes better than twenty minutes to get there. As I pay the driver, I notice that it’s 3:50. Still time. I run across the promenade and into the casino, only to see a gigantic line at the front desk. I think I actually need to talk the Poker Stars people downstairs, not the casino’s people, and registration is supposed to close in like 3 minutes. I hurry over to the guy working the stairs and try to give him my ticket from yesterday. He points at my bare legs and wags his finger. Shit shit fuck the casino’s dress code! I completely forgot that “smart casual” means no shorts.
He doesn’t seem ready to let me downstairs, so I look around trying to find a Poker Stars employee wandering around up here. Check my watch, two minutes to spare. No one in site. One minute. There, across the room, I see a woman with a Poker Stars badge around her neck walking in the front door. I rush over to her. “Hi, I need to sign my TV waiver or whatever,” I tell her breathlessly.
“Are you playing today?”
“Tomorrow.”
“OK, well we’ve changed how we’re doing that. We’re just going to give you the TV waiver at your table.”
I stare at her in shock. “Th-that’s all?” I stammer. “Nothing more I need to do today?”
“Nope, you’re good,” she tells me casually. I just busted ass to get over here because your damn instructions told me I needed to sign this thing by 4PM today, and now you’ve ‘changed that’ without telling anyone? I’m still in shock, and she walks off before I have the chance to kick her in the stomach.
So what now? It’s turned into a beautiful day, so I don’t really want to just go back to my hotel and take a nap or something, but my feet are killing me. I’m right on the beach, but I don’t have a bathing suit or towel or anything, so that’s no use to me either. Might as well get lunch, if anything is still open. I find an Italian place with outdoor seating and an appealing looking menu del dia. I order extra water and down nearly the full liter in one chug.
The food is kind of mediocre, probably my fault for ordering something safe, but it feels great just to sit down. While I’m eating, I look over my map. The distance from here to the hotel looks very walkable, it’s a straight shot along the beach, and my feet are feeling a little better…. I decide to go for it.
New Vocabulary Acquired: “Platja”- beach
“Cindrer”- ashtray
These are from a sign that I am able to read as saying, “It’s a beach, not a giant ashtray, OK?” How am I able to deduce this? Because the sign includes the image of a superhero named Salvador de la Platja punching an anthropomorphic cigarette butt as tall as he is in the stomach.
The walk is nice at first, with a pleasant breeze and a pleasing view of the Mediterranean.
There aren’t many people out, surprisingly, but I’m on the lookout for topless Spanish hotties. Unfortunately the only naked person I spot is an overweight man who is thankfully sitting in such a way that I am not treated to the most unpleasant view available. Still unwelcome, but I guess that’s a silver lining or something.
When I get in, I take a little siesta, watch some TV, read for a bit, call my girlfriend, go to sleep. Plan is to wake up early tomorrow, hit up a park in the morning, take another siesta, and be well-rested come 5PM.