Episode 3: Barcelona, we need to talk

So it’s well documented from Episode 1 what happened last time I was in Barcelona, I ended lugging half my bodyweight in luggage halfway across the city in clothing which wasn’t exactly weather appropriate, how I was still standing I’ll never know. Well Monday was the second time in the last week I went as I was planning on finalising my registration as a referee in Catalunya. The day started off pretty well, the bus was surprisingly cheap, 1,45€ to travel the equivalent distance of Huddersfield to Thongsbridge, which last I checked was £2.50 (2,88€), then came the drop-off, and to put it simply, if a bus claims to take you to a train station, you’d expect to be able to see the station when you get off, not have to walk another mile (by which I literally mean 1.0 miles) and for 90% of said mile be thinking “there is no conceivable way that the train station is this way.” The other 10% being “fuck me, that actually is the train station!” It is so inconveniently placed it’s unreal. Then I found out I had half an hour to wait so went and had something to eat, this was the beginning of my new lifelong vendetta against flies, every 5 seconds they’d be landing somewhere on one of my arms and I’d be swatting it away, until I caught the wire connecting my phone to my headphones, sending the phone flying and out came the battery, aw damn, I’ll just pop that back in and turn it back on, ah see, it’s fine, “please enter your PIN”……DAMMIT!  After trying and failing with the first and last 4 numbers on the SIM I decided it wouldn’t  be worth risking some ill thought-out combination, so that’s me without a phone for the rest of the day. Then I did my bit to attract some good karma, translating for a New Zealand traveller trying to get to Valencia, during the course of the conversation I was told I’d have to pay 25€ for my ticket to Barcelona, now I know it’s a fair way away and all but 25€? Come on! Not that I actually said that, I waited for the ticket office to open and some woman and a group of people got there first, I was still in the queue when the train arrived and was told “forget it, just get on.” So a 2-hour train ride later and I arrive at Sants-Estació, expecting to be stopped at the barriers, except there weren’t any, I just got a free trip to BCN, using up all that good karma in the process. I was a bit early for my meeting with the CTA (Comitè Tècnic d’Àrbitres) and it was ridiculously close to la Rambla, so I figured it’d be rude not to, got on the Metro at 1,45€ for a single trip, me gusta, and went shopping (in my defence, I have needed some new running shoes given that my old ones are in England, and the sunglasses and sports watch were very reasonably priced), then for a KFC, and my God, just because I pronounce tower correctly doesn’t mean I want you to speak to me in extremely basic English that I can’t even understand! I’m talking to you in castellano; talk back to me in castellano! I then heard a Spanish person come along and pronounce it tow-where so I now know what to do next time. So I ate and set off to the meeting, only there wasn’t one, basically they’d said “come to this address on a weekday after 7” not knowing that I don’t actually live anywhere near Barcelona, because it was then a case of “you should have gone to Tortosa.” Now allow me to put this into perspective:

You are seeing this right.

 

I just travelled 2 hours, ‘spent’ 25€ on a ticket to travel said 2 hours, and will now have to travel another 2 hours, probably actually pay this time, and hope to God the buses are still running (they stop at about 10), only to get in touch with someone completely different, in a completely different place, just to do this all again some other time! Arrrrgh! At least it was only 11,25€ for some reason, only trains to L’Aldea-Amposta aren’t really that frequent, meaning I rolled into the station at 10. Past 11.  On the plus side, Lady Luck finally decided she’d done torturing me for the day and threw me a lifeline; coming out of the station I had two choices: walk it, I can easily walk Huddersfield to Thongsbridge, the only difference being I know where I’m going, or borrow someone’s phone and ring one of the kindly signposted taxi numbers. Then along came a third choice: ask to borrow the phone of a girl who’s battery has died, but whose boyfriend is coming to pick her up and happens to live on the exact same street as me! Booyah!

So the way I see it, Barcelona, I’ve been inside you twice in the last week and both times have just been a huge mess, I think we need some time apart.