Episode 9: If it can go wrong, it will, and if it can’t go wrong, it will find a way

So yet another trip to Barcelona is upon me, only there are no meetings this time, no official business, nothing to do with school, reffing or anything, although on about reffing I do have to learn the rules in Spanish by this Friday, though I mostly know it anyway, plus in the rulebook it says “Este libro se publica en inglés, francés, alemán y Español, si existe una diferencia entre los textos publicados, el texto inglés hará fe." So that’s advantageous, what with being inglés and all. And then I’m taking the exam Friday evening at 8, only it’s in Tortosa which as you may remember from Episode 3 was where I was meant to go instead of Barcelona to register in the first place, wish me luck! So when I got back from Tortosa I got everything prepared for going to Barcelona to get drunk and watch England get raped by the Spanish, so that’s England shirt, Town shirt (we played away at Swindon in the FA Cup, the less said about that match, the better), wallet, phone, sorted. Then the next day I got up, giving myself time to go round Amposta to buy the ingredients I’d need to have my own crack at cooking arròs al forn, well, today, and then get the bus to the train station, with half an hour to spare before my train (the cheaper one) left for Barcelona, so I had a sandwich and Coke to kill the time and got on the train, then got to Barcelona and met George first of all, had a couple of beers, then went to the Irish bar in Urquinaona which was quite fun to try and pronounce, then had a shitload more beers with everyone else and I was sat there like “Town are playing right now, what the bloody hell’s the score? Stupid phone credit and me not having any of it!” But after it had finished I took off my Town shirt to reveal my England shirt I had underneath – I always wear my Town shirt when we’re playing, kind of a lucky charm…usually – but anyway after the ‘transformation’ I was then left wondering how exactly they get Sky in Spain, not that I was really bothered, all I cared about was seeing the match, and then the weirdest thing happened that can only be explained by Steven Hawking, Stephen Fry, and a tear in the space-time continuum: England won. The free-kick went in, heads up, Casillas stranded, Lampard nodded it in, and “ENG 1-0 SPA” is the weirdest sight in existence. So we had yet more beers and then made our way to our various casas, some lived in Barcelona, George in Olessa, me in Amposta about 120 miles away, with a direct bus. So yeah, it’s been a pretty good day so far, now to go to the bus stop and go home, simples, so I get on the bus and “rest my eyes”, to then be woken up by “Oye, señor, tienes que salir ahora, hemos llegado a Vinaròs.” Wait, what? I’m not even in Catalunya anymore? Fuck. This isn’t good, to put it in England measurements, I’ve just caught a bus to Huddersfield to then wake up in Leeds, I had to ring Dan at like one in the morning because luckily he lives there (Vinaròs, not Leeds), and then try and find out where exactly in Vinaròs I was, it was especially fun finding out I’d walked a good half mile in the wrong direction, dammit I just want to get to a bed! I eventually found him and went to his flat and got to sleep. Then the next morning I was rudely awoken by what can only be described as about four churches all seemingly hosting a wedding or two, until Dan told me “oh, that’s normal for Sundays.” I could not hack that at 9 o’clock on a Sunday morning. But after getting breakfast and getting dressed I got on the bus to Amposta (again) and this time didn’t fall asleep! Got off the bus and back to my flat and was like “yeah, I may have ended up in Vinaròs.” So for the rest of the day I’ve just been having a lazy, slightly hungover Sunday (that sort of hangover that you can tell is there, but it’s not too bad, but it won’t go away) and cooked the arròs al forn as promised, and my God it was good, I may have eaten about 4 meals’ worth of the stuff because I’m just that good at cooking, and now I’m writing this up and just arsing around on the Internet, as you do, ciao.

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.