Nadir in Barcelona

As we arrived in the country, the Clingon cheerily announced that Barcelona was in for three days of rain. We had the third day yesterday. (I hope he was right about only three days.) The heavens opened--thunder, lightning, rivers coursing down the kerbs. I was out, desperately trying to find my way back to the accommodation after dark: an uncomfortable position I find myself in regularly.

I knew I was close, but a combination of not having every road marked on my map, not being able to read the streets that are marked on my map because of rain on my glasses (and nothing dry to wipe them with), not having every street sign displayed on every corner, not having enough light to read my map by, the fact that all the streets look the same to me (thanks for laying it all out in a perfect grid, Ildefonso Cerdá), and my spatial ineptitude, found me running from corner to corner, awning to awning. So, I must have been within 300 metres of our accommodation for about an hour last night, as the lightning struck and water pounded the streets and myself, and could not find the Hostal nohow. I rushed down the street, up the street, crossed the street, went back, recrossed the street. I wanted to cry, but the picture that presented itself to my mind's eye of a bedraggled 60 year-old, sobbing as she begs a kind passerby for directions, stopped me.

I tried ringing the Clingon to beg him to come downstairs and find me, but he had helpfully turned his phone to "Do Not Disturb", so he was not picking up. Why did he do it? Who is bothering him with incessant phone calls? Who else has the phone number? I ask you readers. I have worked hard to make sure we can contact each other in foreign places by getting us both a Travelsim and keeping it topped us so that we can always call & text each other in an emergency. What goes through that tin head?

I don't have the energy at the moment to go into the details of our stay in this city. I've reached the lowpoint of the journey (I hope), and can't think of anything at the moment that doesn't make me want to cry. Later, when the trauma of wandering the dark rain-lashed streets subsides, I'll fill you in on Barcelona.





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