Monday 1 September 2014

Holiday Ramblings III: "Postcards 101" (Day 3)

Part three of a seven part odyssey of dullness extracted from the notes of an eight day journey. On this occasion there was a turtle and a sting ray.

Following on directly from yesterday, sometimes reality doesn't measure up well to the rose-tinted view of nostalgic memory. In this case the Font Magica of August 2014 doesn't match up to that of September/October somewhere in the middle of the last decade. There were key differences. First of all there are far too many people hanging around in August, and secondly the the performance was hampered by opening with contemporary pop music, apart from the 'Barcelona' of Freddie Mercury of course. The pop music of 2014 is in no way comparable to that of ten years ago, when rhythm wasn't all and repetition not the king, even in those times of barbarity. However, once it got away from pop, it was still excellent, albeit behind a solid wall of people holding up cameras between them and the spectacle. How strange it is! It was especially nice to hear the 'Batman' television theme, but my sappiness is well known so no-one will be surprised. That was the evening, a bittersweet letdown, which eventually ended early for me as the crowds got ever more annoying. Oh, to be in September, when it runs two hours earlier in the day and you can even get right to the edge.

Oddly, Barcelona Aquarium was quite disappointing too, seeming so much smaller than it did in the hall of memory, but in the end it proved itself all over again. It's deceptively small but squeezes so much in that it becomes worthwhile, and the shark tunnel is still a fantastic way to view those venerable living fossils, unchanged predators from so deep in history. This is all assuming you turn up early as I did or can stand to stay in line for an hour later in the day. After that there was limping, fooding, and wandering in the rain. Yes, it rained as if the world had cried out for water or faced destruction in its dryness. Another odd echo of the last trip to Barcelona and perplexingly enjoyable for it! There's nothing as humorous as people running for cover from even the slightest of rain spells. Thank goodness for spontaneous rainstorms and saxophone buskers in the Metro saving a trip from abstract failure! Hopefully some sailing and Park Guell will complete the cure on the morrow.

Postcards and gift buying are the sole duties imposed on the single traveller, so my backpack quickly got crammed with a cuddly turtle and sting ray, two of the the fine gifts from the Aquarium shop, a place I hold to be legendary. If you don't believe me then you're reading the wrong blog, but it is true. Postcards are harder than gifts, if only because of the sheer amount of work involved. First you collect the addresses and take them with you, then you buy the postcards, write the postcards with laborious copying of addresses, and somehow get them in the post. This of course is harder if the post office is remote or closed, as you must find stamps in a tobacconist somewhere, and then find a postbox. Postboxes are tricky. It's a fiendish amount of work, not even including the pressures of writing messages so mundane as to be cripplingly dull!

Of course, the difficulty of finding stamps and postboxes is one of the ways you know you're in a foreign country and probably in continental Europe. Other signs include drivers stubbornly driving on the wrong side of the road, a proliferation of mopeds, non-free museums and galleries, rampant smoking, and a difficulty in finding milk in shops. Also, if the green men at pedestrian crossings aren't entirely reliable, then that's a good indicator too. Be warned of green men of dubious fidelity to the truth.

O.

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