A walk in the bright lights and a long night

This is a story of walking all night, a street vendor’s delight and something that gave me a fright. Welcome to my life as a telenovela.

Episode 3: Pens

The Recap

Alright, so we all remember Santander, right? If you don’t, go back and check out Episode 1 in my blog for a little more context. I was living in Barcelona, a city with something to see for everyone. At this point in my exchange experience, I had already lived through all the hype. I had gone on a trip with an Erasmus group at my school, which was awesome. I had gone to pretty much every important site in Barcelona twice (except the football stadium – I know, I know, I’m crazy…). And I had strolled down La Rambla, down by the beach, up by Park Güell – literally everywhere.

You see, I had the unique and wonderful situation of living in one of the most popular cities in Europe. Barcelona experiences millions of tourists every year. Among those tourists were several friends from back home in Canada and several of those who were also on their exchange in Europe. I had spent one week in Barcelona before one of my best friends came to visit on the same weekend another friend was visiting from Canada. You could say it was a busy weekend, but it was so much fun to tour around and get to see all the tourist sites with my friends.

So a few months later, I ended up with a similar situation. Two friends showing up in the city at the same time. One of my closest university friends, whom I met in Spanish class, was on a trip to Europe and took the time to visit me in Spain. She wanted to see Barcelona and Granada very much. We planned months ahead because her dream was to see the Alhambra Palace in Granada and well, it takes months ahead to even get tickets for it.

But a few weeks before, I had met a wonderful guy in Santander who was also going to be in Barcelona on the same weekend. But it was no question.

Sisters before misters. Duh. So I told him I had plans and it seems we would not be able to meet each other during the day. I also had no idea how I was really feeling about this guy. I knew deep down that I was scared because everything just felt very right with him. We had kept up the conversation since our night in Santander over messaging apps and at this point, I was still wondering what his purpose was in my life.

Plot Twist

Though, as luck would have it, my circumstances changed for the weekend of my Canadian friend’s visit. She informed me we would have an Airbnb downtown (which are technically illegal in Barcelona!) instead of staying in my flat with all my roommates. I was so down for it because I was not living in downtown Barcelona at the time and it made our lives so much easier for travelling around. This also meant I would not have to go home at the end of that day, which opened up my evening and night.

Now, I’ll admit that I am not usually one for staying out very late. Of course I had my nights out here and there, but I decided that if Santander guy really wanted to see me that we could take the chance and just walk around Barcelona all night. Great idea, right?

So I told my Canadian friend I would be going out to meet another friend for a little while and even asked if she wanted to join. She was tired from our long day walking around town and wasn’t really one to stay out late either, so she declined and I was soon on my way to meet the guy.

You might be wondering why I felt it was a perfectly safe idea to walk in Barcelona at night. From my experience, it is. Even downtown, I felt perfectly safe because everyone was out late partying and drinking, so honestly I was feeling even safer than I would during the day when crowds and pickpockets come out. The lights on La Rambla were bright and I walked on the busier streets on my way to one of Barcelona’s many famous churches to meet up with him.

The start of the adventure...

I stood by the church for a few minutes and from out of the corner of my eye, the guy I was with in Santander was standing before me. Now in Barcelona. Past midnight. This was a crazy idea, I thought. I was scared. Not of him, but of how I was going to feel. We said our hellos and I decided my best defense was to get into Tour Guide mode. Back home in Canada, I’m a tour guide in some of Canada’s own tourist destinations. And this time too I was the host, I lived in this city, and I knew my way around. I wasted no time guiding him through the winding streets of The Gothic Quarter and we ended up sitting by the most important church in Barcelona (no, it’s technically not La Sagrada Familia). We watched skateboarders and people in front of The Cathedral of Barcelona while I was coming up with some sort of itinerary in my head. I finally asked him “So… where do you want to go?” and he said something along the lines of just walking around. I thought that maybe he had a point and we could just wing it.

Cathedral of Barcelona during the day

We turned onto a popular street in Barcelona that connects the Cathedral to Plaça de Sant Jaume, which is where the Ajuntament de Barcelona (Barcelona City Hall) and the Palau de la Generalitat (The Catalan Provincial Government) are located. These are two of the most important buildings in the city. This street, called Carrer del Bisbe, is popular during the day because people really love to take pictures by the Pont Gotic, which is a small bridge that connects the Generalitat to the Church. This was a symbol of the old ways with the Church influencing the State. But that night, it street was empty, but it was a little dark for taking photos. Though, I did point out the skull from under the Pont Gotic, which my companion for the night found very interesting.

Pont Gotic also during the day

This was the first instance that I realized I was hungry that night. While we stopped to look at a shop window, my stomach grumbled and I thought it might be high time to find some late night grub. I turned the corner to see if one of my favourite pintxos (a small Spanish type bar food) restaurants was open, but to my dismay, it was not. We decided that if we managed to find something open late, we would stop by.

Our walk took us onto La Rambla, but soon jeered off as I pulled him off the busy street into Plaça Reial, which is a typical Spanish looking plaza with a nice fountain in the middle and set of palm trees to complete the look. Plenty of restaurants and activity during the day, but it seems we had missed the restaurants and got all the activity instead. People were buzzing about the plaza on their way to and from the bars and clubs. All the while, there were people selling beer for one euro asking every second person and then forgetting they just asked, and would then ask again.

We sat in some chairs and thought it was a good place to continue our conversation. Wrong. We were approached several times about wanting a beer, and both of not wanting it, kept saying “no, gracias” every few sentences. After about 10 minutes, we looked at each other, got up, and continued back down La Rambla. We were getting fairly close to the end of the bustling street and decided to walk our way to the Statue of Christopher Colombus pointing to the direction of the Americas. At this point, the two of us were starting to get into deeper conversation about religion and colonialism, and then pens.

How to make a girl fall for you: carry pens

I was just slightly confused. I noticed he had two pens in his pocket and when I asked, he said he needed the second in case the first one ran out. Now, I usually don’t judge people with pen obsessions because I have a protectiveness over my pens as well, but this was a little strange. We circled the statue several times during this conversation and I pointed out that underneath the statue was a little museum and just down the street, standing out amongst all the boats in the harbour, is Maremagnum. It’s a big mall right by the seaside and is one of the only places open on a Sunday because it caters to a lot of tourists that visit from cruise ships. It’s also just a cool looking building.

We strolled along Passeig de Colon, which goes parallel to Port Vell (the old harbour). We stopped here and there to look out at the boats or talk about something, and even stopped to sneak into a mini playground for children. We laughed, smiled, did push ups and were overall having a really good walk. We eventually ended up at the La Gamba de Mariscal which is a giant statue of a lobster that apparently used to belong to a restaurant nearby. People loved it so much that when the restaurant closed, they just kept the statue around! Personally, I get it. It’s a cute lobster. It is also only a few steps away from El Cap de Barcelona which is a statue created during the rejuvenation of Barcelona’s port for the 1992 Olympics. It is said to be inspired by modern art and Barcelona’s most famous artist and architect: Antoni Gaudí.

La Gamba Mariscal

El Cap de Barcelona

This is where we made a turn for the worst. Just kidding. We turned toward the Barcelona Aquarium, even though we knew it would be closed! And this is also where everything starts to get really cheesy. In between the statue and the Aquarium, we walked through Plaça de l'Ictineo where people like to sleep on the grass during the day and stroll through at night. We were the strolling type. Now, it was still night time and I was foolish to forget that even in a city that is always warm like Barcelona, it can still get chilly at night. So there I was, like in a scene from some Rom-Com, shivering but trying to pretend that I wasn’t cold. He noticed I was cold, like in that same Rom-Com scene, and offered me his flannel. I argued that “no, I’m fine. Besides, if you don’t wear it, you’ll be cold” but of course, he had a long sleeve underneath so he made the point to say he would be fine. I took the flannel somewhat begrudgingly because I knew I just lived through a Rom-Com, but I guess does make for a good story.

Everything gets real

The reality though, was that like in most big cities, Barcelona has a homeless population. It is an unfortunate truth, but we walked by them sleeping in their sleeping bags and blankets outside of the Aquarium. I reflected on the fact that in a city so full of tourist visiting from all over the world, there still were those who couldn’t afford even the most basic necessities. It made me feel guilty with all the opportunities I had to travel and study halfway around the world. We both lamented on this as we popped back out onto the Moll d’Espanya, which is the walkway around the Aquarium and Maremagnum. We decided to sit on the edge of the pier and stare out at the big ships and luxurious boats in front of us. A stark contrast to the homeless people we had just walked by. Maybe it was the depth of the conversation and the calm of the water we sat there not touching each other at all, but I felt it again.

Hunger. And yes, I felt something about him too. I squirmed a little because I knew it. I had already given him the grand tour of this part of Barcelona. The metro was close so it would take a while to get to the other main sites. It was also very early in the morning and I was hungry. All of this culminated into a moment where we locked eyes and I knew there was no running away from the situation I was facing. Literally, he was facing me and I could see in his face that he felt the same way I did. A thousand things went through my head, but I kept coming back to the thing that was very pertinent at the moment.

Food. We decided to put a commercial break in this and just head back to the Airbnb for the leftovers I had from earlier in the day. The walk back was civil, we kept our distance, and I invited him in to share the food with me. My friend was asleep and we tried to be quiet, but it was just all too funny trying to reheat the food. We finally got it figured out and laughed together while eating the food. At some point, we both realized it was getting a little late. Or early I guess, and we both had full days planned ahead of us.

I began to usher him out the door. But before he turned away, he told me “actually, I brought you a gift” and pulled out one of the pens from his pocket. It was a purple ballpoint pen. I giggled “So that’s why you had two. Thank you” and I took the pen, and watched him walk down the stairs. It was a pen from the airport in Sevilla, which is where he flew from to get to Barcelona. He later told me he was disappointed the pen didn’t also write in purple because he knew purple was my favourite colour.

And I was a little disappointed he was going to go back to Sevilla and eventually back to the United States.

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