April 4, 2005 Barcelona! 'rest' week, Barcelona, disco, swimming! Last week was supposed to be a rest week, but I misinterpreted the word 'rest.' The definition I used: have fun, stay up late, drink a little, dance a lot, don't train too much.... Now I am trying to go back to being a serious bike racer. Ah, but was it ever worth it! Modernisme and the metro Oh Barcelona! I could walk around that city for weeks with my camera and still not be finished. We took a bus from Giverola in the morning and got dropped off under the enormous statue of Christopher Columbus (talk about putting someone on a pedestal)! Chris stands up there all day, pointing to America... In the Christopher Columbus Plaza, we got picked up by Andreas, Dani G's little bro. Ooh, first I should elaborate on who I spent the day with -- six men. Yeah, that's right, S-I-X: the aforementioned Andreas and Dani G; Franz, Dani S, Jan and Jonas. We walked to a hill with a view of the city, then to the now-deserted swimming venue from the 1992 Summer Olympics. From there we traipsed to the Placa del Rei where several 'urban' freeriders were riding down flights of stairs. At Placa de Espanya, we ducked into the metro and got out at a station near the water and walked past Frank Gehry's famous giant copper Peix sculpture and hung out on a wall overlooking the beach, where I took photos of a tree with leaves made of flattened beer cans. On the way towards lunch, we blitzed through an art gallery which featured photos of fruits with tiny people crawling on them, or dancing beside them.... There really wasn't enough time to take everything in. I can't even remember all the places we visited. We walked past a Picasso museum, I hammed it up on a giant mouth-shaped sofa in the lobby of the Dali sculpture museum, we bought Gaudi postcards at a tienda in a narrow cobblestone alley, went to the bathroom in the dirty basement of Pan & Co., had a zumo de naranja y mango in a cafe where lamps in the shape of flies of some kind (with eyes made of tea strainers) hung from the ceiling.... Finally Andreas led us to our lunch stop, a restaurant named 'La Rita' with a red awning and quite a line of people waiting for tables. It offered a menu for 7.60 Euros. I had a mixed salad (very good), greasy chicken with greasy gravy and greasy chips (not so good) and a pastry filled with orange cream and covered in chocolate sauce (extremely good). After lunch, the weakest ones (Jan, Dani S, Jonas) decided to part ways with us because they wanted to take the five o'clock bus back to the hotel. Franz, Andreas, Dani G and I kept on trekking, because we wanted to take in some Gaudi. Gaudi On the Manzana de la Discordia we stared up at Gaudi's seemingly alive Casa Battlo. Its walls are undulating and organic, studded with coloured tiles and topped with a roof shaped like a dragon's back, complete with scales. Some of the shapes in the outer walls look like bones. Pretty amazing. Just up the block and on the other side of the street stands another famous Gaudi structure, La Pedrera. Originally an apartment / office building, it now holds a collection of the architect's work. The outside is wavy and features elaborate, serpentine wrought-iron balconies. At that point, we still couldn't get enough of Gaudi. He did things with buildings that I never imagined were possible. I studied him briefly in a 100-level Art History course way back in the day, but I had no idea... Jeff, I'm sure you'd go nuts -- or have you already been to Barcelona? A bus took us in the direction of Gaudi's Parc Güell. I was reminded of an amusement park at the entrance gates, which were flanked by whimsical, gingerbread house-like buildings. Walking up the stairs, a feline-headed fountain greeted us, followed a few metres later by a lizard, all decorated in mozaic. Among the various constructions in the park is the Sala Hipostila, which features 86 columns and a ceiling decorated in beautiful mosaics made with pieces of glass, bottles, dinnerware and other 'rubble.' We ate oranges on some stairs overlooking the park, but headed down when it started to rain. The four of us descended back into the metro and zipped to the university district to visit Andreas's apartment -- a typical dark student home, homey, but in slight disrepair, worn furniture and, of course, the classic and necessary display of empty liquor bottles. Andreas, by the way, is studying Architecture, so Barcelona is a super place for him to be. Our tour ended with a dinner of fresh bread, tomatoes, Iberian ham, black olives, cheese and red wine around Andreas's dark wooden dinner table. After a slight crisis involving my contact lenses, we took off in the metro once again and caught the 9 p.m. bus to Tossa de Mar. In Tossa, we stopped in a smoky bar for a quick beer and then walked home (approx. an hour) in the dark, via gravel backroads. It had just rained that afternoon, so we inadvertently stepped a couple of puddles along the way and an uhurried toad inadvertently hopped on my foot. We arrived back at around midnight. It was a super cool adventure. Thank you, Andreas! My kind of triathlon On Thursday, Martina and I had no takers for the Prologue, so we rode the Romanya tour together. When I got home, Natasha (one of my awesome roomies) asked if I wanted to go for a run. I hadn't been for a while, so I said "Sure!" We ran for 40 minutes and then decided to visit the beach just below our apartment. It was so warm and the water so blue and calm, that I couldn't help myself. I jumped in and did a little dolphin dive. The water was quite chilly, but it felt good on my tired legs. Natasha was brave enough to jump in too. High five! Biking, beach, bikini Friday I went for a super mountain bike ride with Franz, Simon and three guests (Simon and one of the guests turned back early). Franz, the remaining two (gung-ho, adventurous, easygoing, 40-something-year-old guys) and I ripped up and down the hills, hitting every bit of singletrack we could find. We rode through corridors of fire-blackened trees, down hairy descents and through bushes that left thorns sticking in my legs. We had a lunch stop on the beach in San Feliu, where we waded in the ocean and played in the sand and lay in the sun. It was a perfect day. Afterwards, I somehow talked Franz into coming swimming with me in the ocean. However, it wasn't quite as inviting as the day before, since the ocean was choppy and there was a brisk wind blowing. I ran in anyways and got it over with, so Franz had no choice but to follow. Wine and disco After birthday cake (all the Bikeholiday people who had had birthdays in the past couple of weeks -- Fritz, me, Natasha, Etienne -- got a cake!) and a couple of glasses of wine, I was ready to set the disco on fire. Oh, and did I ever (with the help of my amiable dance partner)! The day after I woke up too late to make it to breakfast before I had to be at the shop to hand out bike packages to the newly arrived guests, so I quickly scarfed down some muelsi and coffee in the apartment and ran up to the shop, where Martina and I sat outside from 8:30 till 11:00, trying to stay awake and look friendly. At 11:05 a.m. I went back to bed. That afternoon, Franz and I walked to Tossa, ate pizza and explored the old town and castle before heading back to Giverola. That evening, a whole bunch of Bikeholiday people (Franz, Dani G, Jan, Mike, Bettina, Martin) had to go back to their real lives in Switzerland. I'm still here in Spain, however, living a bit of a fantasy life.... Another fashion show, another week, another Sunday... Yup, there's another fashion show checked off the list! No photos this time. Sunday was grey and I got poured on during my training ride. I am now trying to fight off a cold that is starting to rear its ugly head in the form of a sore throat. Lots of sleep, vitamin C, zinc and tea for me! Boy of the Week (this one's for you, Jan!) Girl of the Week (another one for you, Colin!) More Barcelona photos