Life; Full On

How does one describe a place like Barcelona? As we have walked the city's narrow winding pedestrian only streets for the past 3 days I have been wondering how I would describe such a fantastic place. A city with an incredibly rich history and living vibrant streets thousands of years old. The place Christopher Columbus loaded his ships and set sail for the new world. A Roman city where one can walk among the ruins of a laundry where slaves used ash, lime and urine to clean and iron the Roman's clothes. A city where jews and muslims were forced to convert to catholicism or be expelled, and then when they did convert were tortured to find out if they were true converts. The Capitol of Aragon, the Capitol of Catalonia, the city of Gaudi, an Olympic city and a modern city of exciting architecture and art. It simply is a place one must visit in person to experience.

Pickpocketing is a professional art here. It is fascinating to watch the shell games staged, usually by slavic men, and wonder who the accomplice in the crowd is. They obviously look like any other tourist and are almost impossible to pick out but they are always there. Police, waiters and citizens are protective of their visitors. A motorcycle officer stopped when he saw a tourist set down her bag while she took a photo of her friends and gave her a friendly talk on why not to do that; in sign language. We normally think of prejudice as negative. In this city it is a survival mechanism. There are people who just don't "look right" and they are given a wide berth. This place is a port city and crossroads and people from the entire Mediterranean find welcome home here. Like any port city in the world it has it's share of characters.

After dark, young African men stand on the sidewalk with knockoff handbags on a sheet with a rope attached to each corner. I asked in Spanish, "why the rope?" He replied with a grin in broken English, "So when the police come we can run fast!" they simply scoop up all their wares with a strong pull and disappear into any one of a hundred dark narrow alley ways with their sack on their back.

When night comes to the old quarter the character changes dramatically. Women practicing the worlds oldest profession legally ply their trade, young people in loud laughing groups march down Las Ramblas, immigrant street hawkers switch from squeaky voice toys to light up whirligigs shot 75 ft into the air and waiters from outdoor cafes try to get potential customers to sit down to overpriced Tapas.

The feeling of having to leave a place we have fallen love with is becoming commonplace. City life is expensive and that gives us good reason to move on and resume our camping life. We have found that the cost of 4-5 camping days equals one city day. It is nice to have a hotel room, solid internet, and most of all a private bathroom but budget and schedule dictate that we hit the road.