In addition to exploring the city, I went on a day trip to Mount Monserrat. I took a cable car from the base of the mountain up to a monastery that's built into the side of the mountain and then hiked to the summit from there. From the top of mountain, I'm used to seeing other mountains, but in this case it was just flat plains it most directions. I'm pretty sure I could see all the way back to Maryland.
Woman in Distress and the Fearsome Bugs of Catalunya
My second day in Barcelona I slept in a bit since I had endured a 12 hour overnight train the night before. I spent what was left of the morning trying to figure out where to go after Barcelona. I was interested in hiking the Pyrenees, but to get there would take a day and half of bus rides into the small foothill towns. Furthermore, it looked like it wouldn't be easy to get into France afterward from there because there were limited roads and tunnels through the mountains and the pictures I found online of the hikes didn't look super amazing. I also entertained the idea of going to San Sebastian, which I had heard is beautiful, but it would be a nine hour bus or train ride there and then the same thing again to get back to Barcelona to get a flight out of Spain. So, in the end I decided to just book a flight to Paris instead.
I got lunch at a sandwich shop and as I was waiting in line, the guy at the cash register was hilarious. As he took each person's order he invariably messed up something with the computer and would exclaim something like "Oh dear!" or "Mama mia!", the latter of which I thought was an Italian expression. But he always quickly fixed the problem and went on to the next person. When he got to me, I gave him my order and then handed him my credit card. After he punched in what I wanted he asked me for identification. Unfortunately, forgetting that in Spain they seem to ask for ID quite often when you pay by credit card, I had put my ID in my money belt for safe keeping. Not wanting to publicly expose the fact that I was wearing a money belt, I told him that I didn't have my ID on cryme, took the card back and handed him cash instead. He immediately cried out, "Good god!" and his face contorted into an expression that indicated the apocalypse had arrived. Within ten seconds he had handled the crisis and moved on.
I walked along the boardwalk at the top of the beach as I ate my sandwich and noticed a middle age woman sitting on the beach crying. These were wails of utter despair. As she sat their on the beach, clearly in distress, people kept looking at her and then walking right by. I couldn't believe it. I went up to her and asked her if she needed help and she shocked me by screaming at the top of her lungs and throwing her arms in the air. I don't know what language she was speaking. It sounded like English, but I couldn't make sense of it. After she screamed, she turned her shoulder to me to indicate that she didn't want my help. I stood their for awhile dumbfounded and not sure what to do next. I looked around for anyone of an official capacity on duty, such as police or a lifeguard and didn't see any in either direction. I stood there for awhile longer, but was afraid to approach her again given the way she had reacted before. In the end, I didn't know what else to do, so I just walked away like everyone else. I've thought about her several times since then and it occurred to me later that she may have had a mental illness. The main reason I left is that since she was a grown woman and didn't want my help, then that was her choice to make. If it had been a child or if I had realized that she might have the mental capacity of a child, I would have worked harder to make sure she was taken care of. In hindsight, I regret that I didn't do more.
Back at the hostel that night, I was talking to a girl named Annie from Portland, Oregon when a middle aged couple walked in to the front desk to check in. The woman was talking loudly about being attacked by mosquitoes, which seemed quite strange because I had just remarked earlier in the day that I hadn't encountered a single biting or stinging bug during my entire visit to Spain. When I mentioned this to the woman she said that there were any mosquitoes in the whole country, they would certainly find her."Two days ago in Granada, I woke up with my eye swollen shut from mosquito bites." she said. Annie and I both remarked that our mosquito bites didn't usually swell much and maybe she had been bitten by something else or was allergic somehow.
"Where are you guys from?" she asked.
"The U.S."
"Oh, well the mosquitoes in the U.S. must just be weaker. In Canada, we've got tough ones."
"But you said your eye swelled up here in Spain."
"Well apparently they've got Canadian mosquitoes here too."
Later that night, a moth flew in through an open window just as a Spanish man walked into the room. The Spanish man immediately started yelling and attempting to clumsily swat the amoth with a magazine. Annie and I couldn't help but laugh at the scene before us. Luckily, I don't think the man even noticed we were there. The hostel worker at the front desk turned off the overhead lights in an attempt to get the moth to go back outside, but there were no lights outside either and there was still a lamp lit on the front desk. The moth headed for the lamp and then straight up the stairs to the bedrooms. Suddenly, it came swooping down directly at the Spanish man's head, seemingly on the attack. As if dodging a lethal weapon, the man jerked his head back and ducked out of the way, a near miss. The man had had enough and quickly left the room. Eventually, the moth made its way back outside and Annie was right behind it to close the window. A few seconds later, she reopened it because we'd been enjoying the cool night air. The moth never returned. Maybe it was killed by a Canadian mosquito.