My time in Barcelona was quite interesting and It has taken me 4 days finally filter everything and write this entry about my experience of Barcelona. Here we go...
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It all began when 4 months ago when my Aunt found out that I was going to Europe and since she's in Madrid she wanted to make sure that I would be looked after thoroughly when I go there. So, she organized my accommodation in Barcelona and also a flight to Paris from Barcelona, all through her friend in Barcelona, who has business in travel agency and restaurants. My aunt insisted that I do not have to pay for those and it would be disrespectful if I tried to pay her back (way to pull the asian parenting card :P)
Fast track to the 23rd of June, I arrived in Barcelona Sants from Madrid in the morning On the wall of my room in Barcelona
On the wall of my room in Barcelona
. I tried to call my correspondent, no one picked up. Ten minutes later someone called me, from the voice I could tell it was an elderly Chinese man, and he gave me the instruction to how to reach the pick-up point. After 2 metro trains I arrived at Navas (pronounced as nabas), he wasn't there yet, so I tried to call him, since I was getting tired lugging 25KG worth of stuff on me for the last 40 minutes. He never picked up and after another 20 minutes he showed up. I was already drenched in sweat and my trapezius were pretty much numb at that point.
You would expect that he might apologize for being late and making me wait in the sun for so long, but all he did was, without opening his mouth, finger-gestured me to follow him. He took me for a walk around the neighbourhood where I suppose to stay, so I could not be polite anymore, and finally told him to bring me to the accommodation ASAP since I was about to faint (no breakfast that morning because we all overslept and nearly missed my train to Barcelona from Spain)
Eventually I was lead to this apartment, he gave me the key and asked me to open the door. Weird. As soon as I opened the door, I was greeted by the odour of the apart, it was reeking stench like hell, and hot and smothering. First there was the bathroom, full of hairs on the floor and in the sink, the flush of the toilet doesn't work, which I found out later. Great. He walked me to my room, which was a small room just enough to have a single bed and a small bench for putting my netbook on it. I could not even fit my backpack in my room, that's how small it was! Guess where the window of my room opens to? The elevator shaft. Yep, my room would smell like burning rubber and cable when I try to open the window It's too small
It's too small
.
As if that wasn't enough to make me flip, the man had the balls asking me to handover my passport and prove myself to be William Tao, and 80 Euros for the two nights..."#$% NO, get screwed" I told him that my aunt has organized everything and his boss should know. He knew playing dumb wouldn't work on me anymore, but I was left with one small-stinkin' room in the apartment.
After he left, I walked around the apartment trying to figure out if it's unsafe for me to store my valuable there. They could easily have another set of keys and just take my stuff when I not around. Plus, there were two other rooms in the apartment shut tight and locked. I had no idea what was going on. So at that point, stressed, tired, and hungry, I decided to have a plan B, AKA, exit strategy - how about I just leave the place and find my own hostel? After some thorough search on tripadvisor and hostelworld, i'd be looking at spending north of 400 Euros for the two nights... Then I thought about leaving Barcelona early and spend more time in Paris. Tough luck, the French railwaty was on strike that day, and due to the public holiday the day after in Barcelona (Sant Juan Festival), there was no train available leaving Barcelona for the next two days which I was to spend in Barcelona I can barely walk between the gap
I can barely walk between the gap
. There was no flight either. I was stuck. For the first time in my life I felt so helpless and frustrated, because there was nothing I could do other than facing what I did not want to deal with. It was my holiday, not a time to be imprisoned. So I called my parents venting... they were quite understanding, but thought I need to be trained in such environment in order to deal with similar scenarios in the future...They had the point. After the phone call, I tried to regroup my emotions and decided to go around the city.
Barcelona is a city that's alot like Shanghai, not in the sense which Berlin shares with Shanghai, but busy, dirty, noisy and rude people. They even talk like Shanghainese, since Catalan is a mix between Spanish and French, which I found very entertaining.
I returned to the apartment around 10PM, and decided to take photos and videos of the crap-hole which I live, in, and then the door bell rang...WTF....! I thought I had the apartment all by myself but it turned out that the place was shared between me and 3 other workers from the restaurant... So I was literally living in a sweat shop...Good thing I didn't freak out though, alone in Barcelona backpacking and stuck in a place like that. Actually I ended up having some friendly conversation with the worker there and what could I say.. Everything has to be put on bed
Everything has to be put on bed
. My mum was in their position when she first went to Argentina, so now I know how hard it was for her to making a living there. I gathered that there is always a silver lining to everything, again, depends on what your perspective is like.
Anyway, this is only half of the story of my time in Barcelona, expect more to come, and yes, I have been to Paris, Interlaken, Grindelwald, Kleine Scheidegg, and Jungfraujoch, since Barcelona and the time of this entry... A lot of talk about, what could I say? I am a busy person... :P
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