Barcelona, España:

Rome passed fairly uneventfully; of course I went to the Vatican, climbed St. Peter’s, and saw the Coliseum (even dodging tourists, it turns out I can run around it in 1:28). But I also spent a couple of days seeing the pool at the campground I was at, and as it happens it was quite refreshing not to have to wipe salt-water off my face everytime I went swimming. For whatever reason Rome never grabbed me; perhaps it was the generally run-down feel of the city, perhaps it was my physical isolation from the city center (the campground, while nice, was a bus-and-train ride away), or perhaps it was that I was just yearning for ye olde España. Either way, on Thursday afternoon I was happy to take the train to Civitivecchia and take a ferry across the Mediterranean to Barcelona.

23 hours later I walked off the giant ship with my pack on my back, onto the streets of Spain. I decided to just meander, and was heartened to find that I was starting from the heart of the city. I found a place to stay and soon discovered that calling Spain the country that never sleeps is not at all an exageration; it’s an odd feeling to realize that fact that the Metro closes between 24.00 and 05.00 is significant because it affects your going-out time (you have to make sure to start early!) instead of your coming-home time. I also learned that the all-night lifestyle isn’t sustainable with my predilection for waking early – I spent a huge portion of yesterday sleeping as pennance.

Today, though, I’m very happy. After a nice bit of wandering through the city, I found a bounty of librerías and bought El Juego de Ender, my second-favorite book, and an English-Spanish dictionary. This should keep my busy for a while…

Chilling at the Coliseum

Fighting off the clouds in Barcelona with Cristopher Columbus (who, in an odd bit of trivia, is pointing at Libya)