San Sebastian, Spain:

By my calculations (which I admit may be tainted by too much jamón, babalao, champiñones and tinto) I’ve been in San Sebastian for 6 nights, and today was to be my day of departure from yet another paradise. However, at 13.00 I’m still surfing the interwebs and realizing that I’ve passed the window to get anywhere far away, which would make the most economical use of my soon-to-expire rail pass. As such, I’m beginning to accept the idea that I may not reach escape velocity today. I fully acknowledge that if I truly wanted to go somewhere today I would have started thinking yesterday about where I was going — and I was totally going to think about it, I swear!! — but these kinds of hard decisions require a lot of concentration and research before I can make an arbitrary choice. So tomorrow remains a surprise, which is fine by me.

While in Barcelona, my friend Kate and I went to the Contemporary Art Museum. In addition to the single strangest film I’ve ever seen (which literally left us unable to cope with reality for 20-30 minutes afterwards), one of the pieces was a slideshow of photos from a WTO protest in Seattle. The photos gave me a strange feeling, and it took me a moment to figure out what it was. I realized that all the people in the photos looked familiar. I’d never met any of them, but they all looked American in a very real and recognizable, but intangible way. I knew these people; I knew their faces, their hair, their Columbia jackets and their backwards-baseball caps. The other thing I felt, though, was their foreignness, as it’s been so long since I’ve seen those faces or felt that American vibe. It will be strange coming back, I think. I wonder where I’ll be more comfortable.

The unexpected highlight of Barcelona was the architecture. I knew that the city was proud of Gaudí and had heard of the Sagrada Familia, but I was shocked by how good architecture pervaded the town. There was the Sagrada Familia itself, which instantly skyrocketed itself to the top of my list as the coolest church in the world. It’s been under construction since 1882, but they’d better be right when they predict it’ll be done in the next 10-20 years, since I can’t wait to attend a service there. Simply astounding. There were all of Gaudí’s lesser works spread throughout the city, which were also amazing. Did you know that Castle Grayskull is in Barcelona? True. Parc Güell was a cross between Candyland and the park on the river Styx, and was a great place to spend an afternoon. But what I really loved was how deeply the appreciation for design was instilled in the town’s consciousness. You can see it in the clever curve of the embankment under a bridge, the interlocking arches of the pedestrian walkway to a shopping mall, and the aesthetic nod new buildings give to their centuries-old neighbors. This is how you can integrate old and new. This is what I’d love America to rediscover.

So this afternoon I’ll continue figuring out where to be next, and undoubtedly surprise myself. Now, I believe, is the time for food; perhaps a nice bocadillo. Mmmm.

Oh, and I lost all my underwear in Europe. Oops.