By now I am wary of the rail way and could not make myself get up early and go back to the station to deal with getting the tickets for the next parts of my trip. My body said no. So I slept in, relatively, and then bought a two-day pass for Barcelona City Tours. The 13th stop on the tour was the train station, and I almost got off but decided the ticket counter was probably on siesta anyway. So I completed the western tour of the city, including notable locations such as a bunch of stuff from when the Olympics were in Barcelona, a soccer stadium, and some really epic statues. My favorite was of Columbus, who is raising his hand as if to say, what, like it’s hard? He’s such a dick. Love him.
After finishing the loop I went the mercado and got a salad. I brought it back to my room and crunched it down, though truth be told it was very hot in my room and without ranch dressing a salad is a fight to eat. I decided that, as it’s Friday, I should find the ticketing office today just in case they are closed on the weekends. I found the information booth more easily this time and gave up completely on asking about “Eurail” and instead said “long distance.” This helped a bit, though I still had to wait in line to ask where to wait in line. Such is travelling without prebooked reservations–
–however, after my number had been called I was told that I could get a ticket from Barcelona to Narbonne, France, but not the intended transfer from Narbonne to my destination, Bordeaux. Why? Because the French train workers are on strike. Why? I asked the clerk at the Barcelona station. He looked at God and said, “France.”
France, you are now my enemy. This is worse than the time Anthony Bourdain said he didn’t like chicken nuggets. Outrageous.
Sources close to my heart hope that the strike will end soon because it also involves the garbage company. Lil Bro texted me with “just take a taxi.”
Let me google that for you, Lil Bro:
So I have a ticket to the south of France and then… ? Not sure what to tell my Airbnb in Bordeaux. “Hi, I’d love to keep my prepaid reservation, but your country’s trains aren’t running until question mark, sorry”?
And what about, I don’t know, the rest of my stops?
I’m not thrilled at not having plans, especially now when it is clearly not my own fault. That salad has been doing the salsa in my stomach. I continued reading Rick Steves’ guidebook to distract me, but he lets this bomb loose: “Make yourself an extrovert, even if you’re not.” Get out of my comfort zone, huh? Is 9000 kilometers still not enough?
Here is a pretty picture of the Placa Catalunya to remind myself that this should be fun:
These fountains do tricks.
Tomorrow I’m going to a museum and a beach for realsies, not just looking at them from a bus. Take that, Rick Steves.
“Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.” Siggy Freud.
paralyzedbynotcaring 