The Trip Part Two

The past is here: so read it first:
The Trip Part One

Monday 5th November, 2007

Remember, remember the fifth of November, bike tours, mezes and port. A new day dawned. And as I awoke in this unknown city, magic was in the air. My geek was excited about the first day of his conference, and with a little help from the internet and a very poor wireless network connection, I had plans of my own.

Before the sun had found its way over the hills and high rise buildings, I was out of bed, breakfasted and heading towards the centre of town. I walked along Carrer de Ribes, past Arse de Trump and along Carrer Corders towards the Barri Gotic. I had an engagement to keep. I didn’t have time to stop and chat with Graffiti Che - and his fine pink moustache - about the delights of Barcelona’s freshly laundered washing. Or perhaps I did? I just wasn’t sure if I did.

I was heading towards Plaça de Sant Jaume for a four hour long bike tour of the city. Plaça de Sant Jaume, our meeting point, was once the centre of the original Roman settlement of Barcino. And did those feet in ancient times... get sore? It was a good place to start the day. The plaça is now home to the Ajuntament (City Hall), and the Palau de la Generalitat, where the Catalan regional government pretends to know what it's doing. Police stood outside guarding the buildings and directing tourists. I stood outside directing my camera and photographing police.

It was a quiet morning, but Plaça de Sant Jaume is not always so dull. At its best, it is a place of protest and Catalans love to protest. Not only do they love to protest, but they are also rather partial to protesting in no clothes. Yippee. In 2006, in this very square, seventy naked people curled up on the pavement outside City Hall. They were pretending to be the number of ill-fated minks that died in the name of Liz Hurley’s underfed wardrobe. My feet were standing in a place of public nakedness, with a fully clothed body on top. I feel guilty just to admit it and you don’t know what I was wearing yet.

Best of all, it’s perfectly legal to strip down. Recently, a man called Irwin decided to check it out. All summer he traversed the streets of Barcelona with his dangly-bits a-swinging. The 2004 nakedness law was upheld and his not so private parts celebrated their fully fledged liberation. There are photos of him on the internet to prove it. Made you look, made you stare; or did you? His toned bronzed naked torso and the city’s architectural triumphs sit surprisingly well together. I’m just a little bit sad that I can’t find any photos of him raising an erection at the Dildo. Perhaps that’s the one spot where he did feel self-conscious.

If you’re not sure about going naked alone, Barcelona also has a very good turnout for the annual world naked bike ride. The Critical Ass event was even born in Spain, in the city of Zaragoza, a little north of Catalonia. Many English towns now celebrate the event too, but Barcelona is probably a little bit warmer and there’s no risk of arrest. But beware; there have also been protests against tourism in the Catalonian capital.

Still completely unaware that nakedness was a viable option, I went for a little wander with my feet in the pouches of two live kangaroos, and a screaming giraffe wrapped tightly round my neck. Having barely bounced two steps, I found myself at the Cathedral of Santa Eulàlia; the real cathedral of the city. I soon learnt that, akin to the Gaudi Basilica, this holy building has the blood of many centuries soaked into its stones. Wars, colonialism and globalisation changed the political face of the world, new islands formed and people grew twice as tall, yet still God’s stones waited to take their place. This laissez faire approach to cathedral construction is a deeply seated trait of the Catalan population, passed from generation to generation like a defective gene. As far back as 343AD, the Roman Empire had built a basilica at this site and yet it wasn’t until 1913AD that the central spire of the cathedral was finally in place. The front of this building is still covered in scaffolding and I’m not entirely convinced that it is complete. Perhaps they forgot a feature or two.

The coolest part about the history of the Cathedral of Santa Eulàlia, is that I can go back to talking about naked people and I’ve barely drawn a light breath. Nakedness is not new or trendy; it’s inherent, wonderful and travels through time as a superior partner to the slow-cathedral-construction gene. The Barcelonans were keen on people roaming the streets naked as far back as 303AD. All the same, there has always been confusion about whether one can get away with it.

Way back then, some three hundred years after Jesus had led everyone up the Roman road with talk of his amazing imaginary dad, a beautiful young girl called Eulàlia, later to be known as Father Christmas Eulàlia, tried to test it out. She was full of youthful idealism and wanted to walk the city naked. History goes in cycles don’t you know? As thirteen year old Eulàlia ambled around with her small pert breasts raised high, legions of men - and a handful of women - were excited to see the outcome. Would any officials intervene while a naked girl walked the square? The anticipation was unbearable. Imagine a city where all the girls are free and willing to walk around completely unclothed. Imagine a city where, just for a few hours, a sex starved populous – bound for eternity with fat nagging wives - can stare at a beautiful naked thirteen year old girl in one of their finest public places. We have already established that nudity and fine buildings make for a tasty combination. Back then, thirteen was okay. Eight year olds got married... Don’t go all Paedofinder General on me.

Unfortunately, Eulàlia’s adolescent experiment took an unexpected turn that would lead to dire consequences. Just as excitement levels were reaching fever pitch, and more and more onlookers were coming in droves, flash cooling struck Barcelona. On that warm spring day, without a cloud in the sky, it started snowing, and snowing really hard. The washing that hangs from each and every window in town, gained a thick layer of soft frozen water. In no time at all, Eulàlia was wearing a dense white coat. Not an inch of her flesh could be seen. She had past her idealistic phase and discovered mink; white mink at that. The anger of this unforeseen interruption was insurmountable; the Catalans like nakedness, and fur clothing is just not on. Eulàlia was nothing more than the biggest prick tease that had ever walked their sun-soaked soil.

To punish the young whore for not maintaining full exposure until the time of complete climax, and for bewitching the weather, the Barcelonans rammed Eulàlia into a barrel, jabbed knives into its soft wood and rolled her down the street. They also cut off her breasts and decapitated her. The body of Santa Eulàlia is entombed in the cathedral's crypt. It has lots of bits missing – two small breasts, a head, many chunks of flesh – but it is where they can keep an eye on it and make sure that she doesn’t get up to any more mischief. The cathedral has a secluded Gothic cloister where thirteen white geese are kept to remind all thirteen year olds about poor young Eulàlia’s fate. Keeping birds in captivity is wrong; don’t they know that?

Just round the corner from the Cathedral is the Museu d'Història de la Ciutat (the Museum of the History of Catalonia), Palau Reial Major and Rei Square. In Rei Square, I watched a film crew and some 70 odd people dressed up as olden day Catalan peasants. It was time for my tour.

Back at Plaça de Sant Jaume, seventeen fully dressed travellers had gathered for the bike tour. The tour guide was already in full flow and telling the ancient story of The Barcelonan Bike Tour Wars. Way back in BC (Before Cycling), Fat Tire set up the first bicycle tour of Barcelona. It was a time of great capitalism and before long they developed many rivals. We have since learnt that the principle of competition is unfair, but those were hard and bleak times. Unsurprisingly, any village, city or town bike does not take kindly to rivals. Just thinking about her slimmer, prettier competition wears her down. And she just can’t stop thinking about them. Aaaaargh. This isn’t surprising when you see the rivals in action. Two other bike tour companies turned up in Plaça de Sant Jaume while I was there. They arrive about thirty minutes before the Fat Tart’s tour starts and steal her customers. It looks quite easy to do and I quite like the idea of sending Fat Tart mad; just because she is so very close and already provides such great amusement. Fancy a Fabpants and Softseats tour anyone? You can come naked.

While the bike tour-ists gathered in the south west corner of Jaume square, and shared horrified glances about the bike tour wars, a gypsy beggar woman circled her prey; ummm, that would be me. She wore many layers of colourful clothes and put her hand to her mouth repeatedly to suggest a need for food. She was missing a fake baby. Perhaps this was not her day. Akin to London, it is common to use a fake baby or to borrow a real one for a stint of begging. The scam must work to be repeated so often. Perhaps Westerners are soft to the idea of helpless starving children. How odd.

In many parts of the world, a baby is not enough to make the rich heart bleed; the ladder of desperation is climbed by self-inflicted mutilation whilst working towards maiming. We Europeans have such style. Instead of allowing our citizens to reach such levels of deprivation that they cut off a leg, we educate them just enough to come up with scams like throw the baby. So while you are trying to catch Tiny Tears in mid-air, and save a poor helpless doll from certain injury, remember that this is civilisation. Your possessions needed a new home. Alternatively, if you see a flying baby, just let it bounce. Not just in Barcelona; anywhere. You don’t know how these scams can travel. I saw a young gypsy beggar woman with a genuine baby later that week. She was sat on a bench in Avinguda de Gaudi. I had to stare twice to check that the small apparent human was real. How convincing are fake babies? I really want to know.

Fake babies grow up and, if they haven’t cracked their head open on a boulevard or pavement, they become baby beggars. Big baby beggars with clipboards. You may see them in the streets of your local town. They claim to be raising money for charity; you know War Head, Christian Aids or Apathy. In Barcelona they cut out the middle-man. They want the cash in the here and now, and not your card details for those regular monthly instalments. Enterprisingly, they do have a photocopy of a sponsorship form and a fully fledged scam in the making; it’s that European education again. A clipboard is also a wonderful tool for covering over anything that a hapless tourist happens to have left unattended on the table. The dual purpose tool enables both the ‘sponsorship’ and ‘walking off with it’ scams. I have a clipboard myself. I would later encounter two of these children outside the Museu National d' Art Catalunya. I bet it’s not the life they’d choose.

Back in Plaça de Sant Jaume the bike tour starts. It takes us back to where I have wandered; to the cathedral, the film set, and onwards. I have a nice red bike with somewhat fat tyres; they could be fatter, but it could get silly. We ride further through the Barri Gotic like a sedated bike gang and stop for the odd story. Then like a true gang we are told to ride three abreast on busy roads and to completely take over our side of the street. We hold up traffic and have a few near misses with the batty motorcyclists that govern the local highways. It's fun and slightly exhilarating. I wish we looked like a proper gang; tourists are so pansy.

Key stops in the city centre included: the Ramon Berenguer Square, which is home to a large stretch of the old city wall and some big brass letters that say ‘BARCINO’; The Palau de la Música Catalana (Palace of Catalan Music) which was designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner Paula; and an eternal flame in Fossar de les Moreres, which is dedicated to those who died during an invasion on September 11th, 1714, in the Siege of Barcelona. It is pleasantly understated communal space

Do the Americans love the date symmetry? Of course they do. Will they compare Fossar de les Moreres with their own 09/11 memorial? I don’t know. Perhaps I should for them. On the one hand we have the Catalans. They have a small communal memorial square. In the square, a stone wall commemorates the dead; it bears an inscription of a poem which honours their sacrifice. A twenty foot steel arch holds a Bunsen burner-like flame over the street. It burns for the lost souls. It is soft and unobtrusive.
On the other hand, we have New Yorkers. Their memorial hasn’t been finished yet and their loss is much more recent. They are constructing a park; once more a communal space. In the footprints of the Twin Towers, there will be two man-made urban ponds. They will be filled by waterfalls that run from the edge of each watery square. Visitors will be able to descend to an underground memorial space.

So there we have it, two communal spaces with a soft feature to help visitors to contemplate a country’s loss. There may be 287 years, and many miles, between these two countries, that for many September 11th is a sad day, but they share so much. Oh sorry, I forgot something: The Freedom Tower.

New York’s Freedom Tower will stand some 1,776 feet above ground level, and will block out sunlight to half of city. I pretended to be an aeroplane there once, which gives me an idea. Instead of building a tower, they should erect statues of people with outstretched arms pretending to be aeroplanes and encourage visitors to do the same. I digress.

Following the Siege of Barcelona, the "Decretos de Nueva Planta" ("Decrees of the New Institution") abolished all Catalan laws and institutions, subjected the region to heavy taxation, and banned all public use of the Catalan language. It’s just what the Americans fear; most of all being robbed of the language they invented all by themselves: MSEnglish. The Catalan language was forbidden until the early nineteenth century, when it flourished once more. Harking back to the good old days, the draconian dictator Franco prohibited it once again from 1939-1975. He was a card.

The longstanding bike tour then took us to the Parc de la Ciutadella , where we saw the large temporarily inoperable fountain designed by you know who and a lesser known architect Josep Fontsere. It is apparently very nice when it’s working. We then rode on to the Arse de Trump (my local pooping arch), and northwards to the Sagrada Familia. On foot, I walked around the entire building. I like the cranes. They’re a good feature. It did look quite fun to climb the spires and peak out. We then rode down to Barceloneta beach and stopped for some tourism-enhanced lunch. I dined with an American pilot and a hairdresser from Coventry. It was dry cous cous with a bit of salad. How do they come up with it?

The favourite topic of our tour guide was the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1479. Isabella was the queen of Castile, so the marriage united the whole of Spain. Unfortunately for the Catalans, Isabella had the upper hand and Ferdinand was well and truly sat on. Isabella was the one who sent Columbus off to America, when all other nations had turned him down. She was a shrewd woman; or perhaps she was just lucky.

Isabella’s original plan had been to fill Columbo’s ships with prisoners and lose the whole goddamn lot of them - and a surplus of flasher macs - off the end of the world. Good riddance to bad detectives. Her dreams were not realised, but this is where the luck comes in. Columbo may have returned with his cigar and conceited manner in place, but he spoke of gold and the kind of riches that the Queen had only envisaged in her wettest and wildest dreams. Because Columbo had travelled with the Queen’s money, and the money of Castile (what’s mine is not yours Ferdinand), the Castiles were rich. As for the Catalans, they were later refused permission to trade in the New World, and were told to finish their cathedral first. If you’ve ever wondered who started the Spanish Inquisition; that was Isabella too. She was staunch Catholic and God demanded a lot of her.

It all worked out rather well until inbreeding killed off the royal family some two centuries later. Okay, perhaps not that well. Isabella was succeeded by her schizophrenic daughter, Joanna, who went completely mad after her philandering husband had shagged every woman in the Western Hemisphere. Good old Ferdinand, so sick of it all, poisoned his son-in-law and Joanna was locked up. Fortunately, any offspring from that kind of background is stable and well-balanced by default and then it really did work out well. Peace, stability and reluctant, but stable, leadership followed. All the same, marrying your first cousin is not to be recommended.

Poor old Charles II of Spain, descended from Joanna Schizoid a total of fourteen times - twice as a great-great-great grandson, and twelve times further - was fucked. He had so many multiple, severe disabilities, linked to inbreeding, that he was developmentally disabled, had a huge head, and could not chew his food properly. His aunt and his grandmother were one and the same. He was so deformed, that nature decided to put an end to all the silliness; and children were not to be. The collapse of his bloodline and the family’s habit of fucking their cousins led to the War of Spanish Succession. Those Habsburgs, eh? They liked to keep it in the family. Well, not long after that came September 11th, 1714, which was part of a very complicated war. The less said the better. On the bright side the 1714 incident did lead to Catalonia having a domestic market in Spain and later an overseas market in America, they just couldn’t use their own language to trade. It’s hard to understand why they make such a fuss.

I decided to head east in such of any long lost cousins. Wandering along Carrer de l’Arc del Teatre a homeless man lay sleeping on a window ledge. With each pace I saw increasingly levels of poverty and deprivation. With each pace I developed a more hardened expression in an attempt to blend in.

After a left turn, I soon found myself at Port de Barcelona. Huge luxury cruise ships lined the port’s harbour and I looked out of place amongst the sparsely distributed passengers mingling in the World Trade Centre terminal. I almost expected security to move me along. With familiarity, I could lose the fear of mugging on Carrer de l’Arc del Teatre, but I’m not sure that money will ever make me feel comfortable amongst the über–rich; born and breed into the upper echelons of greed.

Port Vell is perhaps more me. Or is it? Port Vell is another 1992 Olympics story. Before the Olympics, Port Vell was an old obsolete harbour, complete with empty warehouses, industrial buildings, refuse dumps and railroad yards. It is now a clean modern yacht basin and entertainment centre. It houses an IMAX cinema, the largest aquarium in Europe and a state of the art indoor shopping centre. I had little interest in any of the entertainment and I certainly didn’t want to waste my time abroad in shops, but the communal outside space did capture my imagination. In the water bobbed a porcelain white buoy in the shape of a young, contemplative man. A cable car tower stood silhouetted against the background. At certain angle the bouy and the tower were silhouetted together, with the cable cars moving across the skyline in perfect symmetry.

I turned round to find the Maremàgnum shopping complex and its unique exterior of mirrored surfaces. The sea, yachts and clean structural features of the port stood over me in a series of gently curving squares. By standing under the entrance I could see myself from up on high. Stood centrally in a square of my own, with the wooden slats of the port’s causeway as my background, I became a uniquely framed piece of art. I became more than many modern exhibitions at the Tate; and I a humble tourist. I walked back through the city, once again past Graffiti Che and his wonderful pink moustache. A film crew was at work in a shoe shop opposite the South American rebel.

A bath later, I walked those streets once again; this time with a companionable geek. It was dark and the streets in the Barri Gothic were wet and slippery following their nightly wash. Tourists are filthy buggers. We ate a fine meze at the Vegetalia Restaurant, followed by biscuits and a divine hot chocolate. On the way home we passed the Restaurant Colon. Oh, if only we had passed it earlier, we could have eaten like thread worms.