This year I had the chance to visit Europe with the wifey. It was more like an exploration visit to find a city we would love to visit again.
Paris was nice and cliche. I think everyone should go there see the fashion on the streets and the designer shops and climb the Eiffel tower and go on the River Siene. Still, the city was so touristy and almost too well planned.
Rome had a lot of fine buildings but that was it. I don’t know how that city once ruled the world. Now the people there look so ordinary and all they’re left with are their impressive buildings and the Colosseum. Seeing the arena at the Colosseum was nice though. I didn’t know before then that the word arena was derived from the Latin for sand.
I think our favorite city was Barcelona. The food was a bit closer to what we were used to! Meat! In abundance! Not like the small cubes of meat presented in other restaurants with the name Meat Special on the menu. If you see a Brazilian restaurant anywhere please empty your stomach and go in and pay whatever they ask you to pay. Eat whatever they set before you too. I had the chance to taste croc meat and it was just awesome. (Please it was just there, like roasted chicken).
Why did we love Barcelona? We went on the guided bus tour. We went to the aquarium. We saw the Flamenco!!! The inhabitants of Barcelona didn’t speak much English. Even the helpers and staff in uniforms didn’t understand us much. Google maps was all over the place in Spanish. On one occasion we were on a high speed train out of the city when we realized that we must be going the wrong way. It was so funny because the maps were all finished and the other people in the train could communicate with us only using sign language. After lamenting the lack of English education in the country (very high level of unemployment in Spain) we laughed about it and consoled each other.
The level of depression in the country was a bit palpable. There were no fancy fashion exploits on the streets like we saw in Paris. We began to appreciate the value of football as a unifying beacon of hope for the country. Like Rome, Spain was truly a shadow of what we’d read it was. Still, when it was time to leave we found it difficult to drag ourselves away and promised we’d be back.
Traveling is good for the soul.
See y’all tomorrow people.
There’s a way of life that looks harmless enough;
look again––it leads straight to hell.
(Prov. 14 vs. 12, The Message)
19th Street 