SALAD DAYS

I really don't know what the recommended RDI for olive oil is, but I've surely passed my monthly quota in 3 days.

Despite the shuttle too-ing and fro-ing that a "cheap" low-budget airline flight involves (which becomes progressively less cheap once you tack on all the shuttle fares), plus the guilt of the carbon miles (am I redeemed cos I don't own a car?), my mental health is thanking me, though whining a bit that I couldn't stay longer.

During my final years of study at uni a couple of years ago, one of my many part time jobs was in a library. I remember coming across a big blue book on Gaudi, who'd I'd never heard of before, and at once I developed an intense interest in organic architecture and a strong compulsion to visit Barcelona. I couldn't help thinking back to this moment, when my impulses demanded I see these buildings someday, as I wandered round the sights of this city. The sun was shining, the olive oil was flowing, and Spain was already well into its strawberry glut (I could go on about the food here at length).
Well, essentially monuments were explored, sites were visited, garbled Spanish was attempted and I sucked it up and played tourist for a couple of days, abandoning all self-delusion that I was a traveller, pounding the pavements of the earth with my beat up sneakers, sleeping on buses, wearing my cruddiest clothes, not following my map, writing in a moleskine journal in some existentially cool cafe, not wearing my watch, not photographing everything in my path...Nup, I was a bona fide unapologetic sellout. And so, I forget pretty much everything I learned in that 16 week Spanish course, apart from how to say hello and order coffee. But at least I got to Spain. Forgot my bloody sunglasses though.

2 comments

  1. So how did you like the Gaudis?

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  2. ooo! loved the Gaudiness :D Did a rooftop wander of la pedrera at sunset, perfect timing, great colours!

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