Part 3 (and more!)

So right, I’d left off my most recent tale of personal stupidity: missing my flight to Barcelona.

Well, having bought a new ticket my plan landed in Barcelona early on Saturday afternoon and I found the apartment I was ‘borrowing’ without too much trouble. It was deep in the gothic quarters and cute in an archaic Mediterranean fashion. I was very glad I would be sleeping alone since I have never hear a bed protest so much!

Having dropped my stuff I proceeded to explore. I first took a walk up to the hub of the gothic quarters and decided to go into a cathedral there, which was amazing! However, what I hadn’t realised was it was the La Seu Cathedral (famed from many a post card) until I exited and walked round the side of it and finally saw it from the front!

The streets of Barcelona are beautiful, and I just walked through them marvelling. I eventually made my way down Las Ramblas and walked along there for a while. Along the way I found a local supermarket. Now I have a strange love of going into supermarkets in different countries – it gives a far great insight into what cultures consume, what they eat, plus as a designer I love looking at different packaging and I like buying brands that I’ve never seen before.

From there I then stumbled onto the fresh produce market, which was sensory feast in every way. I’ve never seen such fabulous fruit displayed so enticingly – although it was almost so perfect you wouldn’t have wanted to buy any for fear of ruining the display. The seafood was unbelievable, although I felt a little sorry for the critters still snapping their claws. The meat was impressive, but a little grim, and being a touch squeamish I avoided trying to identify the ‘bits’, and the skinless heads, and staring eyes were even more unpleasant. There was also veggies, spices, dried fruits and nuts, juices and cheeses (mmm…cheese!) I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t even bring myself to choose something to buy, so I left with just a photo or two.

From there I went back to the apartment with my now aching feet. However, during my rest I had the cunning to check my flight details to Paris, which I had though was for the next afternoon. How wrong, I was! My flight was for the Sunday morning, giving me less that 24hrs in Barcelona!

I was (understandably I think) a little upset by this, especially since I’m a huge fan of Gaudi’s and I hadn’t even got to see any of his buildings by that late hour, having planned to use the Sunday morning to view them. A quick check of my guide book revealed that the only site open late enough for time to decently appreciate was Park Guell, which I set out for post-haste. A hasty 1.5km charge and I was at the park before sunset. It was truly spectacular, and fantastic to see how Gaudi’s organic architecture complemented both the plants and the greater landscapes of Barcelona. (I’m starting to think now I might need to create a gallery…)

The next morning, after having had the experience of dining alone in the middle of a crowded formal restaurant, and being chewed out by an anal retentive traffic cop who spoke only Catalonian, I took a final walk around Barcelona appreciating the quiet of an early Sunday morning.

The flight to Paris was pleasant and devoid of the rushed stress of my prior journeys. I arrived in good time, to bad weather, still nursing my disappointment at having to leave Barcelona so soon.

I’d purchased a two day travel pass for the Monday and Tuesday which I paid through the nose for, but it was for all the zones, not just the 1 to 3 I wanted to travel in, but I’d failed to specify that and this was Paris. Paris probably needs tourists, but it doesn’t mean the French feel any need to be nice to them, especially if they speak English. It being the Sunday though I decided just to buy a ticket to Chauteu des Hallet and walk to my hotel which didn’t seem too far off.

Well, it was further than I thought and the walk was a bit uninspiring. I was staying near Republic, which was useful, but there was very little special about the area. In fact, compared to what I’d left, and even central London, it was dull and unattractive. The only thing that really made me happy was that there was a local supermarket less than 30 meters from the hotel!

Okay, maybe that’s just my prejudice against the French, but nowhere else have I been made to feel that speaking English is a shame and I was therefore somewhat of a pariah. And I did attempt to say things in French, however my pronunciation needs more than a little work and my grammar was probably criminal. Oh, well.

Unfortunately the weather remained glum for my entire stay in Paris, and the tiny (mostly ignored) soul of a photographer that I possess wept at the awful lighting.

On the Monday I went to the Louvre (Yes, I saw the Mona Lisa, yes, it is somewhat over-hyped) which was fantastic. I walked on to Notre Dame which they’ve cleaned, so it’s frothy and cream rather than darkly sooty. Somehow this just doesn’t work for me, gothic cathedrals should be, well, gothic. The French are busy ‘restoring’ a hell of a lot of their buildings, and bridges, and it’s all wrong to me. Old buildings should look like that, old! How else are you supposed to spot that they’re the real deal and not some ‘period-style’ building? Oh, well, it’s their city I guess, they can ‘restore’ all the buildings that want to.

I walked around a little of left bank, which was cute but quiet and then headed back to the hotel. In the evening I went to the Pompidour Centre for Modern Art. It was really cool, and such an odd building. I didn’t like it at first, but after it got dark and it was lit up, it looked amazing – a Japanese space-aged box in metal and glass.

On the Tuesday I did a bit of shopping and ran into a fellow group of South Africans (you have no idea what a relief it was to hear people speaking English with such a familiar accent) who I chatted to for a bit; and then kept running into for the next couple of hours.

The highlight of the trip was going to the Eiffel tower that evening. I’d decided not to visit it during the day, since I had a sense that I’d be disappointed. Plus I’m always one for lights, the more lights the happier I am (err, ish) and the Eiffel tower is really just one MF’er of a Christmas tree. It was actually fantastic. So gorgeous by night, and what I hadn’t realised was that at 9pm the real show starts! They turn on the flashing lights, only for ten minutes mind, but it’s an amazing thing to see. Wonderful!

The next day I returned to London, relieved to no longer have to deal with Europeans with no respect for ‘no smoking’ signs in airport, and overwhelmingly grateful to be somewhere that I could understand and speak the local language!

That afternoon I was to catch a bus to the New Forest – however I’ll leave that final short bit for later.

At the moment I’m getting prepared to leave Cape Town once more. I’m driving up to Johannesburg tomorrow morning. As always I’m sad to leave my parents, but at the same time I’m excited about being back in Joburg.

Cape Town is magnificently beautiful, but the people here are a little cliquey and with the result it’s hard to meet people and make new friends. I’ve got a fair number of great friends here, but many of them have left and a lot more are in the process of going too. The social groups I was a part of in my student years are broken and the result is that I occasionally feel that I’m a bit of a ghost coming back to haunt the relics of my past.

And to top it all off I’ve been practically offered a rather good job here. The money’s good, and were I a patient sort of person the position would be excellent. I could work there for a year or two, get a really great solid portfolio of work behind me. Then move on, join a bigger agency, earn a bucket as a senior designer, and in a decade or so I’d be the creative director, running my own studio, terrorising the juniors.

However, I’m not patient, and that’s not really where I want to be in the long term – or that is I don’t think that’s where I want to be in the long term. Why don’t I have any friends I could fob this excellent opportunity off on?

Plus the jujitsu classes down here scare me a little.

Ah, well, I’ve got a weekend to make up my mind in, so I guess I’m going to make the best of it. We’ll see come Monday what conclusion I’ve come to.