La Policia Guapa

Hello, distant readers, and what it long time it's been! How the days add up when you're on vacation with no responsibilities in a city where even the toddlers stay up until 3am. It's 12:21am here and Mark and I just finished eating dinner. Which would be weird except six other people in our hostel are just now MAKING dinner.

I'll stop driving you mad with Mediterranean jealousy and start filling you in on our Mediterranean adventures:

SUNDAY:

We Metroed our way to Park Guell, a public park designed by Gaudi, Barcelona's favorite Modernist architect. Picture gatehouses that look like they were made from dripping candy canes, stone walls with more mosaics than stones, and excellent views of the city. Oh, and approximately 8.3 million tourists. We meandered and listened to the many musicians populating hidden corners, then headed back to our hostel to get ready to go out and perform.

Remember all that translation work we did? This was the day to try it out. We spent the Metro ride quietly reciting such common Spanish phrases as, “There are still front row seats available,” and, “I will now balance this bicycle on my face!”

We set up in the plaza outside La Catedral, that 14^th century church we've been known to frequent. The plaza was full of people, and all we had to do to get a crowd was unpack and set up our suitcase. We did two shows there, not our best ever, but definite improvements. Interesting fact to note: Turns out many tourists don't speak English OR Spanish. We had volunteers from Holland and France, and audience members from Poland and Portugal, but very few people we could actually communicate with.

Speaking of communicating without words, after our second show, we were standing behind our suitcase drinking some water when a police car (Guardia Urbana) started cruising past. We desperately avoided eye contact, but when they were directly in front of us, Mark turned to look. He says that the car held the ONE overweight policeman in Barcelona (all they rest are super-buff babes, sometimes with saucy berets on). All the man had to do was waggle his finger out the window in the international sign of “Oh no you don't” and we knew. Time to move on.

It was getting dark, but we moved to just outside the church of Santa Maria del Mar (another beautiful ancient building). Much smaller space, and a different type of crowd – not as desperate to see all the official sights, more excited to sit and eat gelato on a bench after dinner. We did one show there and everyone was lovely. Interesting fact to note: During the show, two policemen on motorcycles cruised down the sidewalk. We just kept going, and so did they! Five minutes later, they cruise back past us, ignoring the fact that one of us was juggling knives on the other's shoulders. Mark thinks maybe they had bigger fish to fry that day.

MONDAY:

Mark and I took a day trip to Montserrat (along with those same 8.3 million tourists). Montserrat is a mountain about 1 ½ hours outside the city with a famous monastery almost at the top. We took a cable car up to the monastery (which now also has a little museum, shops, a hotel, restaurants, and information centers surrounding it), and then walked up up up a trail to visit a couple of the hermit refuges hidden up near the peaks. The tourists thinned the higher we went, although we did run into a pair of Russians in mini-dresses and heels pretty far into the wilds. Everything was beautiful: the views, the weather, the refuges, the Russians.

Once we climbed down, we went into the monastery’s basilica. It was a wonderful combination of old and new. Ancient statue of Mary carved out of wood – Pieta painting from 1998 that has Mary and Jesus floating above the mountains. Pretty cool stuff.

And at night, we stayed up far too late in a park with some other travelers from our hostel playing a game that involved flipping a coin and saying the word “banana” at the end of every statement. Don't ask banana.

TUESDAY:

We had to move again, since our hostel was full. So much for not making too many reservations beforehand, *cough* Mark *cough*. Now we're in a nice place, quiet, with cute flower table clothes and a little windowless cave room in the basement that stays dark as long as you want it to. We spent the morning moving, and took our time in the afternoon getting ready to go out.

To make a redundant story short, we did another show by Santa Maria del Mar. Police rolled up near the end, stopped, and when we finished our hat pitch, I gave the hat to Mark and went over to talk to them. Unfortunately, I did not successfully carry out my plan to start crying. Fortunately, these two policemen were of the buff babe variety. They asked me if I could understand, I confirmed, and they proceeded to tell me about how this was illegal, blocked the street, etc, and if they came back again and we were doing it, they'd take our stuff. I'm not sure how I understood this all in Spanish – probably some sort of police telepathy. I apologized, we left, and (after a quick falafel pick-us-up) moved to Barceloneta, the nearest city beach.

We set up on a wide pedestrian avenue, no cars for yards and yards. We did 3 successful shows, slowing drawing a crowd from the people walking to and from the beach. During the last show, a police car cruised by, but didn't mind at all. Inconsistent reinforcement is worse than no reinforcement at all. We'll be headed back there tomorrow.

Above picture: The van is Port Authority, not police, but we didn't want to alert them either, so we pretended we were just taking pictures. Needless to say, we were relieved when they left.

OH, BY THE WAY:

On Thursday, we're taking a ferry to Roma. Change of plans! I can't wait. Mark is practicing his Latin. From there, Cinque Terre, Ferrara, and Poland. Andiamo!