From Spain to Portugal, Part I

Four luggage-toting, English-speaking girls were on the same Metro car that I was riding in. We all got off at Plaça Espanya, and I approached one of them to ask if they were heading to the airport. Not only were they going to the airport, but they were flying to Portugal. The girl I spoke to asked what I was going to do there, and when I told her about the Habitat for Humanity build she said that she'd done a couple Habitat builds herself, and so had her traveling companions. She introduced herself as Katie, she had long dark hair and walked with a limp, the result of recently twisting her ankle in the stairwell of a youth hostel. Accompanying her was Nikki, who had a short red bob of hair; Meghan, who wore glasses and had her hair in a ponytail that hadn't been pulled through all the way, leaving a loop that looked like a teacup handle; and Adrienne, who had blonde hair and spoke fluent Spanish. They were college friends who'd met in Spain a handful of years ago during their junior year abroad, and had planned this vacation together as a kind of reunion. Adrienne had taken the bus into the city from the airport on arrival, so she knew where to find it.

We installed ourselves at the bus stop, and chatted. They had a number of suitcases between them, which they leaned up against the wall of the bus shelter. I wore my backpack, it was helping to block the wind that was coming off the street. After a few minutes a car pulled up to the bus stop and the driver rolled down the passenger side window to ask something. Adrienne approached the car, but even with her fluency she didn't understand what the man wanted. After a moment she shrugged her shoulders and the car drove off. A few minutes later a man crossed the street in a brisk trot and approached us, pointing to his eyes and speaking quickly. He'd been sitting in a bar across the street and had witnessed as someone had walked past us and stolen a bag while we were distracted by the driver.

A cold sensation ran down the length of my spine. I checked my belongings: my backpack was still on me, and none of the zippers had been opened; my pacsafe purse was still around my neck, unopened; and my secret wallet that held my passport and ticket was secure under my clothes. The girls looked around and quickly realized that Katie's purse was missing. She'd lost her passport but her cash, credit cards, drivers license, airline ticket, camera and cell phone were all in a separate bag. The group strategized on the best course of action as Katie stared at a fixed point in the distance trying to remember what else had been in her purse: a pair of glasses, a set of headphones, her social security card and a package of birth control pills.

The bus arrived, and we piled in. I sat across from Katie and told her the story of how I'd once been pick-pocketed in Paris, losing everything of value except my passport. Adrienne told me that on an earlier leg of this trip someone had stolen her suitcase from a train going from Brussels to Amsterdam, the thief ended up with all her clothing but no valuables.

We parted ways at the airport, we were on the same flight but my ticket was bought through Spanair and theirs was on TAP Portugal so we had different check-in locations. The line moved slowly, there was only one Spanair window open and at least 20 people in line. When my turn came I presented my information to the handsome, dark-haired man at the window, who informed me that my flight had been canceled. I asked him to clarify, hoping that I'd missed some vital piece of information. I got the same explanation and was told to check with the TAP Portugal ticketing window at the end of the terminal. My pulse quickened, the trip leader from Habitat was due to meet me and everyone else who'd signed up for the project at the Porto airport in a couple hours, and I didn't have her contact information. I found the TAP Portugal ticketing window, where Katie sat barefoot on the floor nursing her bruised ankle, Nikki and Meghan guarded a pile of luggage, and Adrienne was speaking to a ticketing agent.

Adrienne explained that what I'd understood as canceled really meant that I'd gotten to the check-in window less than an hour before the flight was due to take off, and anyone who tried to check in under that time was automatically denied access to the plane. I'd gotten there with 55 minutes to go.

There are moments in every international travel experience when I am taken out of my comfort zone and reminded of my inescapable American-ness, they range from the banal - going to McDonald's and finding no ice or napkins, to the unintentionally hilarious - reporting my lost wallet in a Paris police station and asking to use the bathroom, to find that the facilities consist of a drain at the bottom of a depression in the floor, three feet from a wooden bench festooned with a pair of locked handcuffs. My American moment in Barcelona had arrived: if this had been Chicago the time limit for checking in would have been 30 minutes before takeoff, and if by some chance I'd missed that deadline I would have been put on a standby list for the next flight. As it turns out, flying standby is an American construct - the only option available was to purchase new tickets on the next flight Porto. The ticket pricing structure also felt distinctly foreign, the price first offered to Adrienne had been €694, but seemingly it depended on how many of us were trying to get on the flight - if just one of us wanted to fly to Porto it would cost €57 but the next ticket might be more expensive.

The process of looking up new flights involved a lengthy inspection passports and travel documents, and performing what seemed to be a deep search on a computer, so Meghan left the group and momentarily reappeared with a bottle of red wine and four plastic cups she'd bought from an airport concession stand. There was one ticketing agent serving the five of us, and every once in a while someone else would get in line and the agent would ask if we minded if that person were served ahead of us, as their request was likely to be simpler. The next flight on TAP Portugal wasn't for another six hours and the ticketing agent had our passports, so we acquiesced every time.

Aside from a reservation at a youth hostel in Porto, my new-found friends didn't have a deadline for getting there, so they opted to rent a car at €89 per day and drive the roughly 560 miles between Barcelona and Porto using only a Hertz map and their collective wits. I was invited to join them. My flight options were a €57 flight to Lisbon in the early evening and a €20-€30 train ride up the coast, or a €191 flight to Porto the following morning. Part of me really wanted to join those girls on their journey across Spain, but I had no idea when I'd actually arrive at my destination; with the flight to Lisbon at least I had a shot at arriving the same day. We parted ways for the last time, and for reasons that I cannot explain I shook their hands. It felt awkward even before I raised my forearm and extended my hand out to the first of them, but although our brief time together had been traumatic I wasn't sure if it called for hugging. I watched them longingly as they made their way out of the terminal to the Hertz rental office, certain that theirs would be a more enjoyable journey than mine.

Barcelona Part II - Mara, Gaudí, and Salty Tea

When I'd emailed Mara asking if there was anything she wanted from the states, she'd requested a decent can opener. I brought the OXO Good Grips can opener from my own household. I took it out of my bag when I passed through security at the Brussels airport, where it was appraised by an x-ray examiner and handed to a supervisor before being returned to me. Throughout the process no words were exchanged, just points and nods indicating that the tool belonged to me, and that I had been cleared to continue my travels with it. I fished it out of my backpack and proudly handed it to Mara, and her eyes widened. "Let me show you what passes for a can opener in this country," she said, and opened a kitchen drawer full of tools. She sifted through the drawer's contents and produced a metal key-like object that reminded me of something a cartoon hobo might use to pry open a hole in a discarded can of beans. I was happy to present her with a hostess gift that was so simple, and that was once part of my own kitchen.

Mara served me a huge bowl of seafood and rice, and we caught up with each other in her living room. We've known each other since high school; we met at a youth program in upstate New York at a Quaker retreat center called Powell House, it drew from a wide base of schools from New York City and the tri-state area, but we've only seen each other a couple times since then. We didn't live far from each other in Brooklyn, and outside of the monthly youth conferences we attended, we spent time together on weekends. It was easy for me to lose touch with people back then; there was no Internet, cell phones, email or facebook, and once people went to college - unless their family stayed in the same place, it was easy to lose people to the sands of time. I was one of the worst offenders; my family moved from New York to Boston, I transferred from a college near Boston to one in Chicago, and if that weren't enough to throw the scent off everyone's trail I took my husband's name. The magic that is facebook reconnected me to Mara a couple years ago, and we'd emailed each other and chatted on IM, finally seeing each other in person last May for a couple hours in New York. Aside from being heavily pregnant, Mara looks exactly as she did years ago, and has the same unsurprised expression and mannerisms that had seemed so precocious on her as a teenager.

I managed to clear my plate during the brief moments that I wasn't talking or breathing, and we left the apartment to Mara's husband and sleeping two year-old daughter, walking a couple blocks to a local bar where I couldn't help noticing that patrons were smoking indoors. It was past 10 on a weeknight, but the neighborhood showed no signs of slowing down or getting ready for bed. We discussed the health care debate in the US, and the fact that the current situation seriously precludes Mara from considering a long-term home-leave; throughout both of her Barcelona-based pregnancies she has never seen a doctor bill. She told me that recently doctors have started showing patients a record of services rendered and their associated costs so that people will begin to understand what a deal they're getting, but there's basically no such thing as having to pay for the doctor unless you opt out of the public health system and pay for a private doctor. I let my mind wander for a minute to consider what life would be like in the US under such a system. While I was still daydreaming about affordable health care for all, Mara told me that American movies and TV shows that feature a storyline about parents starting a college fund as soon as their child is born come across as unrealistic to Spaniards because nobody has to take out school loans to get an education in Spain. I began to wonder why we all don't live there.

When we got home I was surprised to see that it was past 1am. Mara's husband, born and raised in Barcelona, had insisted that a space heater be rolled into the guest room. I appreciated the gesture, but 17 years of Chicago winters have pretty much made me immune to November temperatures in northern Spain. "Don't be too proud to use it," he said to me with a completely serious expression on his face. I slept until after 10, which would have made me feel slovenly, but Mara said it would prepare me for the Spanish eating schedule.

Mara's is a tea drinking household, I fixed myself a cup and brought the warm mug to my lips. For a nanosecond I wasn't sure what had gone wrong with the briny brew that was hitting the roof of my mouth, and quickly realized that I'd poured a heaping teaspoon of salt from what looked like a sugar bowl into my Earl Grey. I ran to the kitchen sink and spat, if nothing else I was certainly awake. I started over, using honey this time.

Mara had work to do, so I got some hints on places of interest to check out on my own. Paranoid or not, Mara told me to be careful of pickpockets. "They love Burt's Bees," she teased as I applied a layer of lip balm.

The next four days were a blur of sensation: I was entranced by the Mercat de la Boquería and its endless stalls of vendors selling everything from jamón ibérico, bacallà and mushrooms to whole rabbits hanging upside down, still covered in fur; overwhelmed by Gaudí's Sagrada Família, still under construction, and the Casa Batlló and Pedrera apartment buildings, with their undulating geometric forms inspired by nature; enchanted by Joan Miró and his journey from canvas to sculpture; and I couldn't stop ordering fresh squeezed orange juice and café con leche whenever I could. I ran my dirty clothes through Mara's whisper-quiet front loading washer, and clipped them to lines outside her windows on multi-colored clothespins, where they blended in with the rest of the neighborhood's laundry. I stared at the Spanish keyboard of Mara's laptop trying to figure out how to type the @ symbol, and felt like I'd accomplished something when I succeeded. When she was able to, Mara joined me on my expeditions, showing me parts of the Gothic Quarter I would never have found on my own. We went to the zoo with her daughter, where the big star was the Catalan donkey that was photographed with children and adults alike, and a display of sewer rats had the words "unwanted but necessary" above their habitat by way of explanation. I began to understand the lexicon of Mara's young daughter, who likes to eat master potatoes and ham trees for dinner (mashed potatoes, ham and broccoli) and has a fascination with elephants. I learned a tiny bit about the history of Catalunya, and wondered what it might be like to have officially recognized minority languages in my own country; Spain has several: Catalan, Basque, Galician and Aranese. Traveling in the US I've often felt as if there were more than one nation contained within its vast borders, I'd be interested to know how many languages are spoken by the 300 million people who call it home.

Barcelona Part I - Arrival

I made the twenty minute journey by train from Nimes to Montpellier where I was due to connect to a train to Barcelona. In the Montpellier station a list of train departures on a screen indicated that several had been delayed; next to my train departure the word supprime appeared. I only knew the word in the context of email, if I delete an email it becomes supprime. I didn´t quite understand that this meant my train had been canceled until an announcement spoken in French went over the PA system telling ticket holders bound for Barcelona to board the train heading to Perpignan, and switch trains at Narbonne. I went to the designated track, where people laden with bags were jammed into the entryway of the train. After asking if it was okay to take an empty seat - some trains have seating assignments, I squeezed my way into a car filled with rowdy adolescents. Across from me a dark-eyed teenager wearing heavy eyeliner called her parents on a cell phone to tell them she´d be arriving late, and a woman who must have been related to one of the teenagers made a particularly loud boy move from the back of the car and sit next to her. He plead innocence, repeating that it wasn´t him, it was his friends who were being so loud.

The train inched along, stopping at towns with names like Sete, Agde and Beziers. I kept an ear out for Norbonne, I had no idea how far it was or how many stops came before it. The train came to complete stops when fast moving trains approached on parallel tracks, causing the windows to shake, and sending the same jolt down my spine that I get if I press my face up to an aquarium facing right only to have a shark sneak up on me from the left.

At Narbonne the train to Barcelona was conveniently located across the platform; I took my assigned seat in a berth next to two English speaking men drinking Mahou beer. One of them was round and balding, the other thin and full-haired, and from their discussion it seemed they were heading to Barcelona on business. The PA system broadcasted announcements in French and Spanish until we reached the border, an unmanned expanse of railyard where the train stood for fifteen minutes in the dark. After a mighty chunk noise that rattled the whole train, we inched towards the first town across the border, where passport control came through the train. From then on the PA announcements were in Catalan and Spanish.

As the train made its approach into Barcelona-Estació de França, I made sure that my secret wallet was secure under my clothing, and that my pacsafe purse was snug against me. 500 grams of Swiss chocolate wasn´t the only gift dad had given me in France, he´d also passed on the gift of paranoia. Initially we´d planned on meeting in Spain, but dad insisted that recent ETA activity made it dangerous, and emailed me a link to an article in Frommers that named Barcelona the world´s top locale for pickpocketing. When I wrote to my friend Mara asking if ETA affected her daily life in Barcelona, she answered in two words: "um, no." I figured as much, but pickpocketing is high on my list of things to be afraid of, having lost a good chunk of money, two credit cards and my drivers license in one fell swoop during the first half hour of a visit to Paris a few years ago. I probably grew from the experience, but its not one I want to repeat.

Mara had sent me walking directions from the station, I marked the route on a map and committed as much of it to memory as possible; I didn't want to risk looking like a vulnerable tourist in the dark. I navigated the narrow, colorfully lit streets from the train station, passing through the Ribera, crossing La Rambla and walking into El Raval, the new scenery enveloping my senses as if in a dream. After about 15 minutes I found Mara's apartment building on Carrer d'En Roig, and pressed the buzzer. Her familiar voice came through the speaker, and she buzzed me in. I climbed the three flights of stairs to her apartment, where she stood in the doorway, beaming and eight months pregnant.