Laura Cornelius
Life on the Road
Barcelona: Pickpockets, Paella and Being 15!
So, we made it to Barcelona and to Day 4 of the Main Event. I wasn't sure we'd get there at one point, but after Days 1a and b, suddenly this huge tournament started flowing fluidly and now the end is nearly upon us. Barcelona is such a fantastic city, so vibrant and alive, I just wish I had a little longer to soak up the atmosphere and dance my socks off at a crazy all-night party, because I'm sure there's many of them lurking in dark mysterious corners all around the city.
So, although I have been to Spain numerous times in my life, I had only been to Barcelona once before. I was 15 on a school exchange with my friend, Lucy. The point of a school exchange is that you swap with someone in another school in another country and stay with their family, while they stay with yours. This would have been fine, but the family we stayed with, didn't have any children and were quite an elderly couple. They were extremely sweet, but I don't think they were expecting a pair of adolescent 15 year old girls who wanted to escape them and try and sneak into bars and clubs. Trust me, we did it at home and if the bouncer wouldn't let us in, we'd take 20 minutes, swap coats, change our hair and try again. It usually worked second time around.
This is Lucy and I, be it about 7 years after the event I'm talking about, but Facebook wasn't around back then!! We're still good friends now.
So, we tried sneaking out one night in Barcelona (this was back in 1997) to get found out by a teacher and given one hell of a telling off. The elderly couple lived just off Las Ramblas and as we were now resided to their constant babysitting, they took us everywhere with them. You might think they would have showed us round Gaudi's museums and taken us to the beach. But no, for some reason each day we had to go to the hospital to visit an elderly friend of theirs. Now the couple could not speak any English, and though Lucy and I were in Barcelona to help our Spanish, it didn't necessarily mean we were any good at it either, so most of our communication with the couple and their sickly friend was done in hand actions and mime. You could say it was a funny week. Not at the time mind. Lucy and I got so bored one night, locked away, having been force-fed paella that we nearly threw-up, we practiced make-up on each other and decided to try on every garment the other had brought in their suitcase. This included knickers and bras. We knew then we'd never forget that week, because we barely saw any of Barcelona except for that bedroom we got locked in!
This time around it has been different and I got to see pretty much all of Barcelona in one day! Here's that whistle-stop tour for you!
You'll notice in the video I make a particular reference to the pickpockets in Barcelona. If you're heading out here anytime soon, please do make note. I've heard three stories just today of people having their bags or belongings stolen. I'm not sure whether he'll mind me saying this but one of those people was Jake Cody. News got around fairly fast in the media room when we found out poor Jake had gone skinny dipping with some friends the other night, to get out of the water and find all of his clothes, money, phone and passport all gone from where he left them on the beach. That walk back to the hotel must have been a bit of a laugh, stark b*@!k naked. I think he's over it now anyway. Then our Dutch media friend had the same thing happen to him the following night, he was in swimming shorts mind, so his journey back to the hotel wasn't quite as embarrassing.
So the play is wrapping up here on Day 4 pretty early as it hasn't taken too long to play from 24 down to 8. The Final Table looms tomorrow, but for now, well of course, I'm off to the beach for a swim!
