Tarragona 

This morning I got up and ran for the first time since I’ve been here, and let me tell you – it is not an easy thing to do on the sidewalks of Paseo de Grácia, smushed with too many tourists and locals alike.  But, I managed, and I made a friend along the way.  I was tired and sat down on the steps of a bookstore to rest when a woman in her late fifties and her dog, with the face of my dog, walked by.  The dog tried to eat my headphones and they walked on by me.  I must have looked depressed or lonely or something of the sort because the woman came back to talk to me.  We talked for about twenty minutes completely in Spanish. I know, I impressed myself, too.  She was by far the friendliest woman I’ve met since I’ve arrived.  She told me she loved Americans and loved life in the States.  She had lived in Los Angeles for eight years or eight months (I can’t remember), but either way she fell in love.  It just so happens that L.A. is my favorite city, too, and we immediately bonded.  She said she moved back to the Cataluña (where, according to her, the people love Americans!) with her family.  I asked her if she had kids.  She had none.   I gestured to the dog, Linda, and she agreed: Linda was her baby.  She picked her up and plopped her puppy over her shoulder to demonstrate for me how they danced when her boyfriend wasn’t at home.  She had been divorced, and when I asked her if they had plans to get married, she just laughed and told me she liked me and my enthusiasm.  And she liked me for thinking she was young enough to get married again.  I never knew there was an age limit on marriage but apparently there is some understood rule.  She made me feel loads better about the mentality of the people here; now don’t get me wrong – I love this city!  But I think, due to the language barrier, it is difficult to encounter people that I can relate to.  But today I found one.  Her boyfriend passed by with loot from a grocery store excursion, and he put it all down to enthusiastically shake my hand (my hand because I am American) and without more than two words he scurried away.  “He’s shy,” the woman giggled.  I cheek-kissed the woman and her dog tongue-kissed me, and we went our own ways.

 

Today we went to Tarragona, an ancient city of ruins from the Roman Empire that are still being excavated today.  My mom took the Metro to the train station, which we had difficulty finding.  Fortunately, we ran into Bernhard on his way to the train, which he would take to the airport.  He was our guide, and to return the favor we offered to help him with his luggage, but he refused.  When we reached the staircases, however, we could tell that he regretted that refusal, so we took his bags anyway.  How fortunate that we ran into each other!  We bought our tickets and made it in the train only to find that the train system worked similarly to the Metro system: you stand up if there aren’t enough seats.  So we stood up for an hour on a moving train and made it to our destination of Tarragona.  What a beautiful town it was!  The water was clear, the air was warm, and the sky was bluer than the regular sky-blue.  There were not many people and too many cats.  (But I don’t mind –I like cats.) We saw a Roman amphitheater and a museum filled with way too many artifacts things to write about.  At first, we thought that the first floor was the entire museum and we were slightly disappointed.  Then we realized there were four floors.  We learned a lot today.  As the Spanish tell the account, Tarragona was one of the stops on the Apostle Paul’s missionary journey.  Could we have walked today where Paul walked almost two thousand years ago?

 

As a result of the heat, we let the appeal of the water get to us and made our way to the beach, where we saw around ten women over sixty-five dressed in flamenco outfits.  It was a good thing I decided to wear a swimsuit underneath my clothes this morning, just in case.  When we were ready to return, we were fortunate enough to get on a train with plenty of seats, so we could enjoy sitting down without feeling the guilt of watching others stand up.  You never appreciate just sitting until you have to stand in an isle of a train for over an hour.

 

Well we are home now, but I am writing this in the dark due to our building’s power outage. I will post this when we regain power and Internet.  ¡Hasta mañana!