Deb & J do Spain: A Comedy of Errors

Remember how Forrest Gump happened to find himself in historically significant moments, completely unintentionally? Well if you could do the reverse of that, where two clueless American tourists manage to totally miss historically significant moments that are right in front of their noses, that would be the story of me and J in Spain this past week.

Day 1 in San Sebastian (Donostia) - J commented that there were an inordinate number of people wearing red and white. Unobservant as usual, I hadn't noticed. When we got to our hotel room and turned the TV on, we realized the Running of the Bulls was going on in Pamplona, just a couple hours away from where we were! Damnit, que idiotas! How very lame that we happened to be in Spain during the Running of the Bulls and had just missed it.

Day 2 in Bilbao, where we arrived early evening after wasting away the day in San Sebastian just killing time - while walking around el Casco Viejo, we noticed a lot of people winding down after what appeared to be a music concert/art festival. Apparently there had been some huge music festival with bands including Jane's Addiction and Dave Matthews, and we had missed it by just a few hours. If only we had left San Sebastian in the morning for Bilbao. Damnit, que idiotas!

Day 3 in Barcelona - the original plan had been to visit Montserrat, a Benedictine monastery set in strangely shaped mountains and an important pilgrimage site in Catalunya, but ended up deciding to stay in Barcelona which ended up being a good idea since it poured cats and dogs for about 5 hours straight. Our hotel was having a 2 for 1 special on massages so we scheduled massages for the afternoon and after waiting out the rainstorm at Cuines Santa Caterina (my favorite bar/restaurant on planet earth) for the full five hours, we headed back to our hotel on the metro. When we emerged from the subway station, we found that the roads around Plaza Espanya were barricaded off for what we assumed was a parade. Turns out...it was the Tour de France!! So purely by chance, we ended up in the sidelines watching the Tour de France wizz by (I believe it was Day 6). But had we not scheduled our massages completely cluelessly for the late afternoon, we would have missed the Tour de France as well. Que idiotas!

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I am so sad that Spain has fallen from the high pedestal I had it on as the greatest country in the world. I was really disappointed in the ignorant racist people we encountered and my view of Spain is completely marred by the experiences. I still love Barcelona and Cuines Santa Caterina remains my happy place, but I don't idolize Spain anymore and don't think I'll be visiting again for at least a few years - too many places I'd rather go instead (Italy, Northern Africa, Southern Africa, South America, Croatia). But I'm truly saddened by how diminished Spain is in my eyes now - it's almost like if I had met Gandhi or Mother Teresa and found out they were frauds. My whole world view shifted, just a teeny bit.

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Only 10 days left before my move to Tokyo. My emotions re the move are too complex to sort through.