The Writers' Circle

I was never really a fan of walking in my 'youth' (I refer to the pre-fifteen era as my 'youth', as since then I have come to terms with a lot of delayed maturing). In fact, any walk longer than the jaunt to the local restaurant was utterly despised, and jaunts to see old buildings were even more pointless. It's a shame I saw so many incredible things in this stage of my life, because I really didn't appreciate or approve of any presence that had interfered with my day, even if it was inconceivably ancient. 

For this and various other reasons, I don't like the person I happened to be in my 'youth', as she made me miss out on such precious moments all because she couldn't be bothered with the journey there. Unfortunately, my appreciation seems to have followed a parabolic pattern and I have, in some respects, regressed to stage one once again. When I was twelve and looking upon the Acropolis, I was wishing I was somewhere else- namely the local taverna, and when I was sixteen and looking at Gaudi's façade in Barcelona, I was once again wishing I was somewhere else- namely the Acropolis. The façade was very beautiful, and epic in many ways, but it lacked the depth of history with which I had become intimately associated. Above all else, it held very little meaning for me; there were Japanese tourists around me, snapping thousands of pictures of something I just didn't get. 

As anyone who knows me will know, I am a somewhat accomplished traveller yet am a constant victim of travel sickness and thus am an extremely nervous passenger. Anyone in a similar predicament can sympathise. Indeed, I remember one young man sitting next to me on the flight home from Washington after my college choir had performed there for Independence Day. Being very vaguely acquainted with him as a member of the supporting band, I assumed that silence was probably the best policy to adopt, as in such a case I would be less likely to annoy him. However, he turned to me before we took off and said, 'if you get frightened, you can grab hold of my arm, I don't mind.' Of course, I was very confused (and somewhat flattered) and accepted his offer graciously, hoping there would be no cause to exercise this liberty. Unfortunately it was a very rough flight. Needless to say, he didn't extend the same comfort on the connecting flight from Stanstead.in fact; I do believe he made a point of avoiding me entirely from that point onwards.

Of course, very little on the 'Barcelona Vacation' went as planned and the mild displeasure and disappointment I felt at the foot of the façade may have been triggered by previous events. We got onto the right aeroplane, landed in the right airport, but that was about the extent of our luck. The first disaster in waiting was finding the ruddy city; it took us about an hour to locate Barcelona in our rent car, and about two hours of driving around the streets. I'd taken a few of my 'travel sickness pills' (I call them this with cynicism) and thus I was torn between feeling very drugged and drowsy and feeling very sick. Eventually, I had suffered all the travel sickness I could endure and threatened to vomit down my mother's back if my father didn't park up there and then. Sure enough, within seconds we were trying to manoeuvre the tank into a small space in an endless row of cars. Deciding to leave the car unattended, we strapped our rucksacks onto our backs and set out with a very large map of the city in front of us, looking like bewildered tourists. 

This very rarely happens.
 
Usually, my family can blend in with the Mediterranean milieu using their good looks, natural charm, relaxed persona and soft tan. I, however, am slightly more conspicuous as very few natives tend to melt under the sun's scrutiny, fewer still sport an attractive collage of lobster pink and white on their arms and legs, and even fewer have a green mark across the top of their nose from copious amounts of sweat corroding their sunglasses. Unsurprisingly, I was not unnerved by the whole situation in the way the rest of my family were. as I am well used to looking like a reject from camp 'socks and sandals'. 
After some dodgy map reading and about forty minutes of weaving our way between beer merchants and drunkards on some very narrow streets, we found ourselves looking upon the right address. Whether that was good news or not remained to be seen: This street was dark and empty apart from the putrid smell of urine; the frowning houses admonished anyone who happened to walk past. 

"You! 'Usher'?" A voice seemed to come from the sky, I spent a moment contemplating that this mess may be God punishing us personally and now he was planning on gloating about it, until I realised that a man was hanging out of a window a few floors up. "Yes." My Dad replied, trying to locate the source of the voice, still not realising where the man was. "Moment!" The man disappeared from view, after a few minutes he was holding the door open, ruffling my little sister's curly mass of hair and leading us up a winding path of stairs. It soon became clear why it took him a few minutes to get down to us, despite only being the second floor; the walk up involved negotiating uneven and slanting steps with our rucksacks on. Not being the most co-ordinated of people at the best of times, it took me twice as long to reach the apartment as everyone else, so I missed the free of charge tour. However, judging by the state of the apartment, it was probably for the best. 

The accommodation opened into a main corridor, which seemed to be perfectly amicable, although there was a rather dark and dubious tunnel-like passage to the right. On the immediate left was a large sitting room with two sofas, one of which converted into a bed, and a cabinet sported a dusty tape player with a variety of tapes by old men wearing sombreros. The main bedroom was larger than the sitting room in accordance with an exceptionally large bed. Unfortunately, the size of the bed couldn't hide the whitewash on the walls or the cracked floor-tiles. If we hadn't been on the second floor in the middle of a city, I could have sworn it had once been a barn of some form. Next on the right was a bathroom, complete with mouldy shower and a toilet which sounded a foghorn every time you flushed, so much so I was ashamed when I had to use the contraption because I was sure everyone in the block could hear. 

My Dad dismissively pointed me through to a guest room on the right at the end of a corridor, muttering something about my little sister Sarah using the couch in the living room. It felt somewhat surreal to go from a barn straight into the spare room of a haunted house, the moonlight spilled through a large window onto the bed. The only other thing besides the metal bed frame was the wardrobe. Despite checking about four times, I was still unable to reassure myself that there was not a chainsaw killer hiding in it somewhere or perhaps a white witch trying to break through from Narnia. I took the duvet and moved it to the sitting room, resting my form on the sofa further away from the door, working on the premise that if a chainsaw killer did decide to murder us I would hear him murder someone else first and I would have chance to climb out of the window and shimmy down the streetlamp outside. What I would do after this act of intelligent cowardice would have to remain a mystery until the situation arose. 
Fortunately, it has yet to occur.

We slept until noon, a fairly bad omen as we are usually up for ten on such sight seeing holidays. We dressed quickly, eager to get the day moving. This was pulled to a rather dramatic halt as we made our way to the car to retrieve some belongings. Alas, as we made our way to said road, the endless row of cars had disappeared.including our own vehicle. 

This made things slightly more complicated, not least of all because I was perplexed about what aliens may want with such an old and cranky car. My father, thankfully, did not share my train of thought and concluded fairly rapidly that it had been towed away.  This had never happened to us before, so we didn't have a clue about what to do. All we could do was ask. The old man seemed to understand English well enough, indeed, he persisted to aid us in a great and enthusiastic flow of Spanish and hand gestures. A little frightened by his eagerness, we mumbled our 'Gracias' and trundled on our way, following the map to the location he had pointed out. 

After about two hours walk along some very hot and busy main roads, and by some miracle, the destination he had offered proved to be the destination we were seeking. Behind a metal counter in the midst of the petrol fumes, sat a very formidable looking man, with a black tweaked moustache and a sense or dry cruelty glinting from his eyes. He was evidently a man who enjoyed his work as he gave a beaming yet crooked smile as we approached him. "You have car here?" "Yes." My father grunted sulkily in reply, shoving the details of the registration plate aggressively forward into the man's booth. "Ahhh.very old car, yes?" "No." My Dad replied stiffly. The man wrote down a figure and passed it back. I could see my dad struggling to decode the scruffy handwriting; fortunately my mother (whose handwriting is just as atrocious) translated it much quicker. She threw herself across the booth in front of the offending piece of paper. "DON'T look at it!" 

My Dad paled rapidly, "why? How much is it?" "Don't look!" My mum insisted gravely. "Kids, take your Dad over there, I will pay for this." We obeyed silently, and sat him down, feeling more like parole officers than his daughters. As my mum turned to us he watched her with shining eyes, and his voice shook as he asked "How bad is it?" My mum met his gaze and answered just as gravely, "I won't deny it was a shock, but it's all over now." I fought the urge to pat my Dad's hand comfortingly and tell him that they did all they could. He took the keys gingerly from my mum's hand and walked after a man who beckoned lazily. The car lumbered in from the sea of darkness like a whale with indigestion, and kicked back like an especially stubborn donkey as we tried to drive away, obviously in protest of our careless behaviour. We did not mention this mishap for the rest of the holiday.