Bela Zecker • Spain
Even before I arrived in Barcelona, I had heard the crime horror stories. Tourists robbed left and right on busy streets, scammed while innocently participating in surveys, and pickpocketed on crowded metros just steps after exiting the airport. After scouring internet forums for these tales, my parents begged and pleaded with me to leave my software-loaded laptop at home for this trip–and now, I realize it may have been for good reason.
I have approached the warnings with what I’ll call paranoid skepticism. I’ve walked down the main tourist drag, La Rambla, clutching my bag like toddlers’ lips on a weaning pacifier. I listened patiently as roommates and co-workers described being purse-snatched while switching straps from shoulder to shoulder or dropping change on the ground–surely, those being targeted were in some way waving flags to their offenders, making the robbery less random and more understandable. Or, rather, that was my optimistic conviction.
Then came Elaine*. My co-intern from Toronto is 21, slight-framed, outwardly coy and the last person I would expect to open the door of the office with the look she had on her face today. That look is blank, that of an oscillating mind still clouded from the previous night. The look of abandon after one wakes to a bedroom missing all valuable possessions and no recollection of where–or how–it all went.
From what she understands, she was blindly targeted at the neighborhood bar. Being “roofied” in the United States most commonly means a night of college-age sexual abuse. In Barcelona, it meant being robbed of a laptop, camera, phone, iPod, wallet, and the landlord’s computer–an afterthought, surely, as they traipsed out of blacked-out Elaine’s room, marveling at their ability to manipulate, follow and abuse.
It’s easy to point the finger at Spanish law. Pickpocketing and violence-free robberies are labeled as “hurtos” here–essentially, unless the robbery exceeds about $500 or involves violence, offenders won’t be charged with any crime at all. Recently, a few Barcelona pickpocketers were jailed after 500 “convicted” robberies–and those 500 are only the ones where they were tracked down. In Elaine’s case, her robbery exceeds what would be considered insignificant, but with no memory of her offenders, the crime or her items’ serial numbers, she remains helpless.
That’s not factoring in her landlord’s reaction. After stating that it had been a “long seven years” since the house had last been ransacked and putting the blame squarely on Elaine’s dazed shoulders, she went straight to the police, using her Catalan status, mastery of Spanish and position as landlord to her advantage.
Elaine came home from work to a lawsuit not against her perpetrators, but her.
My silent paranoid skepticism has evolved into a deafening, seething, paranoid rage.
* – name has been changed
Before I came to Barcelona, I daydreamed about the fertile land of inspiration I’d be traveling to. I could almost feel the journalism prospects glow from across the Atlantic as I speculated about the day trips, the architecture, and the understanding that would make my writing fingers dance.
Then I landed. The floral patterns on buildings, the smoky downtempo lounges and the harmony between beach culture and booming metropolis glossed over my Midwestern eyes just as I would have expected them to. But I have found myself, even more so than in the stagnancy of home, at a loss for what’s worth sharing.
This problem first came about in the press tent at Pitchfork Music Festival in July, where I arrived drenched in Chicago humidity and came face to face with the tent organizer. He was talking with two prominent music writers about what I have struggled with for about as long as I have seriously considered professional journalism–at which point do you esteem yourself to turn the subjective into objective?
To the piqued faces of the journalists he described a bitter break-up with the writing industry, one in which he resented being the glorified sharer and so-called authority on his subject. Music, from his perspective, was still his passion–a revered art with the capacity to bring him to the extreme of any human emotion. But turning his romance with it into a valuable, marketable, concrete thing was something that made his writing go sour.
As a music writer, I have tiptoed this line between ego and individual taste quite carefully, peppering text with lightheartedness and personal–rather than righteous–opinion. But with my first travel narratives, I have had much more difficulty paraphrasing the sweeping emotion, the stillness and the brilliance of what this trip has sometimes amounted to be.
Eleven days left to figure it out.
I can distinctly remember my attachment to my after-school ritual leaving Belgrano Day School. Buenos Aires, never an underdog in the baked goods scene, was home to several facturas shops in my neighborhood, and we had to–I mean, had to–stop for a media luna before catching a taxi back home to Palermo. Dulce de leche, chocolate, azucar… whatever was in those things, it tasted safe. By the end of my four-month stay in Argentina, it tasted like home.
Looking back, I was a sheltered little urchin. Or, more likely, a pubescent kid with brand new zits and nicks from the recently acquired skill of shaving, and I was terrified of “starting all over” in Buenos Aires. Spanish that stuck to the roof of my mouth like peanut butter, foreign classmates, and reversed southern hemisphere weather joined forces as Hades in my head leading up to my departure. I listened to “God Must Hate Me” and “Worst Day Ever,” ears soothed by favorite band of the moment Simple Plan, and did my best to stifle angsty tears for the first week or so of our stay. And then came facturas.
Now, in Barcelona, with thankfully improved musical taste and a matured need for travel, there has never been a sense of alienation or paralyzing homesickness. But I have noticed similar patterns in my nest-building wherever I go for more than, say, a week. Acquiring (semi-)confident navigation skills. Creating rituals and comforting patterns. Discovering hole-in-the-wall local dives and making them “my spot.” Building trusting relationships with new friends. Gathering fond knowledge of local culture. All of these have been symptoms of my new homes across the world, and clocking in at a day shy of two weeks here, I can safely say I’m settled in.
I can swiftly guide myself and visitors through the winding, dead-end, dim alleyways they call streets in my neighborhood. Facturas have a Barcelonian cousin, blended juice drinks they sell for a euro at La Boqueria, the zoo-like market I stop by nearly every day (I’ve gone through maybe a third of the offerings, with coconut-mango, orange-lime and blackberry-banana leading the pack so far). The Argentine deli worker near my internship office gets a spinach and ricotta empanada out of the fridge as soon as I walk through the door. And sitting in the red-lit mojito lounge in a tucked away corner near my apartment, I was happily surrounded by couples and friends speaking a refreshingly universal Spanish (a rarity in any given crowd around here)–”my bar.”
So I’m comfortable here, yes. Fully enjoying my mojitos and juice and empanadas. But the first indication that I was truly in my home came yesterday, a lazy Saturday spent mostly at the apartment with roommates-turned-friends, orange juice-turned-mimosas, and touristy weekend-turned-hermitage. It is with the feeling that I am never wasting a moment here–as the days stretch until 9:30 p.m., the cava bottles are always numerous, and I can still count my number of days left on more than my ten fingers–the feeling that this home is immeasurable.
After eighteen hours of travel and just about every wrong turn I could make after exiting the Jaume I metro stop near my apartment in Barcelona, I finally arrived. I was sweat-soaked, jet-lagged, and nearly shaking after climbing up the five flights of stairs to my door with my overpacked backpack. I certainly wasn’t expecting my first night in the city to be much more than a quick snack and deep slumber.
My two roommates, however, greeted me with an enormous salad—they had me at “avocado”–and two bottles of tinto, and the rest of my afternoon was spent in conversation that went a bit beyond the normal introductory chatter. What I discovered between the three of us was a cross-cultural commonality: an escape plan.
There was Anna, the woman whose apartment we would be renting for August, an Italian-turned-Spaniard with a resounding laugh. And there was Anais, the Aussie who has been traveling around Europe for nearly two months now, with no plans to return home to Brisbane. Two women, both at least five years older than me, both islanders, both here indefinitely in Barcelona for some reason or another.
Anna explained with humble English the machismo and traditional female subordination she experienced in her town in Sardinia, causing her to leave home at twenty. She left first for big city living in Rome, and later on, here in Barcelona, out of Italy (and its 72nd worldwide ranking of gender gap) entirely. Having lightly touched upon the topic in my third quarter of Italian at Northwestern, I was familiar with the traditional roles endowed upon women in Italy, particularly in the southern portion of the country. And there I was, face to face with might be considered quite un-ladylike in Italy: a single woman of thirty, in pajamas with no bra, independent from her family in Sardinia and her boyfriend meditating in India.
Anais, at 23, might not be considered unusual, traveling throughout Europe following graduation from university and a year of full-time work. What distinguished her, however, was her determination to stay out of Australia, a place she frequently refers to as “the end of the Earth,” and her town in particular as “the cultural backwater” of Australia itself. Not entirely disdainful of her home country—she can fondly appreciate the beach culture and agreeable weather year-round—but definitely with qualms. She lamented of the lack of open communication, particularly among Australian men, and the preoccupation with others’ lifestyles that led to cigarettes being taxed at $17 a pack, and other regulations on behavior that could be likened to the United States’. What she’s encountered in her travels through serene Greek islands and laidback Spain is perhaps the antithesis of the overbearing culture she and I are used to. So here she is, with nothing on her agenda but Spanish lessons, and wouldn’t have it any other way.
And I was in their company. Eighteen years old, interning with an English magazine in Barcelona, disoriented and more anxious than thrilled. For months I had planned and anticipated this trip, counted down the days, dreamt of the Mediterranean, and there I found myself in the company of two women who came here rather aimlessly, but with perfect contentedness. I, on the other hand, had a gnawing sensation from my first step onto the plane that I had to dig deeper, had to get the bigger picture here. Don’t get me wrong, the past five days have been blissful and sunny and more than I could have hoped for. But that brings me to my point—what exactly do I, or other travelers, hope for when running away?
I was certain I had to get out of Evanston. After sixteen years with my parents and one at Northwestern, it was crawling all over my skin and digging holes into my brain that I had to leave. But now I’m here. And with 29 days left in Barcelona, I wonder—what am I running from—or to?
Monday—finally—is the day.
For weeks I have read the musings of traveling friends, worked 2 a.m. serving shifts until my feet swelled, and ferociously guarded every penny like a territorial dog over her food bowl. But finally, it’s here.
Not without its tribulations, of course. The Croatian music festival I had planned my September travels around sold out before I got my bass-hungry hands on a ticket. A week before departure, the work exchange at the hostel I was banking on for free accommodation caved in, leaving me potentially homeless in Barcelona for nearly five weeks and with little money or time to fix it. And gradually, the horror stories of theft and tourist manipulation eased my headstrong excitement into intimidation and paranoia.
The solution of all of these issues was a familiar resource, one with which I’ve maintained an on-again, off-again romance ever since I discovered Neopets: the Internet.
Thanks to music blog networking, I tracked down Outlook Festival tickets not only for myself, but for two of my traveling friends—with free t-shirts, no less. Relentless emails and searches led me to three different generous Barcelonians willing to open their doors to me for a month, at a cost less than most pay for a week in a hostel. And Facebook—the almighty consumer of my time, my sleep and my dignity—introduced me to a mirror image of myself, an Australian girl arriving and departing Barcelona on nearly the exact same dates as me, and heading to the exact same music festival afterwards. Meet my roommate, and easer of the aforementioned solo travel terror.
So you might say I owe the World Wide Web a big one. But I can’t help but feel—as I Google Map a Street View of the “uber-hip” hidden bar near my BCN apartment—that the Internet has interfered with the spontaneity and wild independence of travel in a permanent, give-and-take way. Sure, you can luck out when it comes to dilemmas like mine, but it also leads to the fatal Travel Expectation Syndrome I normally try to evade.
I found myself comparing pictures of the various apartments I was offered, being picky with three different places and hosts I never would have come across at all even five years ago. I’ve been fed so much tourist-geared information that I know the locations of several vegan and vegetarian restaurants, funky vintage stores, and champagne bars to bounce between until the wee hours. I can even map out a rough diagram of the various neighborhoods and their “vibes,” without ever having stepped foot in the city.
And I find it hard to blame myself. As a kid who started learning and playing on the computer in preschool, and more recently, a Medill student who learned that unattachment from the Internet equals disengagement with the Right Now, it’s hard to keep my inherent curiosity from crossing certain boundaries.
So with about 48 hours until I take off, I have mixed feelings about my preparations. Relief and excitement, yes. But also a panging desire, a longing for just a girl with a backpack and a whole lot of figuring out to do.
My little feet traveled pretty far. Further than many people do in their lifetimes. My parents took advantage of the free airfare/accommodation for little kids and brought me along their treks to four different continents before age two. I guess part of that must have stuck with me, because now I’m still hungry for those narrow foreign streets, the strange flavors tickling my American palate, and the rapid acquisition of unknown languages. I dig traveling. A lot. Hopefully one day I can get paid to do it.
Until then, I’m stretching my tips from all those late night shifts at the local café as far as I can around the globe. First this summer comes a month-long stay in Barcelona, learning the ropes of both a magazine internship and living in beautiful Espana for a month. After that I’ll be participating in the bass-fueled exodus to the largest festival of its kind, the Outlook Festival, churning bass out of speakers in an abandoned fort on a Croatian beach. Who knows what comes next. But I’ll be sure to write about it.
