Can I Get A Do-Over?

Remember the good old days when you were a kid playing games in the yard with your friends and someone would mess up or make a mistake and request a "do-over?" Your friends would discuss amongst themselves and decide whether you'd get the do-over or not but most likely you'd get it. I'd like those days back, please. As a general rule, I'd say that we shouldn't get do-overs in order to right our little wrongs, correct our minor mistakes, or recover from our missteps. It seems to me that those are the things that teach us lessons, make us humble, help us grow.

However, there are the occasions in life where you really wish you could call a time-out and request a do-over. Such is the case for me with my recent trip to Barcelona with my fabulous friend Valerie. Let me hurry to first say that we had a really good time, saw some sights, stayed in a nice hotel, ate some yummy food, had lots of good talks, and overall it was a great trip.

The desire for a do-over of this trip comes from a different place. For many years and from numerous sources, I have heard how wonderful Barcelona is. Descriptions such as beautiful, exciting, great night life, great food, beautiful men, nice beaches were plentiful. Our friend Nadia describes it as her all-time favourite city (intentionally used the Canadian/British spelling there...) The trouble is that when you've heard about a place for so long you create a version of it in your mind and all too often your imaginary version is rather off the mark.

It surprises me to realize that I have (quite unknowingly) acquired "Florentine Blinders" making me think that all European cities are just like the one I'm currently calling home. That is to say: ancient, filled with hints of its Renaissance past, cobbled, quaint, and well contained.

These are not words I would use to describe Barcelona. The first thing that struck me is that it is much larger than I expected and much more "city-like." It is large, sprawling, more modern and filled with cars. It has a lot of trees and green spaces and wonderful fountains. It is colorful and the people watching has Florence beat by a mile. It has beautiful parks up in the hills, large bustling marinas and several beaches. It is filled with modern outdoor sculptures which range from kitschy lobsters to abstract steel. It has beautiful Gothic churches interspersed with the unique creativity of Gaudi's architectural styling. In other words it is in many ways the antithesis of Florence.


Architecture of Gaudi and a sample of the outdoor sculpture

We spent a good portion of our time in La Rambla which is a wide boulevard leading from the marina into the heart of the city and is one of the highlights of the city. It is full of artists, street performers, flower vendors and tourists of all kinds. There is a wonderful market (Mercat de La Boqueria) that rivals Florence's Mercato Centrale in size, color and variety of offerings.


Street performer and Mercat de La Boqueria


We enjoyed time along the waterfront areas, rode on one of those double-decker open city tour buses (see photo, courtesy of Val) and ate seafood whenever possible. But we also spent one lazy afternoon pretending to work by the hotel's rooftop pool, slept really late every day and jumped at the chance to watch some incredibly bad American television shows. In our view it was the perfect blend between lazy vacation and playing tourist.

However, when we got back to Florence and were asked questions like:
• What did you think of ___ park and ___ museum?
• Wasn't the paella delicious?
• Isn't the nightclub scene amazing?
• How many sexy Spanish men did you flirt with?

...we had to mumble a little that we didn't really know or hadn't partaken. (Well, in all fairness to us, we did try to get paella one night but it was highly disappointing.)

Therefore I am requesting a do-over. I would like to go back to Barcelona for a much longer period of time and make sure that I explore the city, the food, the clubs and the men MUCH more closely. I just don't think I did it right and I'd like the opportunity to try again.

OK friends, please discuss amongst yourselves whether you'll allow me this do-over. Pretty please with sugar on top?

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