Press Gang

Al's Travel Blog - Part 5

2008-07-31T19:59:00.002+01:00

Saturday, June 7th

It's not the most pleasant of towns. Not that it's unpleasant, mind—just, not really very pleasant. Not hostile, just, not the most pleasant place. Barcelona was pleasant. It seems that the further up the Costa Brava we get, the more we see that all the money is on the seafront, for sunbathing tourists. Still, I wander the town a bit after breakfast (a stunning affair involving all sorts of bread and jams and a whole carton of juice, good coffee and a cake.). It's a cool day and we go to tourist information to find tomorrow's way out of town. I find a footpath that takes us almost all the way up the coast to the region north of the Baix Emporda. We also discover that he only launderette in town is a dry cleaners—when asked about washing machines the lady in tourist information replies solemnly that "such a thing no longer exists in Feliu." And of course, we slept in and left it too late. Because tomorrow is Sunday our laundry now cannot be made ready until Monday and we want to be gone by then. So we buy cheap washing powder from the supermercat and wash our clothes in the bathtub, drying them on every surface we can find.

I have a nap because I've already overloaded on Hemingway and when I wake up it is time to go and buy more supplies for our trip, and then, rubbing my hands with glee, I leave Claire to read more Toni Morrison and I set out to the history museum. Entry is free and I find myself so very excited. I'm fascinated by the history of Spain, from Carthage and Hannibal and Rome and Celtiberians through Christianity and Islam vying for power to the pirates along the Costa Brava and o the Peninsular War and the Civil War. Even more so, I am fascinated by the minutae, the little things that took place in small towns, specific cities and area, before and during the great events. I can't wait to find out the hidden history of this town.

From the museum, a wonderful old building next to the famous Roman facade of a glorious church I fail to investigate, I gather the following history of St Feliu de Guixols: early man ate and buried his pals here, then history disappears under several hundred years of worshipping Christ (presumably the Romans were deterred by the frankly mythical opening hours of most hostels in town), and then the people here made cork. Recent historical activity includes building a big arch for a saint, and digging up the pals of early man, itself so long ago that there is an exhibit about the archaeologists themselves alongside bits of early man. There's a Roman bit, incorporated into the aforementioned impressive church—but most European churches seem to have Roman bits. However, ther was one photograph in the cork exhibit of a very well turned out young man posing in demonstration of his machine. I imagine him to have been both sweet and unbearable, but finally I realise why my grandmother used to make us dress up and pose for sickeningly fey photographs as children: it's not about wealth and the show of sophistication, or even about sculpting memories before they are formed. No, it's about making people who see it long after you're dead look at you and say: "Oh bless. Look at all the effort he went to. What did it really mean?" We tend to look down on the people who came before us as if they're stupid, because we can't really understand that they didn't know what was coming.

I'm not long in the museum because I can't see much use for cork except as an impediment to accessing the wine in the bottle and so I go back to the hotel and I work. I sit downstairs and I write as much of this blog as I can. Claire comes back with the shopping and we get on the internet and finish everything for the Taste of the Wight magazine and can now concentrate purely on our writing, this trip, and of course, the Gatehouse Blog. (It is now, by the way, that I realise Claire has described the three-year-old boy we played pinecone football with as a German, belonging to Germans. This is in fact not the case, unless they were trying very hard to hide that they were German. They spoke Spanish, to each other, their child and to us; they were not looking at the view but were instead out for a walk, so they probably weren't tourists—in fact, the idea that they were German must only come from the fact that the child was blond. Honestly Claire, stereotyping isn't that accurate...)

Sunday June 8th

Today Hillary Clinton steps out of the official race for the Democratic nomination and on the other side of the world, marginally less historically and a little after breakfast, Claire and I step out of the hostel Zurich. We are seen off enthusiastically, told to return next year, and I cannot wait to read Claire's entry about that little hostel. We walk and Claire bought a lot of food and I realise that I'm actually in a very bad mood because I feel guilty about staying in a hostel. Luckily I feel guilty about being in a bad mood and after a polite telling off from Claire I'm back to my old self again. Well, I'm back to my happy self, that is. I have decided that it is definitely crowds that upset me and the more distance we put between ourselves and the cities the better I feel. We follow the trail, laughing and taking pictures and when we stop for lunch after Sagaro we watch boats pass and then, to our near delight, we are lost. We walk through a marina and miraculously pick the trail up on the other side. Turns out that this is a feature of our little foot trail—those white and red painted markers disappear and reappear almost whimsically.

Through the Marina we pick our boat for the next adventure—surprising ourselves by agreeing almost straight away. However, we have packed too much stuff so our bags are even heavier than usual. We rest and play 'Go Fish' again before walking down the Platja d'Aro and out to where we hope to find a camp spot near the Cap de Rogques Planes. There is nowhere—we consider several places while losing the light and I know I'm starting to get grumpy and tired and unbearable but my pack is getting ehavier by the second and the thought of not being able to find somewhere to hide is causing me much consternation. We are off the trail and on the highway again, and we walk into a campsite as the sun finally disappears, desperation driving us to spend the money we don't want to. The security guard shows us where to go and as we are pitching the tent someone approaches us. Her name is Sheila, from near Manchester. Her and her husband Steve work as camp couriers and she saves both our lives, Claire's sanity and our relationship with two mugs of strong tea and a bottle of red. We eat cold beans and pasta from tins and drink the wine (the tea made pitching the tent possible) and in the darkness head to the shower blocks and that night we sleep like the dead.

Monday June 9th

We go for a swim in the morning. It's bracing and heavenly and then we shower and dry our clothes on the tent. Claire decides she's going to read by the beach. We have acquired several books from the bookswap on the site, and while she goes off I sit and read and drink cold beer all day. I'm in heaven and I never want to leave, sod Palermo. I spend a nice lazy afternoon in a chair and just about finish my book. Then Claire comes back, angry, frustrated, covered in pine resin and near to either crying herself or making something close to her cry. She's very fair, you see, and can't be in the sun for extended periods of time. So she sat in the shade, got covered in pine resin and is convinced she'll have to cut all her hair off.
"It can't be all that bad, surely?" I say, still glowing with the pleasure of my day.
"It fucking is."
I calm her down with some beer, some chocolate, and when she's showered and washed her hair and hasn't had to cut any of it off she's okay again. We go back to the shop and for dinner Claire will be making us an enormous salad. She buys cabbage instead of letuce but it's a surprisingly good salad nonetheless. Actually, it's fucking awesome and I can feel all the vitamins returning to my body after days of camp food: crackers, meat and cheese. But I won't tell her this.
We got to the bar and I buy Claire her cocktail, the one I promised her on a bleak December morning in Norwich when neither of us wanted to go to work. It's blue and I taste it and it's so sugary I nearly choke. She loves it and I drink more beer and we share a pizza and some chips while watching Holland trounce Italy. We both decide that Holland will be our team for this European cup: Claire becuase she likes the football they play; me because I have a lot of respect for anybody with the guts to wear that much orange in front of that many people. After the game we read until they throw us out of the bar. Later, as I'm brushing my teeth in the men's bathroom area, I am approached by a stranger.
"A bit too noisy for reading, wasn't it?" he says.
"I only read at half-time!" I protest, laughing nervously. I am trying desperately not to look like a big woopsy. It's very hard when you're caught reading a thick novel during a football match by men with shaved heads and tattooed eyeballs. I ask him if he is Dutch and he says yes. "Good game," I say to him.
"Ya. But I can't understand why England aren't in the competition."
Now this is a football question I can answer. I nod sagely, lower my shoulders to a more masculine position, and adopt the expression of one who really knows what he is talking about. "Don't worry old boy," I say. "It's because we're shit."

Tuesday June 10th

Bugger the hike—we read all day today as well.

Wednesday June 11th

We finally leave camp. Oh, how we will miss it. It shows because we argue all day, even over the most trivial things. We walk along the main road into Palamos and are told off by impolite people—okay, it was our fault: we wandered into another campsite looking for a store, having finally decided to buy a camping stove. We were told we couldn't just walk in. I think they were about to make us pay but I demanded directions and they were glad to be rid of us. We finally locate a place to buy that most treasured luxury item I've been saying we don't actually need ("It's okay Claire, I'll build us a fire." "Sure you will Al, but when?") and it's cheap and the gas cartridges are less than 2 Euros and I fall in love with it immediately. We buy a few things from the supermarket and then walk on a bit. In La Fosca we stop for a coke and to watch Spain thrash Italy and then we walk a bit further on, to an observation point past the beach of La Fosca. We make our first hot meal on the move there, a Jamie Oliver budget recipe for carbonara that Claire has memorized (if it's cheesy and involves pasta, she can make it by heart—oh Scottish cuisine!). Despite the insects and my frustrations with Claire's use of our Mosquito repellent as a bug spray (what a waste! I almost cry as she uses considerable quantities of the not inexpensive stuff to blast the things out of the air.) the meal is absolutely gorgeous and afterwards we press on along the path, around a cove with a lovely beach not yet developed, and we make camp in the dark by torchlight in a bush, right by the path.

Thursday June 12th

I wake up to the sound of running feet. This is not wat I want to hear. Turns out the stretch of track we are camping beside is popular for people out for an early morning run. I can see why, though. The terrain might be physically demanding, challenging even, but the beauty of the scenery is such that it would take the mind away from the physical struggle. This is my favourite thing about running. I imagine moving out here and running along these clifftops every morning. The I remember that I should probably get a job before I start spending money in my head, and I return to the task at hand: the washing up of last night's cooking utensils. I leave Claire to lie in (she's had another sleepless night, listenging to the sounds of the undergrowth and snorts of small creatures wondering what the bloody great fabric thing on their garden path is, while I snore gently beside her, no good to her should it be a bear that wants a Full English breakfast) and I retrace our steps back to the beach where I need to scrub our pan in the surf. I pause en route to explore the semi-excavated remains of an ages-old, pre-Roman stronghold. Sadly I cannot read the Spanish explanation of the archaeological dig, and all I can make out is in fact about the history of the dig itself, rather than the site. I will look it up when I get home. As I scrub the pan (and by default, myself) in the cold surf a school of English children/teenagers walk past, set for lessons in sea kayaking. I envy them, just a little bit.

When I get back we break camp and I am keen for us to press on but Claire is feeling horribly pre-menstrual and I am pushing us both too hard and she yells at me through tears when confronted with another steep hill.
"It's not much further."
"What's the fucking point!"
"Claire..."
"Every time you go up a hill it's just got another one on top of it."

I panic, and to make her feel better I pretend that the less steep way she wanted to go is in fact the right way, making up some story about a sheer cliff fall and big red and white crosses (the trail symbols for 'WRONG WAY, DICKHEAD!'). Claire, convinced that it will lead us to a road and thus easier terrain, insists that is the way we should go. I point out that it in fact goes 180 degrees in the wrong direction from where we want to go, having walked a bit along it already. But I nobly decide to sacrifice myself, and brace for a long, hard day of walking in the wrong direction with an increasingly demented girlfriend. As the road curves and steepens a bit I am hoping we haven't made a massive mistake when suddenly we come across a signpost informing us that Claire's way was, in fact, the right way and I am an idiot. It says that on the sign: Calella: 30mins. Palafrugell: 2h 45mins. Alex Hammond: Fucking Moron.

We press on, from Cap Roig to Calella de Palafrugell to Llafranc where we slog an exhausting and ugly kilometre to a place called Kim's Camping. The price they offer is more than a hostel would cost and little short of violent robbery and we shake our heads and like most places they immediately give us the real price which is significantly lower and also at the bottom of the big hill the campsite is built on. Everything is, of course, at the top of this hill, after what Claire describes as a thousand steps but we pitch our tent, shower and skip dinner, choosing instead to get very drunk and eat peanut M&M's while watching the football. There we chat briefly to a father and son from Norfolk and when they escape while we aren't looking we meet polyglot Michael and Joseph who speaks no English, both (really this time) from Germany. We conform to the stereotypical Brit on holiday and spend the rest of our time in the camp in shame.

Al's Travel Blog - Part 4

2008-07-06T21:30:00.002+01:00

Friday June 6th 2008

With morning we come to a shivering start. There are huge puddles of water in the tent and very little remains dry. I'd dearly love to wake up furious and snappy but Claire tells me not to—she takes a couple of pictures as we pack up and we are setting off early enough that I don't mind anything and she has said that we will walk the (what we suppose to be) 13km to Sant Feliou de Guixols. This is a town that we have already given up trying to pronounce and are instead referring to as 'Felix'. Bloody English—they're rubbish abroad. The winding S of the highway starts to become familiar and we settle into the routine of walking. Occasionally Claire asks for some army songs and I remember a couple from Vietnam war films and Tim O'Brien novels and they get us to the small community (abandoned ghost town) of Canyet. We have covered most of what our days hiking should be and we walk downhill to the beach to eat and read through the heat of the day. I dry the tent.

Now would be a good time, however, to tell you one very important fact I have gleaned from hiking in my time: be suspicious of everything that goes downhill. Inevitably, you'll only have to walk up it again.

We make tuna and sweetcorn sandwiches and paddle in the sea. We are running low on sunscreen, and by the time we need to get going we're both a little burnt. And now we have a big uphill bit before we even get to the road. Biggest of all our problems, however, is that the cooler parts of the day are still very hot and we have no water. None. Claire is struggling upwards in the heat and I am getting angry.

"I told you we should have carried four bottles!"

"You can barely carry everything with only three!"

"I can carry anything and everything! I'm a superhero! I just need water."

"You're a dick."

"Yes, and a thirsty one."

Eventually, I leave Claire in the shade with the bags and I run up and down hills around the town looking for a shop. Naturally, there isn't one, and when I get back to the shade hot, sweaty, bothered and at one point chased by dogs and by now really, really mad at myself, Claire says she'll buy me dinner. I immediately perk up. The one restaurant in town is open and not serving until eight, another three hours away. So we sit and look at the sea and drink coke and take it in turns to go fill the bottles of water from the taps in the restaurant bathroom. Coke is a wondrous thing, restoring all our energy to us and we keep going in the fading sunlight, headlights flashing at us with smiles and waves from the host of motorcyclists that come zipping past. We wave back but try not to distract them too much—this road is strewn with memorials to motorcyclists who've not quite made some of the demanding turns along this stretch of the coast. We take a wrong turn off the road down a little path above Canyet but we neither of us mind and there is a little bench by the cliffside and we sit on it and I carve 'CLAIRE AND AL ON FOOT 2008' next to similar legends from the last eight or so years. Looks like my creative writing degree is getting more valuable by the second.

We walk, and keep walking, and Claire says that if we make Felix by seven-thirty she'll buy dinner. We still haven't made it but tells me I heard wrong and that if we make the town by eight we are going to a restaurant. We aren't going to make that, either, but then just after Felix adventure park a car pulls over. We' walk over to it and the two Spanish guys offer us a lift to 'Feliu' bus station and we gratefully accept. It's 5km more than we thought it would be. They take us to the station and drop us at the stop for Barcelona, recommending it thoroughly, and we have no Spanish to tell them it's very nice and we've come from there (or German, which surprises them greatly because my attempts to communicate in French led them to the conclusion that we were Germans—I shall never be proud of my French again.). So, we hide in the bus station until they've driven off and then walk into Feliu to find a restaurant. We eat cheaply at a wonderful place, and then we get to talking.

"I really can't be bothered with camping tonight."

"Me neither. Not with the 5k back out of the city, and it's too crowded to stay any closer."

"But if we get a hostel we don't get a full rest-day to regroup."

"Tell you what—I'll pay for tonight, you pay for tomorrow night."

"You're a bad man Hammond."

"I'm my father's son and born to a life of American luxury."

We track down tourist information but, like the two hostels we passed on our way from the restaurant (we feel bad, by the way, because we had to pay by card but when we tried to add a tip the lady thought we were complaining about the bill.) it too is closed. We ask at a hotel in the Placa Mercat (Market Square, check out my Spanish...) that is way too much but the receptionist directs us to the Hostel Zurich, right next to the museum, and we are thoroughly encouraged by how relaxed they are and their generosity. We take a room for two nights, and are shown up by an older woman who has leg problems and a formidable pair of spectacles, and she infact follows us up, calling out directions ("Up! Up mas! Now, Right!"). I think that before we had even reached our room she had adopted us as her token foreigners. In the room I have the best shower of my life because it comes with complimentary Aloe Vera to combat sunburn. Claire let me go first and I'm asleep before she gets out.

Interjection - Ian Takes His Leave

2008-06-23T20:22:00.004+01:00

I'm stuck for something to do to put off the inevitable packing, ahead of my forthcoming move to Oxford (more on that later), so I have decided to acquiesce to Tom's demands that I make a blog post - having made the now-unwise decision to have a few IPA's earlier on... Hic...

Gatehouse Press started, if anyone's counting, in May 2006, and consisted of just the three of us; Tom, myself (Ian - I've not introduced myself yet, have I? How frightfully rude) and Lee. In the beginning, we had practically nothing - and this is no exaggeration. The company was run, and continues to run, on Tom's money, and we had only one publication tentatively lined up - Jenny Morris' collection Lunatic Moon. Beyond that, we could only hope that hard work would take us on - if not to bigger and brighter things, then at least an ability to maintain our commitment to promoting and supporting the best in new, local talent.

Fast forward two and a bit years, and the Gatehouse Press of back then pales in comparison to where it stands right now. With half a dozen publications now under our collective belt, and with forthcoming publications from the likes of George Szirtes to bolster our already increasing public exposure, Gatehouse Press is in rude health. This is no mean feat; Gatehouse Press is entirely non-profit, receives no external funding whatsoever, and is run in the spare time of those committed to our mission statement, and the increasing success of the business. Yet put our publications next to any other, and you'd never have known; the team takes great pride in the quality of our books and our websites, and refuse to compromise for the sake of being run in our spare time.

For myself, it has been an invaluable, exhilarating, stressful, exciting, frantic and, above all, proud time. I had never considered publishing as a career option before meeting Tom, as our paths crossed in the unlikely surrounds of Norfolk Youth Service. But I was soon swept away in the enthusiasm of the project, and have spent the last 2 years putting the greater part of my free hours - outside of working full-time - into taking Gatehouse Press that bit further. The joint senses of overwhelming relief and utter joy every time a book was sent to the printer have themselves made the whole experience worthwhile, but I have also gained amazing experience, particularly on the editorial side, from working for Gatehouse Press. It is down to this experience that I have found my vocational direction from being an aimless English Literature graduate, and found my new editorial job with an enormous publisher, after a couple of lame duck periods of employment that did just enough to keep a roof over my head. There is so much I owe Tom and Gatehouse Press, and only hope that the work I put in, and will continue to put in, can repay that.

As for the future, Gatehouse Press will only keep growing. We might not be one of the big multinationals, but we remain determined to keep to our original ideals, and will promote the very best in untapped talent. Not only do we intend to release publications from new and unpublished authors, but we are also due to publish work from the renowned George Szirtes, and will seek out similarly prestigious authors to work with. In addition, we shall shortly be launching New-Writing.com, a showcase for the very best creative writing from universities around the world, compiled and edited by the students themselves. Our plans are not limited to our published output, however; we intend to build a studio at Gatehouse HQ, bringing in state of the art design hardware and software to bring our production in-house. The benefit is two-fold; not only does Gatehouse open up the potential to produce more frequent publications, but we provide our volunteers with industry-standard tools to master, and take into the job market.

Of course, we welcome volunteers. Gatehouse Press has a special atmosphere; we are a friendly, open, and very funny (if we say so ourselves...) team. And, as mentioned before, the benefit is mutual; we gain your expertise, you get to improve it, and rack up the sort of experience that, quite simply, puts you ahead of the game if you want to follow publishing as a career route. So join us - simply fill in the 'Contact Us' form on the Gatehouse Press website to get in touch, we'd love to hear from you...

Ian Buck
Soon-to-be Publications Editor From A Distance...

Claire's Travel Blog - Part 3

2008-06-23T19:13:00.000+01:00

It's “next time”, but also, confusingly, the same time, in that we are back at June 1^st, at the bottom of Las Ramblas, with the finger of Chrissie Columbus pointing the way. Feeling rather light and free having left our not-so-beloved backpacks at the apartment, we set out to climb what will henceforth be referred to as a mountain, but was in fact probably no more than a (not insubstantial) hill. En route we encounter raging, traffic-filled motorways, loud dance music coming from an unidentified source which leads us to think we may encounter either a riot or a music festival at any given turn, and an impressive array of amusingly fat-bottomed palm trees.

The walk itself is not difficult – although obviously I moan anyway, just so Al doesn't get any over-complementary ideas about my athletic ability – and soon find ourselves gazing down on stunning panoramic views of the city. We have one of many our synchronised “we're on holiday” moments there and then, gazing at each other goofily before pointing out that Barcelona, like London, also possesses a gherkin tower that looks rather like a penis.

After taking the requisite photographs we sit down on a bench to bask in the awesomness of our holiday (and to spy on some model-looking girls posing for photos) when the Maggies strut across our field of vision. They are wonderful, all three of them. Same orange rinse, tan tights, starched white shirts, stiff navy blazers, complete with broach on the lapel and matching calf length skirts.And not a trace of sweat anywhere – Madam Thatcher couldn't have done better herself. They even walk perfectly in step with each other. One is revealing the merest flash of white satin petticoat which rather lets the side down, but otherwise the effect is mesmorising. I want to take a photo but I'm scared, so instead we play pinecone football with a three-year-old angelic blonde German child who is entirely ignoring the command of his parents to come see the view because he's just discovered that this pinecone is without doubt the most entertaining, amazing, super, smashing, fantastic, great, awesome, incredible, ace, absolutely bloody BRILLIANT thing ever. He has a point, it's a great pinecone.

Eventually we cease our game, after one too many weird looks from his parents, who appear to be wondering what our excuse for finding pinecone football so engrossing is, given that we're not three. We decide to explore a bit more and a little further up the hill are greeted by a sign which promises a Bon Jovi concert will be taking place tonight, presumably somewhere on the hill. This gives me rather more incentive to get my fat arse moving than the promise of Roman ruins and maybe even a cannon that Al's been blathering on about (actually I have no idea if they're Roman, I wasn't listening to him. I just always assume ruins are Roman because, to be fair, they appear to have left a lot of stuff lying about over the years).

On our way up we walk through some beautiful botanic gardens, simply laid out and very effective in providing relaxation and respite for the weary traveller (as I now consider myself to be, having spent nearly two whole days abroad). At the top I am not amused to discover a distinct lack of tight jeans, poodle perms and over-abundant chest hair, but even I have to admit the fort/castle is rather impressive, especially when what I had previosuly assumed to be Al's inane ranting turns out to be a rather interesting commentary on the mathematical layout of such structures to ensure that even if the enemy do manage to scale the outer walls, they will find themselves trapped in an impasse, surrounded on all sides by men with big crossbows/cannons/whatever on even higher walls and will be, in a word, fucked.

By the time Al has finished posing next to large cannons it is growing dark, and we elct to head back down the hill and seek out somewhere eat off the top of Las Ramblas, near our apartment. We wander around aimlessly for a while, enjoying the atmosphere of the city, until some men outside the hotel start singing a rude song about my breasts as we walk past (mental note: higher-cut top tomorrow), and we decide to make a decision. The restaurant we choose looks lovely and the Rioja is cheap. The staff also speak a little English and are kindly tolerant of our fledgling efforts at Spanish. The meal is good enough for the price, and my duck crepes with some sort of fruity sauce seem to prove my theory of eating in a foreign country, which states you should always order something where you have no idea what any of the words mean, to keep it interesting. Unfortunately when we get outside we see that there is an English version of the menu on the door and my duck was, in fact veal. At which point I start to feel rather sick. I have a thing about eating baby animals. The thing being that I don't do it. The reason for this is that for some reason the knowledge that I have eaten a baby animal makes me feel irrationally ill, something to do with a Blue Peter campaign against the bad practices involved in importing claves for slaughter that doubles up as an early childhood memory, and a bad first experience with eating piglet when I was an au pair in Austria. I don't claim it makes sense, it doesn't, especially given that I'm normally first in line at a barbeque.

We head for home, tired, content (and a little green around the gills courtesy of an early evening hangover and – I assure Al – the veal). Tomorrow we will head to La Sagrada Familia and I will not eat veal, this I am sure of.

Claire's Travel Blog - Part 2

2008-06-23T15:59:00.000+01:00

June 1st/2nd

We are in Barcelona and so far I have met three Margaret Thatchers, the slightly more rotund older brother of Charles Bronson and approximately 6,462 Cristiano Ronaldos. It appears the boy is quite popular out here, which seems given that he's Portuguese, until I remember England's sudden adoption of Andy Murray as “Britain's best tennis player” once it became obvious Tim Henman was never going to deliver the goods at Wimbledon (circa 1990, when Murray was possibly, in fact, still a foetus – but a foetus still more likely to win Wimbledon than a full-grown Tim Henman, bless his cottons).

We arrived in Barcelona late and promptly got lost – a good omen, I assured myself, a bit like when everything goes wrong at the wedding rehersal. Except it later transpires that if the getting lost/wedding metaphor were to be followed through to its natural conclusion, the bride would be running out the door and be half way to Madagascar before realising she may not be headed in the correct direction. But more of that later.

After several hours (or possibly about one hour) we find our way up ninety (or possibly ten) flights of stairs to the door of Master Bronson (or possibly Xavier, who is in no way related to Mr Bronson in either blood or temperament. He's just bald with a beard.). Upon saying Hola, we uttered a humble phrase that by now we have repeated often and refined with just the right level of shamed head hanging and rueful tonage: Do you speak English. Xavier does not, but between us, courtesy of some elaborate hand gestures and a fair exchange of cash we establish that we are indeed staying in his home for the duration of our stay in Barcelona. As are a pair of Swiss lesbians. Or I think that's what he said.

Our room is great, although I should point out that it's great by my hotel-hating standards, which means I have no problem with lilac walls complemented by a traditional tiled mosaic floor and IKEA furniture. It adds character. We also have the skinniest balcony in the world which seems to balance at a rather precarious angle of the side of the building over a very noisey road. Awesome.

Xavier leaves us to it, and after arguing for several minutes over whether to go seek out some dinner at this late hour, try to see the Sagrada Familia all lit up at night (even though we have no idea where it is, or if it is indeed lit up at night), or head for Las Ramblas and a late-night drink in the Gothic Quarter, we proceed to dispense with all our options in favour of falling asleep. As any good tourist wouldn't.

The next day dawns bright and early and so does Al, although I wish the same could be said for me. And so does he. We make like all foreigners and head for las Ramblas, although neither of us is quite sure why and I'm not sure anyone else is any more enlightened than us on the matter – it just seems to be what tourists do here. The lyric “I've walked Las Ramblas but not with real intent” (Manic Street Preachers/If you tolerate this...) comes to mind. The street is like a tourist funnel, which we all obligingly go down in order for people to try and sell us an array of jewellery, pretty dresses and overpriced Sangria. I would happily oblige were my shoulders not still bearing the scars of my backpack already. The street itself is very beautiful, however – it reminds me rather of London, lots of incredible architecture, with modern shop and restaurant franchises stuffed into their lower arches. But – we are tourists and we do want Sangria, so we quickly devise a cunning plot – to get off the main street under the pretence of being very cultured and going to the Mueseum of Contemporary Art, and head for the first place that sells a) tapas or b) paella at a price we can afford. It works like a dream and within the hour we have a big plate of paella and a large jug of Sangria in front of us. We are both sated and content.

Bellys full we head to the museum, or rather, to a weird looking sub-section that has the very attractive price of free. Inside is a darkened church, lit only by projections of artistic-looking things (pebbles, trees, donkeys etc), and an array of mirrors. Al promptly falls asleep and I get scowled at for giggling and taking to many pictures. We decide we are neither deep enough or sober enough to continue in our endeavour and scuttle out, suitably ashamed and rather light-headed into the sunlight.

We trapse obligingly through the side streets of Las Ramblas, and here it gets really impressive – so impressive that we may in fact be in the Gothic Quarter (gargoyles, arches), but we're not quite sure. Suddenly we find ourselves at the foot of a familiar man and realise we have reached the bottom of Las Ramblñas and the statue of Christopher Columbus, who is apparently pointing the wrong way towards the New World, according to Al, but we got lost on the way from the train station to our apartment, so who are we to judge?

We have a coffee at a cafe off the bottom of Las Ramblas and the waiter is very unhappy we don't want more Sangria. We watch some street acts - including a magnificently funny clown - then realise we haven´t got the money to watch any mkore street acts and pay for our coffee as they all come round with hats afterwards and we're too nice to say no. After making a not-so-hasty exit, because despite being annoyed that we aren't spending more money the waiter seems to want to detain us as long as possible by taking half an hour to get the bill, we stand under old Christopher's column and wonder what to do next. He is pointing towards a very large hill, so it seems rude not to give it a go - we are on holuiday after all - and it is here we meet Maggie in triplicate - but more of that next time!

Al's Travel Blog - Part 3

2008-06-23T15:56:00.000+01:00

Thursday June 6th 2008

I wake up long before Claire does today, and I'm still worried about getting caught. However, after a quick look around our campsite I see we are practically invisible (Claire is very good at this spot selection business) and my fears from the evening are dispelled so I let her sleep while I read some more Hemingway (no doubt accounting for the dry nature of my notes!) and look out over the cliffs from the Castel de San Joan and also down at the enormous ants that populate this sandy earth. They're fucking enormous and I watch one carry an entire crisp to the cliff edge. Unfortunately, said crisp acts as a sail and takes the unfortunate yet determined insect to his death. A member of the Guardia Urbana drives up on his motorcycle and ignores me and turns around and I take my first breath since he drove up the slope. I read until 9.30 and then Claire is up and getting ready and as the track gets a bit busier I am very thankful I got up early: people are now walking past us and I negotiated the comedy that is shitting in the woods long before I had an audience.

We walk down the main beach at Lloret de Mar and despite what the signs tell us it only takes twenty minutes and is absolute hell onEarth. The beach is jammed with board shorts and bikinis clinging to bodies that are simply better than mine to look at; wall-to-wall ice-cream stands, cheesy vendors (Claire almost headbutts a guy for being cheeky while she tries to buy a hat) and everyone, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, American, Canadian, Swedish, Austrians and of course the British are all here, in one place, to get burned, drink too much sangria and beer and ogle each others' semi-nude forms. In theory it sounds like a good basis for the formation of the European Union but it can be a little disturbing to hear a lewd song and not be able to tell what language it is in except the universal language of men+beer...

We have decided to take a boat from Lloret de Mar to Tossa de Mar (I am never above a cheap snigger), cutting out what we think is 13km (a days hike) of tourist beach after tourist beach. We wait another hour in the sun and board the boat and decide that our next big adventure will be a sailing one and sadly we were wrong and the boat glides past 13km of deserted national park land, deserted coves and the like, none of which are represented on the comprehensively shite map of the area i've got. The boat cruise is pleasant and although Claire nearly loses her hat several times we get a couple of pictures before the boat puts us in Tossa half an hour after leaving Lloret. (€8.50 one-way, if you want to know...) We escape the boat, jumping from a ramp on the front like Marines in the Pacific from landing craft. I have spied what looks to be a castle a I leave my pack with Claire who sits on a bench with the water and does some work. It is the hottest part of the day and I am glad she wants to sit in the shade because I can explore unencumbered. I walk the walls and it turns out that the 'castle' is in fact the remains, remarkablñy preserved, of La Vila Vella, or 'Old Town.' La Vila Nova is the town stretching North along the beachfront and it is decidedly less interesting. Vila Vella sits on a rocky outcrop, and the walls are mostly intact although inside most buildings are in the process of becoming restaurants, or so it seems. However, it is pleasant and cool in the narrow, ancient alleyways, with shade from buildings made with old, cold stones. I await Louis de Bernieres to set a novel that I hate to love there. After looking around and imagining the times when such a fastness was a security asset I rejoin Claire.

"How was the castle?"

"Good. But they're restoring the church. They're restoring everything. I can't decide if that's a good thing or not."

"Sounds good to me, or it'll just crumble away. How about you go get us a couple of baguettes?"

I wander through Tossa, finding mainly novelty shops and restaurants (I alsmot buy a replica 300 Spartan sword and helmet but am saved by my not possessing several hundred Euors for such frippery. It wouldn´t work without the red cloak, anyway...) and then I find a fast-food like place that is kind of a cross between Subway and Burger King. I buy us two hot bacon and cheese baguettes and walk back to Claire's bench and we eat and then shoulder our packs again and set off. We refill two of the water bottles at a beach bathroom and then follow a street uphill to the main road. A Btitish driver pulls over and offers us a lift:

"Where are you going?"

"Palermos," says Claire.

"On foot," says I.

"O," says the Englishmna. "I thought you were going to town. Well, good luck!"

"Thank you anyway," we say, and he drives off. We later wonder if we should have asked for a lift to the top of what turns out to be a very long, winding uphill road. We slog along and get to the main road and the sky by now has gone from birlliant blue with fluffy harmless white clouds to a very ominous grey. We stop at a lookout point and take pictures and put on, for the first time, the raincovers on our backpacks. It spits only as we walk along the coastal highway. This is frustrating mostly because it winds up and down hill, and we walk two km for every one we move up the coast. This is the area where the GR92 footpath, I think the E7 for the European Trail designation, goes inland. We are nowhere near it. The country is beautiful though, with thick trees and orange rocks and sandy soil and the rain brings out the smells of the ground which is particularly pleasant. The road, however, has sheer cliff on one side going up, and a barely sloping descent onto jagged rocks and the Mediterranean on the other. At times the barrier on the seaward side is simply concrete blocks six inches high—frankly bloody useless as they merely add ton the hazard. There are some moments where we are sandwiched, motionless, between speeding mechanised death on one side and plummeting jagged rock drowning death on the other and to be honest these are unhappy moments. Despite this we make good progress and find a supermarket in a hotel by a beach resort where we stock up on supplies. It begins to rain heavily and Claire puts on her waterproof. That, along with her brown trousers and the black raincover over her rucksack make her look like a cartoon beetle. I call her a cockroach and sing La Cucaracha as the rain gets heavier and she laughs at me because I, the ever prepared boy scout genius, brought nothing even remotely waterproof with me at all.

We get soaked and thanks to Claire take a very long wrong turn and then it's back on the road and she is getting really angry. Four French girls nearly stop for us but I swear they see the bags and speed off. We make jokes about the French and then concede that we are the mad ones and they were going the wrong way anyway. We keep walking in the steady rain and we find, by accident, a path leading up to an Espai Natural and we explore up it and everything is quiet except the patter of the rain and the occasioanly roar of a car but they aren getting less frequent. Closer to the road we set up the tent on the one flat piece of land we can find. It still slopes slightly, and the road we walked up looks like it is a river in the wet season. But we're tired and it has stopped raining and we inflate the air mattressses and eaat a cold but wonderful dinner and lie next to each other and play 'Go FIsh' propped on our elbows but I can't remember all of the rules. I win and then it starts raining again, really, really hard: the noise is astonishing on the sides of the tent andneither of us get much sleep. I am thinking about flashfloods and Claire is nervous that there is the drop into a ravine only se3ven feet (and slightly downhill) from us, with only a few bushes to catch us if we slide. I also wonder if there are bears in Spain. We neither of us get much sleep and our poor Argos tent is little match for the weather and we know that come morning, if we live that long, we'll be swimming no matter what.

Al's Travel Blog - Part 2

2008-06-17T21:33:00.003+01:00

Monday June 2nd 2008

I wake a little earlier than Claire time and after I shower I walk out to the Placa Urquanoia to find a brunch for us. At least, that's the plan—I manage to delay somehow and Claire comes with me and although this was supposed to be my job she once again does the talking. I need to pull my weight a bit more. We spend the late morning and early afternoon working and reading (oh how nice it is to read, and have the time to read) and then we walk to the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's unfinished masterpiece. It's fantastic, and I can't really describe it except to call it unfinished and yet still fantastic. We took the guided tour with two American ladies, one from Indianapolis (A Hoosier! Like Kurt Vonnegut! I forgot the Cathedral-in-progress immediately and studied her, looking for recognisable symptoms of a character from Cat's Cradle) and one from Alaska (and now I think of Chris McCandless and Jon Krakauer...). I'm teased even though I really don't deserve it by everybody because whenever the guide asks a question I answer it. After the tour we waited a while, watching the construction of the Cathedral (three façades: Christmas, Passion, Glory...) while we wait to go up the tours. We go up in a big glass lift and unusually for me I was fucking petrified—literally, I could barely get my legs to do what I wanted them to do—and it took all of my resolve not to scream like a little girl, burst into tears and make Claire take me down and buy me an ice cream. I think it had something to with the crowds on narrow, unfinished walkways high above the earth. I don't know if I fear heights or crowds more. I guess I hate both. But, when I swallowed my stomach and made myself look out, it was lovely. A truly wondrous sight, and Gaudi was a genius (despite having lived on the planet for over 70 years and not learnt to look both ways while crossing a tramline. I mean, seriously: a genius, but there's only so many places a tram can possibly go...)

Once we left the Sagrada familia and I confessed my fear to Claire (she said she could tell. Damn.) we stopped for €3 spaghetti bolognese and a not bad warm white wine (spaghetti bolognese in Spain is made with pork, it seems.) and then we bought some food supplies because we have only one night left in Barcelona before we hit the road. We bought a bottle of wine for €0.69 and it's not bad and we drink it while we do a little more work. Got to pay for this trip somehow.

Tues June 3rd 2008

I get up and e-mail off some stories for the food magazine that are due and then we pack. Barcelona has been wonderful fun, glorious looking and warm and friendly but I want to see more of the country and Claire tells me the same thing. It is time to go, and we shake hands with Xabier and return the keys and leave. We set off and walk from our room to Pl. Urquanoia down (parallel to Las Ramblas) and when we reach the beach we turn left (oh left, oh how many pictures of thee, and we're continuing left for three months!) until the Diagonal Mas Centre Commercial. After much confusion and a couple of wasted Euros in a hot train we take a tram to Sant Andria and from there a train to Blanes. It may seem like a cop out but it was €4 each and all of the stations we pass are beachfront tourism black holes, all of which have seen better days. They remind me a bit of Great Yarmouth, should the sun ever shine there. This way we get out of Barcelona and the suburbs properly. We leave the station at Blanes excited and full of enthusiasm, which turns out to be a mistake. The station is the on the landward side and like most seaside town the approach from landward is grim at best (at worst simply frightening). We are hot, sweaty, our bags are heavy and our clothes and skin coated in the filmy grime of sunscreen. Claire points us in the right direction to the top of a hill and there we realise we are in the ghetto (Pl de Onze Sept. There's a lot of these in Spain) and headed the wrong way to the sea. After a polite discussion, in which views are patiently and cordially expressed (again, see photos) we agree to go my way and within twenty minutes we are at the sea. We rest by the beach and I eat a bit while Claire feeds pigeons and makes me chase seagulls to spook them into making a photo more dramatic (I grew up in the seaside town of Lymington and have been shat on enough by these beasts to make scaring them a purely blissful experience: revenge, as the Spanish say, is a dish best eaten cold). We shoulder our packs and walk up over a headland, through a rich community. It's a long walk, up another long slope (damned undulating Coasta Brava) and the light is fading and we're beginning to realise that our walk up the coast is going to be completely unlike anything we thought. For a start, a lot of people live here. A LOT of people. Third largest country in Europe, Spain, after Russia and France, and with a population of only 48 million. I think they all live in EXACTLY the places Claire and I can walk between in a day. There is nowhere to camp. Nowhere. Then, we come across a vacant lot, covered in trees and thick with undergrowth, invisible from road and neighbouring houses. Naturally I say it's impossible but Claire explores it and declares that we are staying there for the night. She has a talent for this, a natural and perhaps supernatural talent for this and so we pitch the tent and it's a good spot after all and the light is gone by the time we finish inflating the airbeds. It may not be the wilderness of Spain I was hoping for (stop laughing) but we're invisible and not paying anybody for the privilege of sleeping so we're happy and I fall asleep, listening to the sound of the waves on a nearby beach.

Weds, June 4th, 2008

Claire barely slept—either she was too hot or something. I got a few good hours and as the sun gets hotter I am impatient to get going but she won't get up. We knew there is a beach very close and eventually, after we argue and fall out and get down there at gone eleven in the morning Claire reminds me that we're on holiday. We relax at the beach, Claire gets her sleep in her bikini in the sun (again, see photos) and I swim for a bit and read some. I have a fictional memoir by Ernest Hemingway called 'True At First Light'—an unfinished work, and it is a joy to read a rough chunk of work by this favoured author whose novels and stories are so well crafted and honed. We have a cold shower on the beach and then go to the nearby restaurant where we eat tomato bread and Insalate tropical and drink large cold mugs of beer. I draft out an article on asparagus which it is difficult to concentrate on but I enjoy and we watch people come and go on the beach. I even start work on writing up these travel blogs—and I'm sure that eventually I'll even send something off to Gatehouse Press! As the day cools we refill our water bottles and walk along the coast (after numerous wrong turns we find our way to the hiking path that is mainly roads) to Llorett de Mar. There we look around the beach and guiltily decide to partake of a €12 per person buffet in a hotel restaurant. It's crap food and I love everything about it. We gorge ourselves on the stuff and enjoy with gusto the cheap bottle of unlabelled rose wine that´s included in the price.

After we eat it is getting dark fast and we set out to find a camping spot somewhere around the headland of the cove. It's a dead end again, and as we walk back a large man with a grey ponytail and matching moustache is walking the way we came and says "¿Finito?" and we answer, wishing to be polite, "Si, finito" and carry on. We walk around for a while and find the footpath to the main beach of Lloret de Mar and as we are climbing some steps a voice calls out, asking us if this is the way to the main beach. I turn around and see that it is Mr Finito, whose real name is Hans. Hans is from Austria and has little English but his English is better than our Spanish or German or Austrian and all we can really commuinicate is that there are a lot of steps to climb and that we all flew with Ryanair ("Flugen zie Ryanair?"). The signposts to the main beach claim it is 30 minutes away on foot and we lose Hans ("30 minuten? I go back. I try tomorrow!") but it turns out that these estimates are bold-faced lies, they're either grossly exaggerrated, or grossly underestimated. Claire finds us another spot, right next to the footpath but hidden on almost all sides by thick bushes and trees, near the Castel de San Joan. It is, however, very close to the footpath and road. It's a very loud night and we spend much of it awake, hearts thumping and I grip my little pocketknife in my hand lest we are discovered. We hear all sorts of nasty things: a German voice (it's Hans, he's a murderer and he's come for Claire's body and my blood. He's a lot bigger than me, so I must use my brain. I work out my strategy quickly: "Do what you want with the girl, but don't hurt me!"); Mafia hitmen burying bodies (similar strategy, said in pigeon-Italian); drug-dealers executing rivals (no strategy, simply resignation at this point.) I think that the drug-dealing Mafioso are, in fact, the rowing team putting their boat away and returning to the beach party that rages for most of the night but I don't know that at the time and eventually I fall asleep with the simple philosophy that anybody wishing to kill me will probably have the decency to do it without waking me up.

Claire's Travel Blog - Part 1

2008-06-15T22:31:00.001+01:00

May 31st

I am on a plane. I do not like being on a plane. Even with the aid of two large (large) glasses of wine, the benefit of thinly-rationed cabin pressure and the intoxicating, not-so-faint waft of 200 people's BO thanks to a dysfunctional air conditioning system (you should really only be subjected to BO like that if you have, in fact, had far more intimate relations with all 200 people on this plane than merely sitting in close proximity to them) my thought process still goes a little something like this: I am on a plane. Help. The woman next to me used to be in a punk-rock band in the 70s. Help. At least that's the excuse I'll give her for wearing a white mesh cardigan and matching see-through vest top, faux leather mini-skirt complete with thigh slash and knee high PVC boots at her age. Help.

I should make it clear that I get mean when I'm scared. I'd like to think I'm not always this rude, although Al may disagree - and he may (possibly) have a point. But it's all internal, so no harm done. Actually, yes, I think she just saw me scowl my housewifely disapproval. She doesn't look like she likes me much, but then the punks didn't like anyone much did they?

Take off. helphelphelphelphelp.

I wasn't always such a wimp. I used to be great with flying as a kid. I had it down. Scream at take-off and doubly-loud at landing so they made haste with the sucky sweets to shut you up, then settle down to watch the in-flight movie while mum and dad apologise to everyone on the flight. Simple. Then, one year we took a holiday to Majorca and the plane fell out of the sky. Literally fell out of the sky. Well OK, it fell out of the sky for all of two seconds, but it was enough - enough to set people other than me and over the age of eight off screaming. Then it levelled. The captain came on and reassured everyone that it had just been a random spot of turbulence, nothing to worry about. people laughed and took the piss out of each other while a solitary girl with a bad fringe, waist-length hair thick as a goats and black stirrup pants with white socks continued clinging, white knuckled to her armrests for the remainder of the flight, whispering "helphelphelphelp" as if only the chair could save her - I had read a lot of Enid Blyton as a kid, including the Magic Wishing Chair, in my defence. I was so scared I forgot to scream for my sucky sweet on landing. Mum and dad were thrilled.

This flight is relatively uneventful, apart from being under the terrifying gaze of Johnny Rotten's wife for the duration. I have well-practiced techniques now you see. These include 1) Wine - this is most important; 2) A well-rehearsed take-off song, something inanely cheery to distract yourself with during the scary bit. In the past I have used Outkast's 'Hey Ya' and can wholeheartedly recommend it. This time Britney Spears' 'Piece Of Me' does the trick - and also has the satisfactory side effect of drawing a few worried glances from people wondering how come they always end up next to the crazy person; 3) Always sit over the wing. It might wobble like hell, especially on small flights, but at least you'll be the first to know if it's not there - never trust anyone else with the responsibility of sharing this vital piece of information with staff, you know how uptight the British get about complaining; 4) Never listen to or watch the "in the event of emergency demonstrations". In the event of an emergency you will die. Deal with it; 5) Take all the free wine they offer and buy all the wine that is not free. The list used to end at five, but this time I find I have made a fatal flaw and must add 6) Never, NEVER leave yourself with just a book to read on the flight. Toni Morrison's Beloved is on my lap. It is undeniably wonderful. But it requires concentration, you must make the commitment to escape into it, which is not easy when you have a wing to check on every 30 seconds. Despite having an inherent moral objection to all forms of celebrity magazines (the moral objection being, of course, that they quite likely sapped up far more of my student loan than class reading lists ever did - thank you Sparknotes) and having banished them from my person in disgrace at least, oh, a week previously (quite likely muttering "this time, THIS TIME it will be forever"), I would give anything, ANYTHING IN THE WORLD right now to know exactly what crazy shit Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty have been putting on You Tube while off their tits this week. I actually NEED TO KNOW, help.

The plane lurches skywards, help. My belly flops, help. I close my eyes and pray for the light of Britney to lead the way (repeat after me "I am indeed Mrs lifestyles of the rich and famous, Mrs 'Oh my god, that Britney's shameless'"), help. Once I realise the tail hasn't made contact with the runway, sending us all into the first and last back-flip of my life, I tentatively open my eyes (one at a time) and wonder if the drinks trolley has begun its journey down the aisle yet. I am about to initiate a lively (and no doubt largely nonsensical) discussion with Al as to whether point 3) of the take-off plan should be revised - whether, in fact, it is preferable to sacrifice my wing-watch role in favour of prime position for a freshly-warmed, over-priced Chardonnay when I realise he is smiling. Smiling - the bastard is enjoying my suffering. No, wait - he is enjoying this. This whole thing. This whole beginning process of the ridiculous idea we've bandied about for months without ever (I suspect) actually believing we'd a) come up with the money to do it or b) last long enough as a couple to see realised. He's excited, and for one brief moment my attention is drawn from the imminent death at hand to grin goofily back. I couldn't be happier.

Now, back to business - help.

Al's Travel Blog - Part 1

2008-06-15T22:26:00.002+01:00

Saturday, May 31st 2008

Our packs are lighter than either of us expected them to be. We take a flight from Bournemouth to Girona. It's a short flight—maybe two hours—but most of the passengers around us I recognise from being around us in the small sticky bar before the boarding began. As soon as the pilot turns off the 'fasten seatbelt' sign there is a rush for the loos. The trolleys roam up and down the aisles constantly, resupplying the Brits with their beer and wine. I have beer, Claire a foul chardonnay and we share a hotdog. She does not like flying much.

The flight passes easily but the pilot lands fast and brakes hard, which I suppose has to do with their 25 minute turnaround on the ground before flying back to Bournemouth.

Customs is fast and painless—I love the EU's power to remove official suspicion—and Claire is excited at speaking Spanish for the first time:

"Si," says the passport official. He checks her passport and gives it back to her. "Si, bueno."

"Gracias!" she chirps.

I on the other hand just clam up like a good British schoolboy, confronted with my ignorance. They're used to this, too, and I am waved through.

We buy tickets for the bus from Girona to Estacio del Nord in Barcelona and step out into the air of Spain. It's dusk and the air is heavy—faint smells, so strong in California, linger with a heavy feeling of tired enthusiasm for another truckload of half-cut Brits come to burn on the beaches. It's almost enough to make you ashamed of being British; it's never enough to make you ashamed of being half-cut.

The bus drops us at Estacio del Nord and the streets of Barcelona are still warm an hour after sundown. We take the commuter train (we were trying for the metro—public transport here is confusing to say the least) to the Placa de Catalunya and walk the three blocks, past deli's and restauarants and fantastic, huge, towering blocks of apartments that are gorgeous and gaudily decorated. The room we are staying in is in a family apartment in just such a building on the Carrer de Roger des Lluria and we find it and our host, Xabier, buzzes us up and we climb six hundred flights of stairs with our backpacks on and begin to doubt our ability to go through with the hike.

It is a lovely simple room and we wash in the bathroom down the corridor after paying Xabier in cash and then we talk excitedly about our plans for the next day before we realise we are actually in Spain, and at the start of our grand adventure.

Sunday June 1st 2008

We sleep in—the other guests, Swiss girls we never got to meet, have already set off. We lock up our things and set off into Barcelona, towards the Placa des Catalunya and from there to the infamous Las Ramblas. It is too crowded and this is barely the beginning of the tourist season and we find that the best way through is to zig-zag through Las Ramblas visiting the smaller, quieter side streets. Our first port of call is breakfast and we struggle through with our lack of any language but in a small place near Placa des Angels and the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona we order mixed Paella and cold Sangria. The day is still cool and we do a little work before the food arrives and only have the one carife of Sangria despite the waiter's best efforts—he must think we aren't really Ingles after all. Afterwards we pay a short visit to the Museu but want to get on with seeing the city. Okay, that was me: I'm useless with art galleries and have heard a rumour of visible remains, traces perhaps, of Roman walls in the Gothic quarter. When we get there I can't find them but continue to bore Claire about Hannibal Barca (Barcelona is named for his family) and we stumble on some fantastic architecture that distracts me from the Roman Empire for a while. Eventually we end up at the harbour at the bottom of Las Ramblas. It is two in the afternoon and the sun is laughing heartily at the wilting, overdressed Ingles who now shuffle into a tourist cafe.

We sit outside and in my notebook is an entry I made while Claire was in the loo and I was asking vainly for the bill (La quentes). It reads: It's good just to walk, and pleasant to sit and drink cold sangria and hot coffee by the mirador des Colom (named for Cristobel Colom, known to our enterprising cousins in America as Christopher Columbus), but each unasked for entertainer expects payment, waiters speak English because it's just easier that way and drunk German and English and American boys catcall and whistle at passing girls. It will soon be time to move further away from the language we know—away from the travel guides. Of course then, when we are truly on our own, we're fucked.

After asking several times for la quentes without success Claire suggests we walk up a mountain. We walk up Montjuic and then up to the castle there. Here once lived Barcelona's historic Jewish community. The view north-west over Barcelona harbour and the mediterranean and the start of the Costa Brava is my favourite. It looks good, with the sea dark blue and the dots of white buildings scrambling up the brown heights beyond. 'That is where we will walk', I think.

We take some pictures (hopefully attached with Claire's entry if she can sort out the camera) and it gets cooler but we sit for a while before walking back down the hill to find dinner. On the way Claire points out to the Spanish that they are driving on the right: "Thank God I'm here," she says. "There could have been an awful crash." We walk through an exclusive street party and back up Las Ramblas, checking newspaper stands for the English Observer because I'm supposed to be in it. In Spain, I'm not. We decide to eat closer to our room, and off the Placa Urquanoia (sp?) we find a reasonably priced restaurant where the waiters hate us only marginally less than the elderly American couple with thick red glasses next to us. We make our best guesses at the menu and drink a bottle of wine and the food is okay and afterwards we find out that Claire ate veal—"I'm disgusted with myself! I know it's ridiculous but I actually feel sick."

"Don't feel sick. We've had a lovely day, I love this city, we ate well and we're going to have a romantic night in our room in Barcelona."

"I just ate a calf, you prick, I can never have sex again."

Scrambled Community

2008-06-06T00:51:00.005+01:00

The new community style is going well, the odd hiccup here and there (and everywhere) is expected, but this is the biggest change to the community since it's launch and has been in the works for some time. Apologies to those missing being able to post, I hope to get some sort of skeleton version of the community online ASAP, then work on the detail later.

The image above shows the Community homepage (left) as it is at the moment, a little scrambled! The new topic list (right) is set on a notepad-style backing. I will add more colour eventually, but I'm eager to get this back online first, then I'll work more on the aesthetics.

Lee

Virgin Blogger

2008-06-05T18:16:00.001+01:00

Damn it.................someone has to start this. Here am I, waiting for the interesting blogs to appear and boy am I impatient !
Who is in then ?
Coborium

Greetings from the Press Gang!

2008-05-05T11:29:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the very first post in the official Gatehouse Press blog!

What should you expect from this blog? A mixture of information and irreverence; official news and updates about our books and projects mixed in with random snippets from the minds of the Gatehouse staff. To start us off, we'll be featuring regular entries from Al and Claire as they meander around Europe, stopping off at Internet cafes to provide little snapshots into their adventures...

We'll be looking to update the Press Gang blog as often as possible, so come back regularly!

The Press Gang