Cornwall

Apologies in advance to those I sent postcards too. The jokes in this post may look remarkably similar.

Cornwall is the southwestern most county of England. Its Celtic name is Kernow and along with Ireland, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Brittany, is regarded as one of the 6 Celtic nations. It has a long and rich history and like most of the other Celtic nations harbours some thoughts of independence.

In short, it seemed like a nice place and far enough away from London to spend the Easter weekend. Fresh air and all that. And there was plenty of fresh air, most of it blowing strong and wet into my exposed face. I've never been as cold before in my life. So, plan A, which was to go walking through the countryside seeing the dolmens was out the door. I tried, dammit I tried, but it was pointless. The locals must be rather used to this though. The beaches (which were really rather nice) had the red and yellow flags up and lifeguards at the ready which, given the conditions, was quite a surreal sight.

So, plan A out the door, what to do next? Well, why not try the local pubs?

I was staying in Penzance, a town made famous by the musical. Much of Cornwall's history is that of pirates. If you didn't know this before you got there, every second shop reminds you. From the timber yard named 'Shiver me Timbers', to the Pirate internet cafe, the Pirate fish and chip shop ("cod and chips for pieces of eight!") and most bizarrly a Pirate charity shop.

So, the pub it was. Amazingly, the locals have what can only be described as a pirate accent. Initially, I wasn't sure if this was part of the show they do for tourists, but if it was then they all do it very well, and it sounded pretty genuine to me. If you think I'm kidding, imagine the bar tender exclaiming 'arrr, what'll it be then', or 'arrr, it be cold today arrrr'. It was very amusing.

I won't have fond memories of the Long Boat pub though. A fat 50 year old bloke with breath that smelt like car tyres tried to pick me up. I was at the bar innocently trying to watch the football when he came over and started talking to me. It started off innocently enough, but then the touching and the odd 'good looking young fella like you' dropped into bizarre moments of the conversation. I had to make some excuses before full time. Tightassed bastard didn't even buy me a drink!

So plan C was brought into force. 5 days reading books and watching movies. Came back very relaxed and happy.

You know, I wrote the last entry in a bit of a hurry and forgot to mention the most exciting thing I found out about Barcelona. If you get a moment, make sure you do a wikipedia search for Caganer. Christmas time is a time for little nativity scenes everywhere, but in Barcelona (and Catalunia generally) they add the Caganer, which is a little gnome, much like you'd see in your standard garden. Except that this one is not holding a fishing rod, this one has dropped his pants and is in the process of defecating. You might immediately think that this blog has moved beyond the bounds of bad taste, but I swear to you that this is true. Do the search.

I asked a friend of mine from Barcelona about this. He told me that the Caganer was supposed to represent the resoiling of the earth or something like that. He told me though that Catalans are generally quite open about their bodily functions, that people would excuse themselves from the dinner table with a loud "I must go and have a shit". (In Spanish of course, which adds a bit of a romantic twist to this story) Upon returning to the table, the rest of the family/group of friends would ask with genuine interest how the shit was. I didn't want to ask too much more, like how much detail your average family member really wanted to know about their mother's movement, but it paints a pretty funny picture of your average Catalan family.

So, to all my readers, may your next movement be a good one. Til next time.

Barcelona

Travelling is wonderful. On so many occasions you are thrown in with people whom you would never meet in a million years in an ordinary day. And if you did, there's a good chance you probably wouldn't like them anyway.

18 months ago, when staying in a small hostel in Connemara, I met Sebastien and Christy. Seb is from Paris, and had decided to take a long weekend in Ireland. Christy is from Washington DC, had a week off, and thought Ireland, why not. Seb and I were friends for 2 days, the 3 of us went for a long walk on the second day. That's been about it really, I haven't exactly kept in contact with either of them. So, when Christy emailed us both to tell us that she was coming to Spain for a week, the only reasonable decision open was to fly down for a weekend and join her. And so we did. And it was great.

One man's influence has shaped Barcelona more than anyones. Anthony Gaudi, visionary architect and committed catholic who designed some of the most amazing buildings and structures you're ever likely to see. I couldn't take a decent photo of his most famous work, La Sagrada Familia, it was simply too big and incredible to fit into one shot, so I borrowed this photo from the internet.



Amazingly, they have been building this cathedral for 100 years. They plan on having it finished by 2026, exactly 100 years after Gaudi was hit by a tram. By then there will be many more melting candle style towers. This was, without a doubt, the most visually stunning building I have ever seen. When Gaudi wasn't making plans for this one, he was building apartment blocks like this one.



I was half tempted to ring the bell and ask if Darth Vader was home.

And so ended a weekend that went rather too quickly for my likings. Great city, great food, great sangria, what more could one ask for really?