Catalunya; Barcelona, Girona, Palafrugell

I had some hassles in Zaragosa involving my credit card. It´s not working... and even a frantic international call to the Commonwealth Bank help centre was unable to resolve it. However, I´ve discovered that I can use my cash card to withdraw money so I´m leaving the problem unaddressed for now. Needless to say, I was in a shitty mood on the day I arrived in Barcelona. As a city it´s nowhere near as mad as Madrid (at least not during the day). It´s got a relaxed coastal vibe, and the coast is indeed beautiful. The Mediterranean Sea backs right up to the main street, and the temperature seems to hover at around 20 degrees. The puffy English tourists were loving it. I dragged my backpack around to five or so hostals before finding a vacancy in a filthy little place with greasy walls and a lingering cigarette smog. The cleaner was nice though - she called me Chico. The beds squeaked with every movement so that on my last night I was awoken by the couple next door having sex... On the first day I went to the Picasso Museum, a converted mansion that keeps mainly paintings from his formative years. Realist landscapes and portraits that he painted in his teens. There were also a few from his blue period, his rose period, and from the later years when he took cubism to its absolute limits... One room had nothing but reproductions (50 plus) of Valasquez´ famous Las Meninas - the figures becoming more and more distorted and unrecognisable in each painting. He had a sense of humour. At night I went to the Harlem Jazz Club, drank sickly sweet Spanish beer and saw a decent blues band. The place was so filled with smoke I had to rinse my eyes out before I could go to sleep. On the second day in Barcelona I caught the metro out to Sagrada Familia, Gaudi´s amazing temple. It´s been in construction since 1892 and is expected to be finished in 2020. As it is, it´s still very much a construction site - although there didn´t seem to be much work going on. I suppose that´s why it´s taken over 100 years to build. The design is generally described as organic or humanistic... It looks as if it´s just grown out of the ground. I spent the afternoon walking around the waterfront and the older parts of town... Barcelona is an ugly place at night. The crowd pulses down La Rambla. Drunk and stoned. The drug trade is very open... even though the local police dress like Black Panthers and seem to be pretty vigilante. I slept through the second night. Yesterday I caught the train from Barcelona to Girona. I´m being kicked out of this internet cafe... they close at dos.