flying home

Perhaps I should change the name of this blog.
Friday night, I finally walked to Salvation.
It's a gay disco just a few blocks from Jerry's place — though not our first stop on a lengthy tour of Barcelona nightlife. First was Sweet, which was sedate but trendy; then Z:eltas, a be-seen boom-chica-boom cruise bar; then Café Dietrich, which was smokey and retro. Finally, Salvation, a subterranean dance club with a lite-circuit vibe and a muy popular dark room. Not that I'd ever venture into any den of sin.

Overall Barcelona did not disappoint, though the city had a very different energy than I expected. After Madrid and Sevilla, Barcelona felt somehow more modern, more Western. It seems to be a city very much in cahoots with cars, which was a little annoying in places. I did love the broad tree-lined streets and youthful atmosphere. There were points of the city that reminded me much of New York -- if only we had trees here. And less trash.

Unfortunately, our Travel Drama had one, er, two last flare ups before the end. Our plane flight to Madrid was somehow booked on the wrong day (ahem), which meant we had to scramble to find a train on Saturday morning. Once in Madrid, our hotel reservation made the day before had been lost. I'm actually a little glad it was, because we landed back in one of the Petit Palace Hotels, with their shower heads to die for.

Now I'm back in NYC, not jet-lagged at all but also having a hard time getting back into the swing of non-vacation life. The images that stick in my mind, oddly enough, are mostly from Sevilla — a city that wasn't even on our original itinerary.
Life is funny that way. You have this vision in your head of the way things are supposed to go, they way a trip or a city should be, but the reality of the experience turns out to be nothing like your fantasy.

And then there are moments, like when we had discovered the underground reaches of the Alcazar or at last climbed to the highest tower of the Sagrada Familia, that the reality suddenly and decisively exceeds the fantasy, making you forget what you had expected in the first place. It's instances like that when travel becomes unquestionably worth the trauma. It might only be four, maybe five, minutes of a nine-day trip, but those few minutes are surely worth it.