Ode to Barcelona (i.e. to Bee and Balconies)

I remember perfectly the first time I saw Bee. It was eight years ago in San Francisco and she waltzed into writing class, wearing some slinky number, swingy hair, significant smile. The class collectively stopped and swooned.

Soon thereafter, Bee went off to Italy and me to Thailand, and so we didn't see each other, although we lived somewhat parallel lives: lovers galore, stints in our home countries (Pakistan and Bangladesh), moving to Barcelona (she more successfully), and painting our toes silver and only silver.

So when I went to Barcelona last month, and stayed with Bee for five naked warm nights, it was like old friends just met. Because in a way, we were really meeting for the first time, but in a way, we'd known each other forever.

My first trip to Spain was just after college in 1995, in that cliche backpacking trip that all middle class Americans do post college. Boyf #1 and I did a forty day tour of southern Europe, tracing the Mediterranean, and Barcelona was hands down our favourite stop of all. I swore I'd go back, but it took me another 11 years to return. In 2006, I lived next to the Sagrada Familia for four sexed up months (with boyf #5) before I ran out of money, won a Fulbright, lost the love, and left Europe, broke and broken hearted.

It would be another four years before my next trip (at least the time in between my visits is becoming shorter), and what a fabulous time I had this time. But of course, it's Barcelona, one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The curvilicious architecture, the flower frothing balconies, the beaches, the night life, the stupendous seafood. I even go shopping there, and you must know what a rarity that is.

How could you not love a city where their Lover's Day (La Diada de Sant Jordi) involves an exchange of gifts where you give your girl a rose and your boy a book, the streets fill up with stalls, and half a million books leave the shelves? Utter joy.

Luckily for me, Bee knows how to live large on a budget (can you see we were meant to be?). Superb home made mojitos? Check. Balcony overlooking Parc Güell? Check. Bread and wine at midnight? Check. Good use of Barcelona's spanking new public bike system? Check. Free dancy concerts every night? Check. Fire dancing on the beach? Check. Flasks full of whiskey? Check. 9 hours of sleep a night? To begin with.

I also got to meet Carlos again, witty sweet couchsurfing friend I made while we were both backpacking around South America two years ago. We hit it off then in Iguazu, Argentina, and now, in Barcelona, his home city. Carlos took me chocolate drinking in El Raval, lunching at the most fabulous Catalan spot in Sagrera (where I had my first taste of that seafood noodle goodness that is fideuà, see above), and to his made for romance flat, complete with brightly painted walls, arty photographs, french doors, wrought balconies, and billowing white curtains.

And I got to spend a drunken heady evening with Francisco, old friend from Penn and El Salvadorean transplant in Barcelona, in his gorgeous little Eixample flat. Francisco, you owe Arati and Philly a visit, so please start planning (Spring '11?), and I'll meet you there.

Every one of these lovelies are people with whom I would happily stay up til dawn, night after night, talking and talking and talking. And so I did, in between the feasting and dancing and everything else. I hope it's a lot less than 4 years before I go back, if only to lounge around and drink mojitos with Bee again. Plus it's my heart city. I knew it fifteen years ago, and it only gets clearer with the years.

So many homes. So little time.