Saturday, August 27, 2011

Europe 2002 Trip Reports Part 6 Barcelona Day 2

This is the 6th of a series of posts recalling my trip to Europe, using e-mails sent at the time. Unlike later trips, I didn’t e-mail people everyday.

This particular post is a bit unusual because it’s a bridging post. I apparently forgot to report on my second day there entirely, so this post fills in what I still recall of that day.

I went up a castle early on. The castle was largely intact so you had to pay to get in, but the grounds were free so I got some nice photos of the city from on top of the hill the castle was on.

I went back to the beach but didn’t find it as interesting as the day before and also was a bit more pressed for time. So soon I left for the zoo.

I tried asking directions for the zoo, but some confusion arose because the Spanish word for zoo is also spelled “zoo” but it’s pronounced zOH, as I found out when I showed the person I was asking directions either a map or a guidebook.

At the zoo I saw the world’s last known albino gorilla. He was already in his senior years at the time. I explored the rest of the zoo but only really recall the gorilla. I got a discount getting into the zoo by waiting a few minutes, because the price dropped at 4.

I think I was starting to cut it close a bit to get the train out (I considered staying one more day but wanting to see the south of France sooner than later; in hindsight I’d have stayed an extra day if I could have, as Barcelona was really beautiful). En route, money, started spilling out, and as I was picked the money from the ground, a panhandler leaned down as well to try to, well, panhandle me, which didn’t help my stress level.

If the urination incident described in the last blog didn’t happen on the train ride *to* Barcelona, it happened on the train ride *from* Barcelona.

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