It was about 10am in when the sun streamed in through the little office window and stirred me awake on a small air mattress. I was a few miles outside of Barcelona, in a sleepy little village named Torrelles de Llobregat where my travel buddy Cheeseman and I were staying with my Spanish friend Marçal. My long night out in Barcelona had left a lingering headache, but the smell of food drifting up from downstairs encouraged me to pull myself out of bed. On my way out of the converted guest room, I kicked Cheeseman awake on an adjacent air mattress and grunted the word “breakfast,” which seemed to be all the motivation he needed to get up and follow me. Our friend and host, Marçal, greeted us in the kitchen with a big smile and El Desayuno (breakfast). The spread on the table looked familiarly French, with a couple of baguettes and half a dozen croissants fresh from the bakery next to a big bowl of what looked like mashed tomatoes. Marçal explained that the bowl contained Pa Amb Tomaquet — a mixture of fresh tomatoes with garlic and olive oil intended to be slathered on bread. I’m normally not a tomato person, but the garlic aroma combined with my grumbling stomach convinced me to try it. I’m glad I did because it was actually a very pleasant and healthy tasting breakfast.
As we ate, Marçal asked if we wanted any coffee, to which I responded with an enthusiastic “yes please!” He stuck his head out the window and shouted “Ávia! Café si us plau!” A moment later he opened a sliding glass door that lead to a sunny enclosed patio and waved for us to follow him outside. We exited the apartment into a small, open-air courtyard full of colorful flowers and walked from his kitchen right into the kitchen of his grandparents on the opposite side. The happy elderly couple greeted us, and Marçal’s grandma showed us to the dining room table where a carafe of the blackest coffee I’d ever seen was waiting. She poured Cheeseman and I tiny servings of the oily-black liquid and said something to us that, while I didn’t understand, I assumed meant “drink up!” We both said “Thank you,” and sipped the ultra-strong coffee. I instantly went from groggy to wide awake and alert. As Marçal conversed with his family, I realized it wasn’t Spanish they were speaking. “It’s Catalan I think,” Cheeseman whispered under his breath to me. It was indeed Catalan, a fascinating blend of Spanish and French that hit the ear quite pleasantly.
Cheeseman and I soon found ourselves having a full-fledged conversation with Marçal’s grandparents about our travels and backgrounds, using mostly broken Spanish, French and hand gestures. But we ended up understanding each other quite well. Marçal’s grandpa got excited when he realized Cheeseman was a science student and brought out a collection of rare rocks collected from his days as a geologist. It was one of those priceless authentic cultural experiences, just drinking coffee with locals in a small village, something you could never plan but is so much more memorable than any tourist attraction.
After breakfast, Marçal took us on a walking tour around his little village. Torrelles de Llobregat was a charmingly quaint place with stone cobbled streets lined with little shops and cafes. He showed us the pitch where he played pickup soccer games on the weekends and introduced us to his parents in the pharmacy that they owned and operated in town. The village felt so much more authentic than the bustling tourist laden streets of Barcelona. Torrelles de Llobregat wasn’t catering to anyone and had nothing to prove; it was just a peaceful community of about 5,000 people making a comfortable living on the outskirts of the big city.
When Cheeseman and I expressed an interest in hiking, Marçel took us (and his affable little dog) on a trek to the summit of the nearby Mount Puig. We followed a dirt trail out of town that wound its way through a scraggly forest and steadily ascended the little mountain. The hike took us through a small vineyard, which looked all but abandoned for the winter, but nonetheless exotic looking to me. The scraggly trees became scarcer as we climbed. When we finally reached the summit, we had an unobstructed view over rolling golden hills that faded into the urban haze of Barcelona in the distance. It was stunning.
We got back into town by late afternoon and arrived back at a house filled with appetizing aromas. Marçal’s parents had cooked a generous meal of Catalan sausage, Spanish potato omelets, and green vegetables for all of us. It was such a striking display of warmth and kindness considering we were essentially unannounced guests. We thanked them graciously and enjoyed another improvised multilingual conversation over the dinner table.
That night Marçel put Cheeseman and I both to shame in games of Fifa and Tekken before we finally put on an international cult classic to watch, The Big Lebowski.
The next morning Cheeseman and I made a heaping stack of banana pancakes for breakfast to share some of our culture with our generous Catalan hosts. The sweet flapjacks were topped with various jams, applesauce, and Nutella with great enthusiasm by everyone. Afterward, Marçel asked us what we had seen in Barcelona already, and what he heard didn’t seem to satisfy him. He insisted on taking us in his car to do a proper tour of the city’s most interesting sights, a proposition that excited me at first but would come to terrify by the end of the day.
Composed of equal parts adrenaline, aggression and gasoline, driving in Barcelona is what most insurance companies would categorize as “an extreme sport.” To that effect, the streets of Barcelona are dramatically more intimidating from the passenger seat of a vehicle driven by a bonafide local. As little Vespas zoomed all around us and honking cars hurtled out of invisible side streets, I became acutely aware of the fact that the streets of Barcelona seemed almost entirely devoid of any formal lines or markings. In fact, Marçel informed us that insurance companies have maps labeling a number of the city’s most dangerous intersections and roundabouts where their coverage does not extend due to the sheer volume of regular accidents that happen there. “Actually, here’s one of those now,” Marçel said as we merged into a roundabout three lanes deep that circled a towering statue of Christopher Columbus. I felt my stomach lurch with dread as Marçel confidently zigzagged in and out of the armada of cars, eventually exiting onto the famous La Ramblas.
But Marçel’s driving got us around town swiftly and safely, and thanks to him we saw some of Barcelona’s top attractions all in one afternoon. We walked around the Parc de Montjuïc, the Olympic stadium, Catalan history museum, the famous Camp Nou football stadium, and the imposing La Sagrada Familia cathedral. The line and entry price of the cathedral deterred us from actually going inside, but the façade was striking enough to thoroughly enjoy from the outside (I say that, but on another visit in a couple years time I would actually venture inside and see the extent of how stunning Gaudi’s masterpiece really was).
After a long day of sightseeing with Marçel, we thanked him profusely for his and his family’s generosity before saying goodbye in front of our familiar Rock Hostel from our first night in Barcelona.