Despite a particularly long and tedious wait in line at Stanstead, and a brief scare in which they claimed Amit’s bag was too big to be carried on, we had a pleasant flight (we even got three seats to ourselves, thanks to Greg’s tried-and-true budget-airline comfort tip, can’t share it though…) arrived in Barcelona mid-day. We walked from the bus station down to the train station to buy our tickets to Paris. We had made reservations at a hostel, so after a great sandwich lunch, we hopped on the metro and headed pretty far out of town. We got off the train, found our bearings, and after about a 25 minute walk, found our way to the hostel. Except… the guy had no record of our booking. Amit managed to convince him to let us use his “work-only” computer, even though he assured us this was really really not allowed. Amit pulled up the record of the booking… to find out that we had booked a different hostel. Sigh. But the guy was really helpful, he called up the other hostel and made sure they did have our booking, gave us a great map of the city, and told us how to get where we wanted to go. We hopped on the tram line, and in not too long we were checking into our actual hostel. Of course, the receptionist there couldn’t resist making fun of us for getting it wrong the first time…

We headed for a walk along “La Rambla”, sort of a main street, where the median is lined with shops, street performers, and tapas cafes. We stopped after a while and had our first tapas. Some simple olives, ham, and cheese, but it was amazing. We opted for beer instead of sangria, figuring that we’d get some later.

From there we headed down to the waterside, then went looking for a place called “Can Paixano”, a hole in the wall that was supposed to have some great Cava (Spanish sparkling wine) and tasty food. After finally managing to track down the street it was supposed to be on, we walked up and down, but to no avail. We got a tip about another Tapas place from a bartender, and we ended up walking all the way to the beach before giving up. At that point we walked back to the hostel and headed to bed.

The next morning we got up and headed to the Sagrada Familia church. I remember learning about this church in my 9th grade Spanish class, so it was really neat to finally see it. It was even more incredible to see the differences in the older and more modern parts, since the church has been under construction for some hundred years. (Will they ever finish it? I bet not. Seems like quite the tourist attraction if it’s never done…)

After walking around (we didn’t end up going inside) we decided to give our Cava place another shot. We walked through the old latin quarter of the city.

Another bridge of sighs:

Our optimism paid off! Sure enough, Can Paixano was open (It’s closed on Sundays, and at 11 the rest of the week.)
The review we read described getting food and drink as “a challenge”. We weren’t really sure what they could mean by that, but we decided we were up for whatever they could throw at us. First of all, the place was just absolutely packed with people.
But with a bottle of cava for 2 Euro, what else would you expect. So we pushed our way up to the bar and tried to order. To drink there, you have to also order food. But our Catalan wasn’t exactly good enough to know exactly what we were ordering, so it was all a matter of pointing to what looked good. We got some fresh ham sandwiches. Then when someone else ordered some grilled chorizo, we just pointed and asked for some of whatever he was having.

After enjoying a great lunch, we decided to buy a bottle of Cava to take with us. With the bottle on our backs, we headed up the funicular to the hills around the city. Among other things we got to see the 1992 olympic stadium:

And a royal palace:

A view of the city:

Me and Amit:

With time winding down before our train to Paris, we decided to finally get some Sangria before we left. But first we passed the convention center, where there was a conference on European Science taking place. Amit and I walked in and took a look around at the booths. We also managed to make a booking for a Paris hostel using the free internet provided. We checked out an open-air food market off of the Rambla that we’d heard good things about. We’d heard, however, that we were there during the wrong part of the week: new shipments come in on a certain day, and we weren’t there to catch it. So most of the stands were closed, but there were still a fair amount of fruits, veggies, fish, and meats for sale.

We tried to retrace our steps from earlier in the day to find a certain Tapas bar that looked good: we still needed some Sangria.
Once again, we succeeded… sort of. We found the place, went in, took a seat, and ordered. Simple stuff, drinks and olives. Time was running short, but we weren’t worried… Except instead of going and getting our food ready, she took the order of the guys next to us. This guy wouldn’t stop with the questions! He was trying to order a salad, and somehow had one hundred questions to ask about every detail about its preparation. After 10 minutes we got up and left. We headed back to the hostel to pick up our bags, then went to the train station. Verified that we had some time, went across the street, and finally ordered our Sangria.
We asked them to hurry. We asked if we could pay right away (they eventually agreed.) We drank it down pretty quickly, with about 7 minutes until the train was leaving.

We ran back to the train station, went through security without having to put our bags through the x-ray (”You’re late! No time! Just go!”)
We had dinner in the snack car, decompressed from a pretty busy day, and got ready for our next adventures in Paris.

I was really excited about finally getting to see Cambridge. Amit studied there last year, and Greg this year, so for two years I’ve been hearing all about this place but haven’t really been able to picture it.

Greg and I arrived in the afternoon and went for a quick walk around campus/town before having dinner at a local pub.

King’s college (?)

The entrance to Trinity Hall, Greg’s college:

The dorms:

This is Trinity College, Amit’s college. At this point, if the whole “college” system confuses you, it’s just like the houses at Hogwarts.

The reason Amit was back in Cambridge was for his graduation ceremony. He finished his degree last summer, after our trip in Sweden, so he didn’t get a chance to participate in last summer’s ceremony.
It’s a very elaborate ceremony, so he definitely thought it was worth coming back for!

We took a punting trip on the river Cam with Amit’s family who was there for the graduation.

On our last day, we played a game of Croquet on the laws on Trinity Hall. I ended up winning, but that was more because everyone who got through the last gate ahead of me spent all their effort blocking Amit and Greg from winning…

Amit and I headed to bed at about 1am so that we could get up by 4 to catch our National Express bus to Stanstead for our flight to Barcelona the next day.

I arrived at Gatwick and took the train into Victoria station, where I had to figure out how to get to my hostel in Greenwich. The tube system was completely confounding at first glance. I couldn’t even really buy a ticket without feeling like an idiot. The station was just packed with people, the lines for the automated machines were epically long… If I’d been in a slightly more foreign country, for instance if I didn’t speak the language or if I really stood out as someone who didn’t belong, it might have been overwhelming enough to give me a panic attack.
I did get my ticket, and took the tube. It turns out that’s not the fastest way to get in, but who would have known.

I left my stuff and took a walk around Greenwich. I found the Royal Naval College, where it looked like people were getting ready for a graduation ceremony.

I also headed up to the observatory, and got the requisite picture of me in both hemispheres!

The next morning I headed in to town for the “free tour.” Laura Paul had told me about these tours; she had taken the Paris one and highly recommended it. I saw the London tour advertised in the hostel. It turned out not to be the same company that runs the tours in Paris (as well as those Amit and I took in Munich and Berlin) but it was a great tour nonetheless.

The tour started out with us watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham palace:

We got some pictures with the palace guards:

For Saket:

After the tour was over, I met up with Greg and we headed back to Cambridge together. I hadn’t seen Greg since we moved out of our apartment last summer, so it was really great to catch up.

After arriving in Algeciras, I was prepared for the onslaught of touts the guidebooks warned me about.
Fortunately, since I arrived so late, the port was empty and I could just walk over to the nearest hotel whose name I recognized from the guides. I checked in and fell asleep.

I had breakfast in the morning with a view of the Rock of Gibraltar. The Rock was known in ancient times as the Pillar of Hercules; Roman sources say that on his way to complete one of his twelve labors, he decided to smash the mountain of Atlas, thus connecting the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. The rock of Gibraltar was all that was left of the mountain on the north side.

I checked out of the hotel and walked down to the bus terminal to catch a bus to La Linea, the Spanish city at the border of Gibraltar.
While walking I saw a big clock at an intersection, and it was an hour off. I thought to myself “come on guys, you can’t even adjust your clocks for summer time?” Then when I saw another big clock showing the same time, I realized I was probably wrong… It turned out that going straight north from Morocco to Spain, I changed time-zones. Oops. I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t have any bookings to meet…

The bus took about 40 minutes and cost only 2 Euro. I got to the border and walked across. They didn’t even check my passport, merely holding it up to show that, yes, I do own something that looks like a passport, was enough. I wonder if my Bangladeshi passport cover would have been enough?
The border station with the Rock in the background:

I was looking for the youth hostel of Gibraltar, but the roads were pretty poorly marked. I took some time walking around the main city streets, and eventually found the hostel. Unfortunately it was closed until 4pm. I didn’t want to carry my stuff around, so I looked for another hotel. I ended up finding one not far from the main square, so I checked in, left my stuff, and walked around a bit more. I ended up buying a new pair of shorts, since the pair I brought with me had completely fallen apart in Morocco. (I mean, i’m not picky, but they were really unwearable in polite society.)
The streets of Gibraltar:

After that, I walked up the rock to see the various sights. The Rock has been used as a fortress since ancient times, through the wars between the British and the Moors, and even in World War II.

First I headed up to the old Moorish Castle:

Barbary macaques (which are the same species as the Barbary Apes from the Cascades d’Ouzoud):

View of the airport from the seige tunnels, dug in the late 1700s:

I continued my hike up the Rock, to St. Michael’s cave. The caves are some 700 meters deep, and during the ancient period, this was thought to be the entrance to Hades.

I climbed to the top of the Rock, about 470 meters above sea level, and found some old World War II lookout points.

I jumped up on top of the lookout point. I didn’t really realize just how high up I was, but this is what a 1200 foot vertical dropoff looks like…

View of the Med:

The next morning I headed to the airport for my flight to London.
This had to be the coolest airport I traveled through on my entire trip. The runway cuts right across the only road into town!

After sending Chris and Anna off in the evening, and Robbie, Jill, John, and Laura the next morning, I set off on my own exit.
I had booked a plane ticket from Gibraltar to London-Gatwick. I knew I could take a train as far as Tangier, then I hoped to go on to Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in North Africa, and take a ferry from there to Spain proper, then head over to Gibraltar.

Armed with at least four currencies, what looks like three passports, and an international cellphone with SIM cards from Morocco, the UK, France, and Estonia, I set off, in Jason Bourne style, for Spain.

The train took about 5 hours, so I ended up getting to Tangier later than I expected. About halfway through the trip, some guy entered my cabin and started a conversation. I answered in Arabic, he pretended to be impressed that I could speak Arabic. Turns out, he was trying to hustle me. Gotta give him credit though; he really did have quite the repertoire. First: are you staying in Tangier? An effort to get me to go to his friend’s hotel. Then, once I said I was leaving immediately to Spain, he asked if I had already bought my ticket. I followed the guidebooks’ advice and said that I had indeed already bought my ticket. He claimed he was going to be on the same ferry, heading to Spain on business tonight.

He contemplated for a while, trying to plan his next move. “I have only bought my train ticket as far as Sidi Ali. Maybe you can give me money for the rest of the ticket, then once we get to Tangier, my friend has a hotel and we can go there and I’ll get you the money I owe you.”

Well, I started playing dumb, pretending like I didn’t know enough Arabic to understand his request. He simplified his language, there’s no way I could feign stupidity anymore. I explained that I didn’t have any cash left, I was leaving the country immediately so I had spent the last of my Moroccan Dirham.

“Ah, so you’ve converted it to Euro?”
“No, I don’t really have any Euro either. Maybe 5 Euro.”
“Ah! Perfect! Because the fare is only 5 Euro!” (It’s not.)
“Look pal. I can’t help you.” I turned back to my book and ignored him. I left him with a “May Allah help you.”
He then made an ostentatious display of pulling a Moroccan youth out of the cabin into the corridor, returning and claiming that all was well, his “brother” would help him. Of course, I saw their transaction and there was no money changing hands. At the next station (not the one he claimed was the end of the ticket he had paid) he got off the train.

Anyway, I got to Tangier, walked along the coast to the bus terminal.

I found out that there was no way I could get to Ceuta until quite late at night, and that only after taking a bus to another city, then taking a taxi to Ceuta. I decided to look into taking the ferry direct from Tangier to Algeciras, Spain. That ended up being the best option, but my ferry didn’t leave for a few hours. So I walked around Tangier, found an internet cafe, wrote and mailed some postcards, then headed to the port.
(I didn’t slip in fishguts getting this picture.)

I had my last Moroccan orange juice (best in the world) and cafe au lait (you never, ever, get the same thing twice when you order a cafe au lait in Morocco. So it’s always an adventure)

I asked the guy how much it was going to be. It was lucky that he said 20 Dirham. Because that’s all I had, and that’s all he was getting. I ended up leaving Morocco with only 20 Sentimes, pretty good I’d say.
I watched the sunset from the relatively empty ferry as we headed to Algeciras.