"me" time

It's 8:38am. I am here in the Sala Miro, the lounge in Barcelona airport. By the time the flight leaves (if it's on time), I would have spent exactly 36 hours in one of these favorite cities of mine, all by myself.

Hence the title to this blog. For most of the last 20 years, whenever I had a moment, it was typically spend at work, or with the family, and friends and of course the church. There is hardly an extended number of hours (save for sleeping) that I am spending mainly just doing what I like to be doing.

Yesterday I did just that. After a typically Western breakfast with scrambled eggs and bacon, washed down with yogurt, I ambled along the Avinguda Diagonal into a flea market and then made my way to The Watch Gallery to pick up some purchases I have ordered before hand. One is a serious buy. The other two more whimsical but nonetheless are odes to my sense of design, like this Seven Friday (designed in Switzerland but with Japanese movement). And to complete the global supply chain, it's retailed in Barcelona by an half Englishwoman to a Malaysian on his way to Singapore. 

This global ecosystem was much in evidence as I concluded the day as well, watching the El Classico, the match between Barcelona and Real Madrid football clubs. The game was played in the Bernabeau, Real Madrid's home, so I didn't watch it in situ but rather in an Irish Pub next to Placa Reail, with some Arab-looking Israelis and lots of English and Australians, of course. 

Good that Barcelona won, 4-0 at that, and the mood was a jolly one. This match is made all the more memorable since I visited the Nou Camp just the hours before. Appropriately, though I should add, that is found the Manchester United tour 6 years ago more meaningful. It's not just because of Munich crash adding poignancy, or the Busby babes showing resilience; it's because that was a guided tour (not just an audio guide) and we got to enter the inner sanctum (whereas we were disallowed into the FCB one on the rationale that it is the players' private place). I didn't mind because deep down the ManU fan in me did want Old Trafford to stand out and remain special.

Of course I found time to eat a good lunch, at a restaurant at the base of Mt Tibidabo and then dinner at Gothic quarters near La Ramblas. Speaking of this famous street, it's lost some of it's appeal. The stalls that used to line the street and peddle unique wares are now surely replaced by homogenous stores manned by Indians selling China-made souvenirs of the city. Gone too are the buskers and performers. 

But apart from La Ramblas, the charm of this beautiful city remains. Nice walks (I must have walked nearly 10km yesterday, some of it in the many parks that dot the city) facilitated by Google Maps and great food (recommended by foodie friends) are the highlights the past 36 hours.

I must admit though that with Google Maps, I didn't once get lost but walking has lost some of it's charms. When I used to travel alone all those years ago, my wanderings would take me into forests and small pathways but I never quite felt lost. I was too engrossed with all the new things I am sensing.  Yes, I did stop and take a few photos of whatever caught my eye (a little David-sequence statue with grapes instead of a slingshot for instance), but for the most part walking was about navigating from Pt A to Pt B, and all other points got lost :-(

While the joys of walking have been diminished, the joys of eating and drinking have been significantly increased. From tapas to smoked ham to the softest pork I have tasted in a while, cuisine esp here in old Europe remains one of the best in the world. 

I had inadvertently even recorded it for posterity when my conversation with the waiter at La Venta was accidentally recorded and dispatched to my High School mates with whom I had recently reconnected with via WhatsApp. Boys really don't change at all. We are all just older and larger versions of whomever we were 40 years ago. 

So, I wasn't quite alone being always in the company of various sorts of people, even virtually. 

Still, at each turn, at every fine morsel of food I chew, at every sight that caught my eye, I find myself wishing you all were here. So much for "me" time then.