Barcelona to Switzerland - how nice!

Here we are in Switzerland! We arrived in Barcelona at 5:30 am, and kept sleeping. At around 7 or so, we decided it was time to wake up, pack the remaining small items, and go for breakfast. At breakfast, we saw Jitka and chatted for awhile, then we all trooped off to find Peter and Simi and say goodbye. After that, it was time to get off the ship, so we disembarked in a leisurely fashion, joined the long queue for taxis, and, thanks to the excellent taxi stand management, soon found ourselves heading off to the Estacio Franca, where our train would leave for Bern at 8:49 pm. When we got there, we found that they didn’t have a left luggage office, but that the other train station, Estacio Sants did, and that there was a free shuttle train that ran there every half hour (the shuttle actually ran to the airport and back). What excellent logistics!

After dropping off our luggage at Estacio Sants, we headed back to Estacio Franca and the waterfront. There was a row of little booths – tents, really – set up, selling crafty things like hats, bracelets, etc. They made a bright display, and some of the items were really quite lovely. Across from the tents was the occasional black guy, selling designer knock-off bags, displayed on what looked like a large blanket. As we walked along, we saw some of them pull on drawstrings attached to the blanket, scooping up all the merchandise into a big sack, and then start walking rapidly through the crowd. The explanation for this behaviour was soon forthcoming, as we saw a policeman on a scooter come by, patrolling – looks like they didn’t have vendor permits!

By that time it was almost noon, so we stopped in one of the tourist trap restaurants along the waterfront for lunch. We had a good view of the harbour and a ton of sailboats from our table, and ordered paella (for two). It was very, very tasty, but I still wasn’t feeling 100%, so I didn’t appreciate it as much as Ingo and Torsten. And as Ingo said, it probably wasn’t even a high standard of paella for the city! For me, the highlight of the meal was the little plate of olives and pickles they served us at the beginning of the meal. The olives were soooooo yummy! I don’t know what they were brined in, but I could easily have eaten 10 times what we had.

After lunch, I bought a few things from the vendors, and then, as I wasn’t feeling great and Torsten was very tired, we decided to head to the Citadel Park next to Estacio Franca rather than go to the Aquarium. On our way there, Torsten fell asleep, and when we got to the park, we managed to extract him from the backpack without waking him. We then sat by a garden for almost 2 hours while he slept in my arms. It was very relaxing.

When Torsten woke up, we rambled through the park for the remainder of our time prior to picking up our luggage. The park is very large – it contains a zoo (which we didn’t go into, as it cost 15 Euros, and we would only have been there for 2 hours), a lake, a small waterfall, the museum of natural history, a parliament building, a chapel, and probably a lot more – those were only the things that we saw when walking around. There was a place that rented covered bicycles that were hitched together in parallel to form a small car – we saw a lot of people tooling around in those. Finally, near the lake, Ingo said, “Let’s find some grass where we can let Torsten down and he can run around”, to which I replied, “Oh, I think there’s some nice grass over there by the mastodon” – to which he said, “What?” But there it was – a large model of a mastodon. Very random.

However, Torsten didn’t really want to run around much; he did run around a little, but then was content to sit on my lap, eating Cheerios and watching birds. There were also a lot of people to watch – one family settled down a few metres away from us. They had two little girls, around Torsten’s age. One of them came over and tried to take first Torsten’s ball, then our cup of water. She seemed disappointed when her father prevented her from doing so. She was also the one who, when they put her into the stroller while feeding yogurt to the other girl, started screaming, “MAMA!!!” at the top of her lungs. Torsten watched this for a while from where we were sitting, and then, every time she screamed, “MAMA!!!”, would point at me, while looking at her and say, in an explanatory way, “Mama.” It was really funny.

Eventually, it came time to go pick up our luggage, so we went back to the train station. We had a bit of time before the shuttle train arrived, so Ingo decided to have a cup of coffee. While there, I decided to go to the washroom, as it was marked “For cafeteria patrons only”, so I figured it might be better than the train station washrooms. I have no idea why they would want to limit the washrooms to patrons only, as they were really shack-nasty. There was no seat to the toilets, and no toilet paper – there wasn’t even a place for toilet paper. There was no soap, and only cold water. Really, really nasty.

After going to the other station, picking up our luggage, and coming back, we still had about an hour before our train was to leave – the track number hadn’t even been posted. After some preliminary running around, Ingo and Torsten spent the time playing ball in the station, to the amusement of many onlookers. Torsten would throw the small ball, Ingo would fetch it, roll it somewhere near Torsten, who would run towards it, pick it up, and throw it again. Torsten got to the point where he was so tired that he was laughing crazily, which made everyone smile.

Finally, they started boarding the train, so we got in and got settled. First class in that train is definitely the way to go! It was a tiny cabin, but it had a tiny washroom with a shower and fully laden toiletry bags (which was good, as it meant we didn’t have to unpack ours) and two beds. Almost immediately after boarding came the call for dinner, which was included in the price of our ticket (as was breakfast). It was a reasonable dinner; I started with cream of ham, which turned out to be a very thick, milk-tasting soup with small parma ham chunks in it, and Ingo started with a mushroom tagliatelle. He then had the Iberian secret (which turned out to be ham), and I had an overcooked veal entrecote. The meal ended up with a dense chocolate cake for me, and a chestnut flan for Ingo. Torsten enjoyed Ingo’s meal, but was so very sleepy. We were lucky that he didn’t throw a tired-tantrum, but we ate as quickly as possible, and then bundled him off to bed (where he managed to take up 2/3 of the bed that he and I were sharing).

In the morning, we were in Switzerland! We looked out the window, and we had just stopped at Lausanne. The view of the Alps was lovely. We packed up our things, had breakfast, and awaited Bern. When we arrived at 8:15 am, there were Uwe and Annerose waiting for us on the platform! After a rapturous reunion, we made our way past the hordes of perfectly capable people who had no real reason to use the elevator, and down to the garage where Uwe had parked his minivan. Picking up cheese enroute (raclette for dinner tonight, yum!!!), we drove to Uwe and Esther’s house, a beautiful old farmhouse that they’ve converted to 4 modern floors of spectacularly appointed rooms – we laughed, because they’ve got the same Stokke chairs that we have, only in red! They’ve also got the same Stokke highchair that we have, only in black. Because Uwe designed and built the interiors himself, they’ve got a huge storage space that I’m envious of, and amazing windows that let in a lot of light. The attic room, in particular, as a huge triangular window that basically takes up the one wall. And, of course, as Leandro is a bit older than Torsten, there are plenty of toys!

We had a marvelous barley soup that Esther prepared last night, and now we’re breathlessly awaiting the return of Esther from work and Leandro from school!