The Kindness of Strangers

I feel as though I have been hesitating, for reasons unknown, to travel outside the city and I have no idea why. By nature I have always been a curious sort. I had planned that today I would venture out of Barcelona for a day trip. My first realization that things may not go according to plan was when I closed my home door behind me and noticed there was not one shop or café open at 9 AM. There were fewer businesses open on the 26th of December than there were on the 25th. I found this a bit surprising and in reverse of my expectations on Christmas Day.

I wandered over to the nearest metro station, Fontana, and bought my first 10-trip metro card. I almost turned around and went home when I couldn’t find anyone to answer questions and it wasn’t intuitive how to get to the right platform, but I thought if the worse thing that happened was that I take a train ride going somewhere unknown it would be fun. Again, I was curious about my own hesitancy. It has never my style in the past.

My aim was for Barcelona’s main train station – Barcelona Sants Estaciones. There was no one about and I misinterpreted the map assuming I needed to change lines, but through the kindness of strangers without a hint of English but a lot of gesturing on both parts, they pointed me back in the right direction. Navigating from the Metro to the main train station also took a bit of back and forth, but I managed it in the end.

I was in queue to get a ticket to Blanes (pronounced Blahness – long on the blah and very short on the ness), north of Barcelona and the start of the Coast of Brava north to France. I was two in queue away from getting my ticket when I saw the couple at the window pull out their passports. It had never occurred to me to bring my passport. I wasn’t leaving the country, and in the spirit of carrying the very least amount of anything in case of pickpockets, I had absolutely no identification on me. I aborted the line. I was unsure of what to do and did a lap around the station, not wanting to give up on my plan but I wasn’t sure how to proceed. I stop and asked a ticketing kiosk attendant who seemed more baffled at my attempts at Spanish and my assumption of needing a passport and who then very efficiently punched in a round trip ticket to Blanes, handed it to me and shoved me not so gently through the gates toward the platforms. It wasn’t until I was actually on the platform did it occur to me that I had never asked if my round trip was for today, or tomorrow. Given the holiday I wasn’t 100% sure trains were running on normal schedules. It also occurred to me that I might not even run into an open café once in Blanes given my experience in Barcelona, or even what there was to do in Blanes on a holiday – or any other day. I had done absolutely no research.

The train came and it said it was heading to Blanes and just like that I was heading north. My other realization was I had no train schedule or map to Blanes and I had absolutely no idea how many stops between Barcelona and Blanes there would be or how long I should anticipate it taking. When the train pulled into the first few stations, where I was sitting on the train I could not see any platform signs. I thought of moving ahead in the train but then I watched a young woman attempt to transfer between cars as the train lurched and sped forward and for a moment I thought we were going to lose her in the jostle. I decided to stay put. In the seats in front of me there was a father and two young daughters and one of the children was tracking the train's progress on Google Maps. Of course. Why didn’t that occur to me? Perhaps because for the last ten years I have known exactly where everything is and where I was going. It simply didn’t occur to me to navigate that way.

Heading north I didn’t get to sit on the right side of the train closest to the sea. For reasons Americans can’t understand, the Spaniards built the train tracks right up next to the sea with an un-obliterated view. Thank you. After the first few stops the sea appeared beautiful and big and blue. Next stop Algiers, I believe. Sailboats were in full sail on the horizon and closer to shore there were surfers and paddle boarders. I couldn’t detect any waves to warrant their pursuits, but the day was gorgeous and the conditions obviously beckoned those so inclined.

The train chugged along and in a little over an hour I arrived in Blanes. At this point the tracks had pulled us away from the coast and I had absolutely no idea where I was going to get off or what I would see. As the train stopped at the station on the left I could see some impressive hills and to the right I imagined was the sea.

I took a bus into the center of town. I have to admit, it was not an impressive ride. It went through industrial sections with a lot of closed shops with locked metal doors painted with colorful graffiti. Some of my concerns were being realized. It appeared shops were closed here too. I thought at the very worst I could just stay on the bus and return to Barcelona by train right away. But, as we made the final turn into town the sea spread out wide and blue in front of us. I got off.

There was a boardwalk of sorts and a path out to a small spit of rock with a Spanish flag flapping proudly at the top. I did my tourist duties and climbed to the top, but I have to admit, the sound and smell of the sea was even better than any of the views. I sat on the rocks for a while just taking it in. For all my walks in Barcelona, I have still to make it down to the beach. Don’t ask me why but for some reason I keep missing it by about two blocks. But here I was at the edge of the Balearic Sea on a sunny December day.

There were some seaside cafes open and I stopped at the Sa Malica Can Ton for some paella. I have been longing for this dish since I arrived and the setting was perfect. What was delivered was technically paella, but I think it was tofu paella. Again, something got terribly, terribly lost in translation. Next to me there was a family of ten, all eating a very different, delicious looking paella and talking over each other and laughing and wildly gesturing with hands and telling stories and generally bantering back and forth. I still enjoyed mine, sort of, but now I am in official pursuit of the traditional paella recipe.

I wandered around a bit then headed back to the bus stop for the train station. While I was waiting for the bus to arrive a woman, another solo traveller, asked me in broken English if this was the bus to the train station. Her name was Gundrun and she was from Germany and she could speak some English. She was more proficient at English than my attempts at remembering my two years of high-school German. She was staying 4 towns south of Blanes in Calella. For the next hour while we waited for the train and travelled south we got to know each other and talked of all her travels since her husband passed. She recommend places for me to take day trips and suggested I go to Montserrat, inland and near the mountains. I vowed I would. We parted with a wonderful hug and both of us grateful for the kindness of strangers.