Note: Sabriñita’s words are normal, Beño’s are in italics.

So we’d arrived at la Sagrada Familia. Arguably one of the most famous buildings in Spain, if not the world. We’d heard that entry tickets sold out every day shortly after opening, thus our push to arrive right at 9am. What we didn’t account for, was that they were now ONLY selling tickets online. There was a corner of the building offering free wifi and instructions on how to buy the tickets before entering the ever-lengthening and multiple security-guard stacked entrance line. We clustered at the corner along with our fellow unprepared bozos.

Online only, and also the QR code that you scan makes you download an app (1.8 stars; most reviews just say it’s junk and doesn’t work), and when you find the buy tickets button it just boots you to some website. Fine. It’s the only way. Just a few tickets left for 9:30. Enter the card details aaand… alarms go off at Visa. Someone is trying to enter card details into some sketchy website. They send me a text message to confirm it is me. I am in Spain. I cannot get text messages.

We hear about a booth on the other side of the cathedral that can sell tickets in person. Hoping that I didn’t just trigger Visa to suspend my card, we rush over. No deal. They won’t sell us any tickets for today. We’re leaving Barcelona in a few hours. So that’s it.

It’s at this point that I remember that I’d downloaded a few podcasts about la Sagrada last night while I couldn’t sleep. We each pop in an ear bud and circle the cathedral while enjoying our own private audio tour. We learn that Gaudi was one devoted lil weirdo. He used real anesthetized donkeys when casting his sculptures, as well as dead infants (he wanted the baby Jesus to look as realistic as possible). He almost killed an employee when trying to get an adult cast.

Apparently, after Gaudi was hit by a trolley and anarchists destroyed all his plans and models, there was some debate about whether Sagrada should be completed. Leading architects argued that you don’t finish another artist’s masterpiece. The owners of the project disagreed. It’s religious. It’s not for Gaudi, it’s for God. So much artwork from before the industrial age was religious – I wonder if that was an established precedent, or if it rarely came up.

Podcast finished, we moved on. We had a few hours until car pick-up time and we meandered our way through the Barrio Gottic, where rain-slicked narrow alleys were punctuated by the odd Gothic building. To be honest I don’t have much to say about the rest of the morning, as my sleep-starved brain just reduced everything to “cute” or “not cute.” The Catedral of Barcelona? Cute. Las Ramblas? Not cute.

While we were on the cobble, pedestrian-dominated old town, I heard a pretty steady stream of “cute” coming from under her umbrella. But as we came to more modern statues and plazas, including a ripoff arc de triomf, the din of traffic and frequent whiffs of sewage made us yearn to get out of the city. Our wandering became a forced march and our stops became cursory glances by the time we were back at our hotel.

It reinforced something: we aren’t city folk. We find the distinguishing character of a country is in the smaller towns and the mountains and rivers and coasts. Big cities have interesting features (like museums!) but a city in Spain feels an awful lot like a city in Canada.

But before we could escape the city, we needed to pick up our car. Our replacement rental car, that we found for a mysteriously low price. But the check-in process seemed fine enough. Once down in the underground garage, I entered low power mode and sat on the concrete, back slumped against the wall while Ben thoroughly checked over the car to reduce the chances of surprise charges upon return of the vehicle.

At shortly after 1pm, I got into the driver’s seat. We’d needed to select a driver before leaving Alberta, as whoever drove had to apply for an International Driving Permit in advance. But Ben may well have been driving for that first bit, as he got out to help direct me around the tight corners, omnipresent pillars and four floors of steep ramps that stood between us and the open road.

The open road wasn’t much better. The main difference being that instead of dancing around the car madly waving my arms to try to influence the car’s movements, I was sitting beside her, propping up her eyelids.

The ten million roundabouts woke me up, that’s for sure. I took to this European traffic feature like Ben takes to dance class, but by mid-way through the second day I slooowly started to get the rhythm of them.

We got to Begur around 3 and threaded our way up steep, 1-lane streets. As we neared our hotel, a couple men left a house and stepped directly into the street as the sidewalk is barely a foot wide. One stride from our bumper, the portlier of the two noticed our car and jumped. He pointed to his ear and mouthed something. Doesn’t hear.

Our hotel was a former convent, with stone walls and vaulted ceiling. “VERY cute,” I slurred.

Bed beckoned, but fool me twice, etc etc. I vowed that I wouldn’t go to sleep until at least 8pm. We went out for a dinner of tapas and salads, and climbed the 15 minute trail leading to the ruined hilltop Castell that overlooked the region. At long last, we got back to the room. The light was still on when I fell asleep.