SPRING BREAK MEGA-UPDATE: v.Barca

Things, like I said, had been crazy in the days leading up to our week-and-a-half sojourn to the south of Europe. Midterms, presentations, medical-related drama, and stalking the Turkish Embassy in the early hours of the morning for a few days with Hafsa left little time for things like posting my in my blog or actually planning our spring break.

In the Welcome to Egypt category, here’s how an Indian national gets a tourist visa to Turkey: go to Embassy early in the morning (7:30) and find no one there. Have the guard tell you to go in a second door; second door is locked. Ring bell. Be told to come back tomorrow, insha’Allah. See man enter door; attempt to follow him. Have door slammed in your face. Go back at 11 with Arabic speaker (because no front-door staff speaks English or Turkish); after much argument, finally figure out that there is a list. To get on the list, come back at 7am. The next day, arrive at 6:45 am. Stand in line; first 40 get their names written down. Be told to come back at 7:45. Stand around until another guard comes out and calls out the names. Get back in line. Show passport to camera in the wall; be told to come back at 11:40 to submit paperwork. Return at 11:40; be told that Indian nationals need a recent bank statement and a letter of support from the Indian Consulate in order to travel to Turkey. Be told that it usually takes at least two weeks to receive the letter, plus 48 hours for the Turkish Embassy to process it. Look at your plane tickets, with special attention to your departure date. Cry. Go take your midterm. Call the Indian Embassy, which takes turns hanging up on you or being closed for the day. Be told to come by the next day at 12pm, which is after the Turkish Embassy closes. Go to the AUC travel office and change your plane tickets, because there’s no way you’ll be able to get your visa in time.

And then, of course, have the Indian Consulate give you your letter upon your arrival at noon, and have the Turkish Embassy rush your visa application. Receive your tourist visa the day before you were previously scheduled to depart, and sit around Cairo for four days by yourself.

Sigh.

Luckily no such wrangling is needed for US citizens traveling to Europe. With very little preparation and foresight—i.e. nothing beyond booking our plane tickets and a few hostels—three of us (me, and my friends Daniel and Kiana) set out for the Cairo airport. Our first surprise—that many of the roads were closed due to Mubarak traveling through the area, and our drive was three times as long (and expensive!) as it should have been—was quickly trumped by our second:

We had the plane to ourselves.

Seriously. After sitting in the waiting area, wondering where our fellow passengers were; after taking the shuttle bus by ourselves to the tarmac; after boarding the Airbus 300 and seeing about 25 crew and no one else; and after being told to “take a row or two,” we decided that we were definitely ballers and took the pictures to prove it. And after we made a few hurried phone calls (“Jake, it’s like I’m JAY-Z!!!”), we set off for Barcelona in our private jet.

We landed around 2 in the morning, to the astonishment of the two sleepy passport control guards alone in the airport. As we were filling out our entry forms, one approached us:

Confused official: You just got here?

Us: Yup.

Official: From…where?

Us: Cairo.

Official: …by plane?

Us: Yup.

Official: Uh… you have boarding passes?

I mean, what did he think? We swam there?

After that, we caught a taxi to our hostel, and I tried not to laugh at the Spanish lisp. (I entirely, completely and wholly blame Nicola Onnis for this.) We were staying in Sea Point hostel which, true to its name, was right on a spit of sand trailing off into the Mediterranean. Money. It was a really funky place, with big, dorm-style rooms, free Internet access and a pretty decent complementary breakfast. Despite the hour, we walked around the southern end of Barcelona for awhile, and then—in Daniel’s lexicon—knocked out.

The next day we spent wandering around Barcelona. We walked up the main drag, La Rambla, and looked at all the street performers. There was an amazing produce market, where everything was fresh and gourmet: €1 fruit cups, intricately shaped chocolates, and local fish expertly filleted by what appeared to be a contingent of female butchers. The general consensus was that D.C.’s version of this, the Eastern Market, couldn’t hold a candle. It alone was enough to almost convince me to move to Barcelona.

We continued to explore the city, found an H&M, bought Daniel a Euro Outfit (messenger bag, tight zip-up sweater, and a pseudo-newsboy hat), caught lunch, and then laid out on the steps of a cathedral in the sun listening to live music. Tough life.

Walking around Barca really made me realize how used to Cairene culture I am, and perhaps that I shouldn’t be. Of course, Spain stood out in sharp contrast to Cairo: it was quiet, it was clean, and cars obeyed traffic laws. But what I immediately noticed was the conduct of the men. I was aghast: when I walked down the streets, the men didn’t stare at me! They didn’t hiss at my heels, they didn’t whisper about my apparent beauty. Perhaps brief eye contact was made, maybe a friendly smile exchanged; but I didn’t feel examined, pierced, a spectacle like I do in Egypt. The more time I spent in Europe, the more I became aware of how much I willfully ignore in Cairo, and how while the harassment may not drive me daily to tears, it certainly keeps me on my guard; I cannot relax.. Returning to Cairo put this in relief. Almost every girl I’ve talked to who spent their spring break in Europe cannot wait to return to the United States; what they just let roll past them before is now hard to ignore. I count myself among them.

Daniel and I were on a quest to see a football match, so we spent awhile trying to find out how to get tickets to the FC Barcelona game on the 31^st. After walking around the stadium for a long time looking for the ticket offices, we were told to come back the next day. That night we went out on a hostel-sponsored trip to a tapas and sangria bar, an Irish pub (go figure) and a flamenco show at a famous Barcelona club. We finished the night dancing downstairs at Club Jamboree, where we miraculously ran into a huge group of AUCians who were in Barca for the night too. The next day found it raining and cold, but it was the day of the match, so we went to buy our tickets. While we were there, we got some FCB gear, left to do some laundry, and then napped before the game, which started at 10. We couldn’t find anywhere to eat around the stadium, Camp Nou, before the game, so we ended up at McDonald’s.

I got a salad there (Spring Break 2007 = salad binge for Kari), and I just about cried. A McDonald’s salad in Spain was better than the best and most expensive salad I’ve had during my three and a half months in Cairo. I don’t know if that says something about Egypt or something about McDonald’s. (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s been about 4 years since I’ve eaten at McDonald’s in the states, both because it’s unhealthy and it just tastes bad, but the McDonalds abroad are much better than anything I’ve ever had in the US. Don’t judge me.)

The rain stopped right before the game, and Barca won 2-1.

Probably the best part of the entire game was when the Italian team scored. The entire stadium pretty much ignored it, except for the ONE Italian fan sitting in the row behind us:

“(stands up) GOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLA!!!!! (hip thrust) SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!” Daniel and I found this hilarious.

On April Fool’s Day (That was a VERY funny joke, Jake. I even wrote about it in my diary.), we took the train an hour outside the city to a small coastal town called Tarragona, where there was a church that Daniel wanted to see (his mother is a religious historian, and this church was associated with a favorite saint of hers, Thecla). While unfortunately the church was closed because it was Sunday (go figure again), the town was beautiful and intricate, located on the cliffs of the Mediterranean. Tarragona was typically European: filled with history, showing its age, but on the right side of the line between old and dilapidated. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for Cairo. We had a great lunch in a plaza, and headed back to Barcelona

That night we had paella, a traditional Spanish dish with rice, meat and fresh seafood. I think I could live on that. We finished it off with the much-lauded churros and chocolate. I have a deep love for churros born of many trips to Padres games and Disneyland while I was young, and I was excited to have them with the thick chocolate sauce I had always heard about. But um, they gave us hot chocolate. Yeah, like the drink. Oh well. It was still delicious, and I had something to drink when I was done.

The next morning we went to Rome. We were flying Ryan Air around Europe, which was cheaper and faster than taking the train; the downside, however, was that this meant flying out of and into sketchy airports located way outside the city. And how did I find this out? When I double-checked with the guy at the hostel three hours before our 8am flight about the best way to get to the airport. “Which airport?” “..uh…(looks at paper)…Barcelona Girona.” “Oh.”

Following his advice, we walked 15 minutes to the closest Metro station, took that to a bus station, and then bought a €12 ticket for the airport shuttle. I recall thinking that was pretty expensive for a bus ticket; it must be round-trip. We jumped on the next shuttle, leaving at 6:15, and promptly fell asleep.

I woke up on the bus an hour later, and we were still nowhere near the airport.

...oops?