roses and rabbit eyes

I went looking for a vegetarian restaurant today, and found a street market where every stall sold red roses. They were jammed by their dozens into plastic buckets and trampled in the gutters, petals everywhere. Next to the square was a church and a queue of people--hundreds of people--waiting to go in. Most of them had bunches of roses in their hands. A man in the queue told me that it was a special church holiday today, and people were waiting to leave offerings of roses and red candles and to pray for impossible things.
'Milagros?'
'That's it.'
I wished him good luck.

I found the restaurant and had a four course organic bonanza. Having moved from a country where butter is considered a sandwich ingredient in its own right to a place where breakfast is traditionally deep-fried, I could have wept with gratitude. This afternoon I went to perhaps the most beautiful park I've ever seen--Parc Montjuïc. It´s a series of wild, woody gardens, cut across by elegant paths and terraces. It´s full of beautiful museums and cascading fountains that drop hundreds of feet down the hillside, and you can see across Barcelona to the sea. I first saw Barcelona from Gaudi's Parc Gruell yesterday. It was startling to see it from above after walking in the streets. It´s like two different cities. At street level if feels--I want to say it feels human. Human-scale, and dedicated to pleasure. I had imagined that Gaudi was an anomoly--a random stroke of genius that had been visited on the city, and tolerated or adored depending on taste. But the fleshy curves and coloured ornament on his buildings feel like a natural extension of the endemic style of the place. London's gilded spires ring like a cash register. Barcelona's buildings, with their continental garlands and iron work and their mystical islamic geometry, hum mysteriously. But from above, the city is sprawling and tatty. Like somebody raked a big, neat grid through a rubbish heap. Sagrada Familia and other grand buildings standing up out of it like thrown-away toys. It's quite bizarre.

I spent my first two nights in a pensión on a gorgeous palm-treed square, which rather made me feel like everyone was having more fun than me. No hostels I called had rooms, and a pensión, especially one with no common area, is no place to meet people. Last night I was feeling a bit lonely in my room, and I could hear the party in the street. Tonight I've moved to a nice little hostel. It's right near the cathedral, and on Saturday I saw a crowd of people gather there to do traditional Catalunyan circle dancing--lovely! Being in a hostel is a more sociable arrangement. And, to my surprise, I found that Matt Douglas has booked the same place for tonight. Yay Matt! We are going to have some serious fun. I think I'll settle down somewhere and take a job soon. I don't know about this solo travelling business. I see amazing things, but I'm always aware of how much more fun it would be if I were here with people I cared about. Or at least if it were a well-earned break at the end of a working week. What do you know? Pursuing no goal but your own pleasure day in and day out starts to get strangely unsatisfying. Don't let me sound complainy, though. I'm doing fine, it's just that I've been doing this for a while now and I suppose I'm taking stock of things, wondering if I'm doing what I want to be doing with this time, which is full of the lushness and the responsibility of being free. I had two nice phone calls today, with Matthew and Luke (the fabulous and entirely handsome fashion designer who has now been officially mentioned in this blog, hi Luke).

Oh, there's a wonderful covered market just off La Rambla where I'm staying. Olive oil shops, stall after stall of perfect fruit, acres of cheeses, whole rabbit carcasses, flayed and trussed, but with their eyes still in. I've never seen such a temple to gustation. This hostel has a kitchen. I'm going to town.