Translation: Man, it’s hot here. Bliss descended as I stepped off the plane. I was chatting with a clear-eyed ex-Yahoo! exec (go figure) who’d moved here to find himself. He spoke with serenity and calm, looking me directly in the eye, smiling. He wandered off… and I got the train to la Plaza de Catalunya with no mishaps, wandered down to La Rambla, my favourite street from last time I was here, armed with a list of pensiones.
The first one I see is the one I’d idly noted earlier on the list: Hotel Toledana. Given the whole Toledo-obsession, I had to at least check it out. And of course, it just happens to have free Internet access this week because it’s the 90th birthday of the hostel. It’s a little more expensive than I’d hoped, but I get the room all to myself, I’m on the fourth floor overlooking La Rambla (see photo), and given that net access at Heathrow was 6 pounds for an hour, the extra couple of euros will probably pay for itself shortly.
There are people playing pan pipes on the street below. I have no idea who I will be at the end of this journey, but the journey’s half the point, right?