The Sea Beats All [La Rambla, Barcelona & Marbella, Spain]

The day after roaming in Barcelona admiring Gaudí architecture, we relaxed. La Rambla was the most we came to touring - it was a long (and I mean long) street full of shops, both the branded and unbranded kind. Caricature artists lined the cobbled footpaths and people dressed up extraordinarily. The things people do for money...

We had lunch that day in a pizzeria by the promenade. A bridge had to be crossed in order to get there, and I had the pleasure of watching this bridge break in three and turn for yachts to pass, then go back to how it had been. I found that innovative, at least a bit.

The promenade was beautiful. We watched the waves as we ate and that made me anticipate our next destination, Marbella, more.

The train ride was long, but in the end, worth it. Malaga was pleasant when we reached and we hauled a cab to take us to the golf resort in neighboring Marbella where we were staying. Let me just say, golf courses turn me on. Massively. So you can imagine how my mouth watered when we finally reached - an 18-holed course by the beach? Hell yeah! But going around it had to wait. The journey and the waking up early had rendered all of us exhausted. It was time for rest.

The thing about Marbella is that you look out of the window at 9 PM GMT+1, and it feels like it's 9PM IST - there's sunshine and there's heat and everyone looks restless as though their day just began. The sun goes down well into the night and that's what made us stay in bed much longer than we should have. The day ended late.

Next morning, we had breakfast by the sea. The sea here is nothing like India or Thailand - this is legitimate sea, the way seas are described in books and shown in movies. It was a brilliant beginning to the day. We went to Oldtown Marbella after that, first wandering by the promenade and then exploring its narrow streets. I drank a small glass of sangria there, in a tiny plaza beside a 15th century building. 

One day, I'm going back there, and I'm going to explore without a map - that's something on my bucket list. This time was amazing, no doubt, but it left me with a thirst for adventure that unfortunately couldn't be fulfilled this time.

In the evening, I took a round on the Front 9 of the course. Playing was out of question; golf in Europe is expensive and it's hard to find graphite clubs my size in a town club. The round was a cheap consolation but it was alright in the end. I enjoyed myself and later joined the others on a round of the neighborhood. It was a nice, quiet one. I found a stack of real pine cones and a unique road bump indicator:

We left Marbella early next morning, and it taught me one thing: the sea beats all. The mountain, the snow, the meadows...the all suck some time in the year. The sea remains constant, and that's kind of beautiful.

Mosaic Mania [Antoni Gaudí's Masterpieces, Barcelona]

I knew nothing of Antoni Gaudí before I started the day. Now, it feels like I know everything there is to know about Barcelona's genius architect.

Park Güell was originally conceived as an elite township, and Antoni Gaudí was called in to design it. It ended up being commercially unsuccesful and was eventually bought by the city council. A rich guy called Güell made Gaudí name it after him and convert into a public park. And so it became one.

Gaudí loved mosaics; he devoured them. Thus, Park Güell became the Museum of Mosaic. We chose not to go inside the Park due to the 150-odd people queued up by the tickets counter, but we did see it from all angles outside. We didn't have to go inside to see how mosaics could make wonders; Park Güell was beautiful even from the outside.

Central Park has nothing on this. Private residences, hotels and offices are all over the Park but they don't take the charm away: this is one neighborhood I would give an arm and leg to live in.

Artists and shops line the streets. I bought some wrist jewelry for myself from this shop which was another mosaic museum. A few meters away, we saw this man:

Every tourist was determined to found out how this man was balancing himself, for how was this even possible?! I deduced that thee  was something passing through his large sleeve that he used like a chair. Still, we'll never know. The point is, in Barcelona you never cease to see such wonders.

Casa Milà, more commonly known as La Pedrera ("The Quarry") was our next stop: another one of Gaudí's works. This had been an apartment complex for the upper classes before being turned into a museum, and much like the Park, some of it is still under private ownership. 

Located in the city center, La Pedrera is a tribute to Antoni Gaudí. The roof has all the traces of his work: modernism, mosaics and creative use of materials. The attic is specially designed to contain heat during the winter, with its parabola arches. Various models made by him were displayed alongside slideshows about all his masterpieces. Exact replicas of chairs, couches and tiles designed by him were available to sit on which was fantastic - I had been unaware that wooden sofas could be comfortable.

The last part of the museum was the best by far. The apartment, or 'El piso', was basically one of the original apartments designed by Gaudí put on display. Equipped with early 20th century Catallan furniture, this apartment was the best thing I'd seen in Barcelona so far. I was transported back to that period and it was the most real remodelling I'd ever been in. The young boy's room was exactly how my brother's room would've been and I appreciated the underwater-themed tiling (we later found out that the specific tiling was the most popular choice of tiles in all of Barcelona). The stiching and ironing room, the cloak room, the kitchen, the study, the bathroom, the teenage girl's room, the master bedroom with the attached bathroom...you name the kind of room you want, and it was there. Completely furnished and decorated. It was beautiful.

By the end of the day, we had seen all of Antoni Gaudí's works, either from the open-to-air bus, outside, or the inside. It left me enraptured and captivated, but it also left me hopeful that maybe one day, I would be able to create something beautiful like that, too.

My World [32nd International Comic Fair, Barcelona]

When we had decided that we would go to Spain and France in May 2014, I googled comic cons online. Was there any one of them there that time? It took some digging, but I found it: a website completely in Catalan Spanish, the language used in Barcelona. Ficomic's 32 Saló Internacional del Còmic de Barcelona from the 16th to the 18th of May. I knew instantly that this was it. One of the best experiences I would ever have.

It was.

Two things struck me when I first walked inside the Fira de Barcelona centre: Barcelona Comic Con was huge, and it was nothing - nothing - like Mumbai Film & Comic Con (MFCC). The first auditorium had the thematic displays, installations and stalls concerned with the war theme of the Fair, complete with original World War battle tanks and reconstructions of medical camps during the period. Cool war cosplays and strategy game centres. I had a feeling my father was drooling - he has always been a fan of war comic and such. Some of the war stalls also had fandom sections (naturally) and we found superb Star Wars mini-figurines and I found what seemed to be the only Doctor Who t-shirt and the coolest Game of Thrones t-shirt there.

The second auditorium was more my thing than my father's. This was my world. Cosplay everywhere; superhero installations; a Star Wars fan club; LARGE comic and merchandise stalls. 75 Years of Batman was being celebrated alongside the anticipated release of X-Men: Days of Future Past and Dragon Ball z: Battle of Gods.

I ended up buying a Game of Thrones 3D jigsaw puzzle and a Barcelona Comic Con poster to put alongside my MFCC one. My brother had been eyeing Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber but it had turned out to be £179, which too high, naturally. I found out that a Series 3 TARDIS keychain was for £5 whereas I had bought the very same keychain at MFCC for ₹100. That anecdote made all of apprehensive of the pricing, but that didn't really matter. Neither had bought anything much but that was okay. Because for a few hours, I had been in my paradise.

Familiar Places [Industria, Barcelona]

I was asleep when we first approached Industria - a neighborhood where we had been booked for 4 days. It was our first destination in Barcelona after the airport. The binge-watching in air plus the lack of sleep had taken over me and my eyes were shut until the car stopped before the tiny hotel we were staying at.

I walked out of the car and I could swear I had been there before. The trees, the shops, the crowded buildings...they seemed all too familiar. Then it struck me; Industria Street looked exactly like my favorite part of Bandra back in Mumbai, with the same footpaths and the same kind of breeze.

After resting for a couple of hours, we set out to really explore the neighborhood. This time my eyes were wide open as I took in the surroundings. With every crossing we got to and every new street, I discovered that I could compare with another city I'd been to - the large car service center by the signal looked just like the large bicycle shop in Pune; the streets and the people reminded me far too strongly of San Francisco; and the hawker section seemed a lot like the Lavasa promenade.

The corner superstore was of course owned by someone from the Indian subcontinent, as is the trend in many European towns/cities (it was a Bangladeshi this time). He told us all about the bad financial condition Spain was in and I couldn't help thinking, if half the countries in the world are losing money, who is getting all of it?! But I digress. The point is, this man added even more familiarity to the strong sense of deja vu.

Upon returning to the suite, I found a tiny balcony which I immediately loved. It only overlooked the street, but that was enough. The photo session started.

There is a place in my heart for such neighborhoods. It already feels so much like home...