Wharriye Lookinah?

This last week I have mostly be working the night shift. This means I fanny-about looking for stuff to do before going into work. Honest! I never thought I would be the type who waits around to go into work, but there is a kind of twightlight zone in Barcelona between 9 and 12 at night.

So last night I decided I should really get out of the house, and armed with my last 50euro note which has to do me til October 7th, and a one euro coin, I marched off the phone box to call Dani. It was great, cos I found a phone card in the box worth 6euro, and I was able to call my beau and chat for a wee while. And I retained my euro!

Stuck now for something to do, I decided to walk around Barcelona centre, at my leisure. I walked past the cathedral walls with the execution bulletholes in them. I went through the snake-like streets of El Born and crossed the Ramblas through to Ravel. I passed the prostitutes on the street corners and the men searching through the rubbish. You know, in Barcelona it is illegal to search through rubbish? They have done this to deter the Moroccan beer-sellers from storing their beer there, they say, but I don´t really believe it, as I see homeless folk for the most part going through the stuff.

There is a homeless guy who lives on the streets somewhere behind Santa Maria del Mar. He looks like a Friday character, with a long beard, sun-browned skin, and the type of clothes that were once trousers and a jacket but have disintegrated to rags. He doesn´t even have shoes. When you see him close up you realise he is only in his twenties. He spends his days rambling the backstreets, stopping and counting steps, and he seems to get very upset if his pattern is disturbed. He says hello to me though. John from the Clansman pub says at the beginning he was approachable and just unlucky, but that they have watched him get worse and worse. It seems that homelessness is a trap in Barcelona as in Dublin, into which vulnerable people fall. This man needs psychiatric help, not just a place to stay. Dani gave me an old jumper of his to give to Friday but I have not seen him since. Besides I have grown rather attached to the hoodie.

But enough of this rambing of my mind, and back to the rambling of the Ramblas...

Eventually I sat down in Portal del Angel to read my book (actually, I was stuffing my face with sandwiches I had brought to lunch and pretending to read), and then I noticed that there were an awful lot of street cleaners about. One of them sat on the bench beside me and just stared. It´s a national past-time here, and now I only get annoyed when physically restrained or plain auld grumpy. A juicy-lipped girl of about 15 came up and asked me for change, and then apparently convinced by my old clothes, left with her banana-yellow-colour-coded mate, sending withering glances to the binmen around.

After about 20 minutes I could no longer pretend to be interested in my book or unphased so I went off to sit somewhere else. The binman trailed behind me til the top of the street, and I took the first side streets off the Ramblas that I could, for a little privacy. I went to a little square to get a drink, but whilst everyone around me managed to get one, by the time I caught the waitress´s attention she had decided that they were closed. I returned instead to the Rambla, and took up residence on a bench with an American reading his paper. As usual, the beersellers came up one by one offering their wares. I know for certain that many of them know me by sight now, but they still come over always. They kindly point out to me the fact that I am white (despite the fact that this is a tan for me), and say nice things like "Guapo", which is meant for a man, not a woman. But it can´t be easy being illegal in a country that despises foreigners as much as this one.

I don´t think I will ever get used to the staring though. Not only do they stare, but if you say anything or stare back, you often get a look of utter disgust and despising(the older women), blatant leering (the older men), or sneering nonchalance(the youths), a hard one to pull off at the best of times. I think I will invest in a brownpaper bag.