Very quiet at Königsplatz

I go back to Castelldefels with Dave. The road there is still a battlefield scarred by the strongest storm ever. On the beach, the sun is shining on 8-degree water and the air is barely any colder. I’ve caught a heavy cold and realise: on my last trip, my kite stays in the bag.

The next day, Susi from Kaufbeuren sends an email to Helga, a fellow student from the old days. A day later, we’re sitting in a really cosy tapas bar in Barceloneta. I hate seafood. Even gamba heads taste great here. Then it’s off to the Barrio Gotico to a bar that I would like to make my favourite pub if it wasn’t the last few days of a long journey.

Thanks to the clean alcoholic disinfection (and a day of Spanish lessons), I’m ready to go again the next day. Helga recommends a concert at the Sidecar in Plaza Real. I can’t remember who was playing, but it doesn’t matter, it was depressingly boring. I sit down on the plaza with a can of beer from a street vendor and watch my little tall tale unfold.

The Plaza Real is built in a square, neo-classical style with smooth symmetry. The large palm trees in the centre are completely off the grid. Not only them, but also the old gas lanterns stand as if a light bulb had fallen into their place by chance and been blessed with enough water at just the right moment.

A Guardia Urbana bus is parked in between. Close to the street dealers, they occasionally inspect every rubbish bin in an endearingly half-hearted manner. In the face of history, there should be no dealing. They have nothing against the bums in every corner. Everything is as it has probably been for centuries, and the consistency impresses me.

The easy-going idiots do their business right under the eyes of the law enforcers. But not disorganised. If they only briefly follow a potential suitor from the shadows of the surrounding alleyways into the light of the Plaza Real, the door of the Guardia Urbana bus opens immediately. Even before a law enforcement officer sets foot on the square, the mostly dark-skinned men disappear back into the darkness.

There are a lot of tourists walking around, but they somehow fit in here, among all the weird and colourful Barcelonians. A black-clad Yank with a red bag pisses on a once white building fence. A pink Japanese man runs into a grey lamppost because the lens of his camera is blocking his view. The red king is long gone, but he is still being courted. It smells of green mould and grey lime. We go to the blue Auberge Espagnol and end my 600th day of travelling quietly and unnoticed with a goodnight story.

There are no photos today. Words are colours, sentences are pictures.