Espana

I have a million and a half things to say about Spain, but for now, as I lay in bed thinking about waking up in 8 hours to catch a long train to Nice, France, I will give you this little vignette.

Today Carolyn and I spent a good majority of the day people watching. At one point, we were sitting on a bench on the Docks of Barcelona, resting our feet after a day spent exploring the city, and we were caught in the middle of two very interesting scenes. Just to our left, there was a private yacht, surrounded by a gate, protected by a body guard. Three cars - an escalade and two mercedes vans - drove up onto the dock to drop off some apparently very wealthy people. Other passerby stopped to take pictures if the boat, the barceletta; impressed, I suppose at the extravagance of the vessel. The women wore heels and the men wore suit coats. It was all very posh, very over the top.

Then, just to our right, five street venders, each holding a folded up white sheet - rucksacks, if you will - ran to the edge of the dock to hide from the policia. One man jumped down to a hollow, cylindrical buoy, where he stashed each of the five or six bags. Then they all split, running in different directions, just as two policia cars pulled up. All of the men left the area before policia arrived, except for one lookout. This one man, who looked to be in his early twenties, perched on a bench right in front of the policia, never looking in their direction. At one point, he took his sweatshirt off and walked away, returning a few moments later, sans sweatshirt, and sat in a different spot. Here was this kid, hiding from the police in plain sight, as others dined on a lavish yacht 30 feet away. It was really strange, and pretty socioeconomically accurate, to be sitting in the middle of the two.