Day 9: Walking the Wall, The Garden of Elves, & Between Bulls, Flies, & Liquor

Friday 7 January 2022

I woke up by a very peculiar kind of noise. You know, the type you rather don’t hear, and don’t want other people to hear. Apparently, Girona is a place where the magic happens. Very romantic.

I was happy with all the stuff I brought with me, including some clothing detergent. Maybe the tap water is unsuitable to drink, it is still perfect to wash your dirty clothes in.

After a nice slow morning, I decided to hit the wall!

I noticed the number of bicyclists around the city. I had to think of my brother, he’s super sporty and he cycled all the way to Girona not long ago, on a bicycle! If he wrote travel stories during that journey, I would definitely be interested in reading it. Because doing it, no way in hell.

I wasn’t going to look up where the wall started. Despite my love for maps, I like the little quest. It wasn’t easy to miss. A big chunk of the wall was visible the moment I stepped out of the door. I went straight for it, hoping that it didn’t end in someone’s backyard. It won’t be the first time.

The power in my legs when I jumped up the stairs felt amazing. My legs are definitely the strongest part of my body. If I still want to hit you after that sandwich, I will use my karate feet. Hiya!

I felt like fighting. Not that I would hit a random grandma walking by, but I felt the energy in my feet and arms. Something that needed to be slapped out. I looked through the wall and had to think of the battle of Helms Deep. The giant orc army that stood in front of the wall smashing on their shields.  

Here, it wasn’t done so smartly. The walls weren’t much higher than the hills next to it, from a strategic point of view, not so smart. Catapults and stairs with screaming orcs would have no trouble getting across.

      

Walking the city wall should be part of your activities in Girona. It’s easy to do and very rewarding.

    

Find the white teeth in the pictures. It looks like the mountains were still trying to hide beneath a layer of clouds. 

     

I noticed that I was in the perfect place to look for free parking space. In my head, I was still searching! I saw some free parking spaces close to the cathedral, in case you are crazy enough to do the same journey.

           

The magnificent walk ended in an idyllic courtyard, that was definitely elf territory. The Gardens of Lothlórien. I sat down on a blue bench in the sun. I was alone and it was quiet except for the birds that were singing in the trees around me. I felt right in my element. I stretched my arms, conjured my laptop from my bag, and started writing. I had no idea how late it was, and I didn’t want to know. I opened a beer, it was a holiday. 

 

I was totally sucked into the story writing, because you could hear my laughter through the garden. I was talking out loud and madly laughing on my own. “O no, like this, like this,” I said and was typing like a beast behind the laptop. A Chinese woman stood on the wall and was smiling at me. I think she had been watching for a while and saw how much I was enjoying myself. I totally forgot how much I loved writing. In a beautiful place like this, it works inspiring, as if the elves were speaking to me. I must have looked ready for the psychiatric hospital.

People entered the courtyard, took pictures of its beaty and moved along. It was slightly distracting me, but I was so deep into the story, that it took more distractions to take me out. Slowly every bench in the courtyard started to get occupied. It was still very quiet in the garden, because it demanded serenity of everyone. Until a monster appeared. A guy, that was not much older than me, with dark hair and a very dark motive. He had a huge suitcase with him, that he slowly unpacked in front of me. The monstrosities that came out! I’m still shaking my head when I think about it. In the gravel, he put an amplifier the size of a fridge, a guitar, and a microphone.  

I said in orc language that he chose the wrong spot, by loudly scratching my throat. Normally I love musicians and music and I would have the utmost respect for them. Not this time, because it ruined everything. I came there for the tranquillity and he destroyed that. The moment he started to play the guitar, it was still acceptable, but the moment his mouth opened and whining Spanish words came out, it was all hands-on deck.

How much money can I give you to do that somewhere else? How badly I wanted to ask that, but how mean that would be. I just couldn’t. It was my time to move. I chose the wrong spot to write. He even scared the elves away!

I still had a beer, almost full. So now I was walking through the beautiful old quarter, with a beer in my hand. Ashamed I was looking to the floor. Coble stone after coble stone appeared, in different forms and colours. They were even placed in different patterns, such as circles, to make the pavement a piece of art.

I can do two hours with a beer if I’m on my own. I love to drink very slowly and enjoy it to the fullest. Maybe that’s why I never get drunk! Now I hated that I’m such a slow drinker, I didn’t want to walk with a beer in my hand. I also didn’t want to throw it away. I’m against any type of waste. So what did I do when I saw a bin? Can you imagine?

I looked if anybody was around, and quickly drank it all at once. The beer was streaming in little rivers in the corners of my mouth. I squeezed the red can and threw it in the bin. Two tourists just turned around the corner and had seen me choke the beer. Blame Maul, or even better, the musician.

Wheeeee! I felt like I was flying when I entered the first shop I saw. Suddenly I was weak enough to get lured in by all the pretty souvenirs. Colourful Spanish bowls and salamanders that were made of different colours, like a mosaic. Magnets for on the fridge, tiny poppets, and more rubbish. Ha! I’m not that weak apparently.

But the seed to get some souvenirs was planted and started to grow while I walked through the narrow tiny streets. I found streets here that were more narrow than in Barcelona. No claustrophobia this time, luckily. The colourful casas grabbed my attention once more. Some of the following pictures are made with my Olympus, while others are made with my phone. I think you'll be able to see the difference. 

 

   

I chose a fancy souvenir shop that was empty. It was a happy coincidence when a really hot Spanish guy appeared behind the counter. At least, I think he was hot, always a bit hard to say with a mouth mask. And I just drank a whole beer. Burp. 

I was looking for a bull as souvenir, but I couldn’t find it in the shop.

“Do you have any bulls?” I asked.

His eyebrows frowned.

I imitated a bull by loudly growling and used my hands to make horns on my head. “El toro?”

He laughed.

Is this how I flirt with guys? I wouldn’t be surprised.

Now he understood what I meant. Still, his eyebrows frowned again. “We don’t sell bulls, it is a very old and bad Spanish tradition. It is not Catalan,” he said.

Immediately I didn’t want a bull anymore. Damn, I’m easy to influence.

“So, what is a Catalan souvenir?” I asked, leaning over the counter. O right, 1.5-meter distance.

“The fly is,” he said and he showed me magnets for on the fridge that depicted flies.

Flies! Rhianne would have loved those…

“Are you serious?” I asked laughing, “Flies make me think of bullshit, the plague and died bodies.”

He laughed and also came a little closer to me. Such a hot conversation, corpses and poo.

“For us, the fly is a symbol of strength,” he said.

“I don’t understand,” I said. I was hanging on his lips. They must be somewhere underneath that mouth mask. That warm wet mouth mask.

My god, I shouldn’t wake up to sex noises, it affects me the rest of the day.

A little bell ringed while more tourists entered the store. They destroyed the chemistry that was going on between us. Every time I go to a place without people, it becomes packed within minutes. Am I just ahead of the stream of people or do I have honey on my but?

“The fly comes from an old legend,” he said with his warm Spanglish. His voice sounded low and strong. He would be better at imitating a bull.  

He gave me a piece of paper with the legend of Girona on it.

I started laughing while reading it.

“O now I understand. Still, I would like something else," okay, maybe I'm not that easy to influence, "Is there anything else you have that is truly Catalan?” 

He guided me to the place with liquors, that looked more like it.

“This is a sweet strong liquor that they made in this region for ages. It tastes like anise and other spices,” he said. He showed the tiny bottle filled with Ratafia Russet.

“Just like the limoncello anise drink I had in Tossa de Mar?” I asked. I wasn’t sure its name was Grappa, maybe I still have to adjust that in the story about Tossa de Mar.

“No,” he laughed, “at Tossa de Mar they have a different local liquor. At the coast you taste the Italian influence, the lemon. Here in Girona we don’t use lemon, but only spices,” he said.

“Every time I think I’m starting to get it, everything changes again because I go to a different place in Spain,” I said.

He liked my comment.

I took three tiny bottles of ratafia russet, some postcards, stamps and a drawing of Girona. The hot guy packed my items with care and wished me a great time in Girona.

“Merci,” I said with a huge smile that he couldn’t see due to the mouth mask. Damn it!

I continued with my walk. Christmas balls were still hanging in the shopping streets. It was the only thing indicating that it was just after Christmas. Strange, Christmas in Spain. It just doesn’t make sense. In Hong Kong it was worse though. Even then they had Christmas trees and Santa's and all the other rubbish, while it's in the tropics. I was sunbathing during Christmas. It was unreal.   

 

A normal-sized supermarket caught my eye. It looked fancy. It was time for a healthy meal. I can’t eat another greasy meal or dead animal. I went wild in the store, it took brown bread, Dutch cheese, yoghurt, tomatoes, lettuce, olives, pepino (which means cucumber, I know right), and unsalted pistachios.

The pepino looked like, like...

 

A pickle!

With bags full of food I walked back to the hotel. I almost tripped over a tree root. You could hear that I almost fell, because all eyes in the shopping street looked at me. I just continued with my walk. That was close. I felt the pain in my ankle, like it was electrocuted. A tiny electrocution compared to the time in South America, where people had to carry me and I was covered in blood. That was so much fun!

Back at the hotel, I made the most healthy meal I had in days. I arranged my accommodation for the next day and packed my back again. When I was done, I dropped on the bed and watched the documentary about the Capitol. I ate the pistachios, my favourite type of nuts. If you want to travel hard, you need to rest hard. The only stress I felt that night was when I couldn’t get those tiny fuckers out of their shell. Challenge accepted.

 

Tomorrow I would go to Olot. The weather would be awful in the mountains, but I wasn’t afraid of a little rain. I wanted to see the countless volcanoes that surrounded the area. It was to last place I would go to, Mordor.