Saturday, April 26, 2008

Chotu Motu in Barcelona - Part 1

Day 0:

Pre-trip discovery at the WH Smith at Gatwick as EasyJet announces gates exactly 20 minutes before departure (and since this is London, it takes 30 minutes to get to the gate): Nowadays bookstores have a new section - Tragic Life Stories. Not kidding.



Few uneventful hours later, Chotu Motu are in Place Catalunya ka Metro station waiting for train to take them to Gracia where they are staying.

"Man, this is crowded"

"Not as much as Picadilly Circus tube on a Friday night"

"Guess not. What a relief to see normal people, no?"

"I know. No puking and no throwing bottles around. Looks like we are back in the civilised world"

"Yeah. Hey, our train gets here in 2 minutes 23 seconds"

"What?"

"It says so on the display"

"Interesting"

"That's what I am thinking. Doesn't really make sense no? Wait, did you see that?"

"Sure I did. Now our train will be here in 2 minutes and 33 seconds"

"Wait, its doing it again. Its changing the display"

"Looks like the Germans scarred the rest of these people for generations man"

"Yeah, quite comic no? In Sweden, they deliberately start a minute late just to make it clear that they are not Germans. Here, they put up seconds in display to prove that they can be Germans but it doesn't work so they keep changing it all the time"

"All deep things you are saying now. How much did you drink at that bar at Gatwick waiting for me?"

"It ain't my fault if you take 5 hours to get from Cambridge to Gatwick"

"It is. Because I specifically asked to fly out of Stansted"

"One, Easy Jet did not have flights out of Stansted. Two, if you wanted to fly out of Stansted, you should have booked it. Three, not on my money. On my money, you fly out of where I tell you to fly out of"

"Whatever you say darling"

Day 1

As expected, day dawned bright and clear. Chotu Motu were so excited by the sight of a sunny cloudless day that they were out on the streets dancing at 9 in the morning.

"Look look its so blue!"

"Not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eye, and I won't be surprised if its a dream..."

"Its because we are here! Out of London. At last"

"I know. I finally get it"

"Get what?"

"The British empire"

"Yeah?"

"And I don't blame them at all. How can I now that I know what it is like?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I know why they had to go take over the world. You tell me what would you do if you had to live in that country every single day of your life and eat their food. What would you do? go some place else that's fun and take over. That's all they have done"

"Yes, utterly blameless"

"Absolutely"

"I see"

"What do you see?"

"You can take a Bong out of Britain but..."

"Enough okay? Do you know how many freedom fighters we had?"

"I wouldn't exactly call them fighters. Except for this one chap who you all anyway claimed was misguided and stuff"

"We claim nothing of the sort"

"Yeah yeah. Dude, look at that. We are in Barcelona alright"

"Yep, the funk has begun"



(Need a drink. To be continued tomorrow)

6 comments:

mathew said...

been there last december...and barecelona metro is not that bad compared to much more overcrowded Paris...
btw enjoy tapas and make sure u have paella at the beach!!

30in2005 said...

So true. Exactly why they went conquering the world - looking for better climate and tastier food. No wonder the most popular British dish is Chicken balti (eee-www)!!!

Have fun.....and don't stop the inane conversations please!

Cheshire Cat said...

Yeah, but why didn't they just take Spain and France and Italy? Why Canada and India and Australia, which are all uncomfortable places in their own way?

The British are just weird.

Tabula Rasa said...

cheshire cat:
it may have been something to do with a flag.

Cheshire Cat said...

"We came first in the Second World War."
"I love the smell of Europe in the morning."

Good stuff.

Tabula Rasa said...

indeed :-)