Recommend it to anyone - NO.
Revisit anytime soon - NO.
After a while you may tend to think that generally speaking there are a lot of rip off merchants in this town. Initially Barcelona was fallen in love with for its kookiness and bizarre charm. Then certain interactions with the locals shifted that feeling to being one of...hmmm, well bordering on hatred.
Let's just look at this morning -
Up early for our flight to Hong Kong, via Frankfurt, checkout time and hotel wished to charge us for pre-paid accommodation. Innocent mistake by hotel person - likely. But I find it hard to believe.
Crazy cab drive to the airport...35 minute journey took 20 minutes. Decided to tip cab driver a few euros. When counting change once on airport kerbside - short changed. Coincidence? Bit of a trend happening here?
And of course having your pockets picked right in front of your face. Feedback from friends, the reaction of police when lodging the report for insurance AND the fact that there were many other people at the police station seemingly reporting the same indicates that dishonesty is a big problem in Barcelona. Being such a widespread issue yet highly accepted just does not make sense. It begs the question as to why Spain is in the economic crap. Well maybe you need to take a look at yourselves. It may just be karma. It is a shame that the honest and trustworthy folk are seemingly punished financially, I know the feeling. But the authorities accept the problem and do little to fix it. We have spent many hours when trying to sleep, going through the shoulda, coulda, woulda. Wasted energy on something that cannot be changed. The only resolve is that we were not hurt and that this is unfortunately all part of traveling.
So, why bother visiting a place where it is highly likely to be ripped off and when you often see graffiti emphasizing things such as "tourists fuck off"? It seems a far better option to visit a city or place where they want your money by honest means, where you can walk away feeling fulfilled and rewarded by the experience. Even a casino - at least you can have some sort of fun while having your wallet emptied.
Tourism is an easy financial win for Spain and for Barcelona, but it is not important - clearly. Rather than being renown for a place of theives you should be known for a place for fixing that problem.
The fact that there are so many other beautiful places in this part of the world, it makes no sense to return to Spain or recommend it to anyone.
This is the last view of Spain that I hope to have.
I could have, and wanted to, use a different colour of language here, but I think I am past that point now.
Sure we have limited pictures from our adventure, but we have the memories and the tales which we have shared with you already. We have our health as no one was physically injured, and we have the overall experience of the last 4 weeks.
Time to get a bit of rest before the next adventure of the day which hopefully involves getting on a CX flight to HK. Last look it had filled up a bit, but there is also a flight out of Munich later which looks empty. So we may be trotting across Germany the rest of the afternoon.
Will keep you posted. In the meantime enjoy the current view - I think this maybe over France. (Capt mentioned we tracked From Barcelona (thieving shithole) to Marseille to Geneva and Zurich then Stuttgart)...
Geeez now that I have have finished updating yesterday's entry the view and probably the country beneath has changed... Got no idea where we are - just pick one of the previous waypoints. Will have to check the photo coordinates when we land and have wifi somewhere.
Nap time. Over and out :)
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