Have you ever been really wanted as in desired or prized or coveted? If not, then travel by car through Slovenia. There, upon entering the highways, you’ll have to purchase the “vignette” which is a little sticker you put in the window of your car to blaze through toll centers and just pay once. It’s a horribly primitive punch card affair which makes it feel as if you’ve suddenly entered the 19th century and are taking the train to Vienna to visit the current Emperor. But, it loves the bejesus out of tourists, if for no other reason than getting to screw them while milking them like a cow.

You see, the these little passes come in three flavors: weekly, six month, and yearly. The cost is 15€, 30€, and 95€ respectively. If you’re doing a lot of driving around Slovenia, it’s a good deal. If you’re not and are just passing through, given that it sits between Italy, Austria, Hungary, and Croatia, it’s bullshit. You see, the one week pass isn’t one week, it’s six days and spare hour change. If you’re taking a full seven day trip to Croatia like we recently did, you’ll have to buy two of these passes or a monthly one, which is essentially the same cost. And let’s emphasize that driving more than two hours in Slovenia is difficult given how small it is, so given the distances being traveled, the cost is prohibitive.

The Slovenes love it because it’s cheap for them when spread out over a year. The EU however, is not enchanted and even warned Slovenia that they needed to reform it to not discriminate against those from outside Slovenia due to all countries needing to be treated equal in the EU, unless of course you’re Germany, in which case you run the EU.

Thankfully, there are some solutions. Friends of ours who are Istrians and have an apartment to rent wrote up how to fully avoid the Slovenia tolls when going from Italy to Croatia. You can also view the route on Google Maps. Sure, it takes a few minutes longer, but it sure beats blowing 30€ for the “favor” of passing through Slovenia.

Somewhere, somehow, fruit cutting technology was lost. Well, it’s obvious that someone out there must still have it as they have found some way to dice up fruit to present it in plastic cups for tourists at La Boqueria market.

It wasn’t always like this and even having started centuries ago, there are many of us who are residents of fair Barcelona who still shop there on occasion. Some more regularly than others. There are those, like me who shun it. It was definitely the case that up until a few years ago, you could find any manner of wonderful, consumable items there (there’s a mushroom stall that’s fantastic). Despite tourists already flooding it, locals would get up early and go there to buy these few items. However, these element seems to have been lost and while still a fantastic market, there are others in the city where I can go and buy a string of rubbing tomatoes without some idiot grinning behind a ridiculous, cock-extension of an SLR while taking my photo.

Now, like most things in the center, La Boqueria seems to be mostly for tourists and for some reason, they’ve all come to the conclusion that buying a fucking cup of cut fruit is the best thing to get there. So naturally as one asshole vendor started doing this one day, others saw him cashing in and followed suit to the point there the front section near Les Rambles is mostly a cut fruit in a cup market.

As to why people buy this, I’m at a loss. I can really only think of two reasons: horrid laziness and the illusion of healthy eating. These cups of fruit are insanely more expensive than actually fruit which is, when in season, insanely affordable in Catalonia. Of course then you have to peel it yourself which yes, is hard, but putting a bit of backbone in to it, by god, you can do it, much like I’ve seen monkeys do in the wild.

Then there’s that health thing. These half liter cups of fruit have upwards of 250 calories. That’s two glasses of wine. When push comes to chug, I’ll take the wine and eat an actual meal as a cup of fruit is little more than naturally occurring junk food when eaten like this and you can see that it’s not doing much given the sacks of lard sloshing their way through the market.

The politicians have by and large given the center of Barcelona to the tourists. I didn’t really believe it before moving here, but yes, it’s true and it’s not possible to live a normal existence there anymore. If they were to actually care, there are things that could be done about it. For one, they could put up gates around the market and charge people 10€ to go in. If you have residence in Catalonia, speak Catalan, or are an old lady with a Rolser, then you don’t get charged. This would be a moneymaking system to liberate the market from the brain dead tourists who treat it the same as they would television and buy nothing, but get in the way of those of us who do. The other solution would be to place snipers around the corners of the market and shoot anyone who walks in to it holding a camera. My fear with the second is that it would be a horrible waste of perfectly good bullets.

I’ve been through the throes of jetlag I don’t know how many times. It typically runs a cycle that feels a great deal like how Bruce Willis lost his mind in 12 Monkeys due to existing in two different periods of time. There was only one instance of time from mid-2009 to mid-2010 that I was able to achieve this bizarre, zen-like state of AntiTime™ wherein whether I popped in to California, Spain, Ivory Coast, Kenya, France, or South Africa, I experienced no jetlag and was immediately on the time zone of wherever I landed. This über state, along with vacuum sealed peanuts was one of the perks of flying a great deal.

I believe that having a few less years on the mortality end game also ontributed to this as since then, I’ve never experienced AntiTime™ and two years ago, after returning to California from Spain, I work up so early that I went in to work at 7AM.

For the holidays this year, I went to California from Spain and upon arrival, not only had a cold from the flight unleashed upon me (which I made sure to spread to everyone I came in contact with), but also had the typical form of jetlag wherein I woke up far too early. On returning to Spain, something strange has happened.

I’m not waking up at the rosy butthole side of dawn. I’m actually sleeping quite normally, but am waking up at strange, late hours, such as today, when I woke up at nearly 11AM after going to bed that the not terribly insane hour of 1AM. It’s like a jetlag that one would have if one were to be 22 and partying, which I’m most assuredly not, given that I’m writing like an insane person right now to get the Priorat guide out the door.

All that can be said is temporal issues are strange, perplexing, and you are indeed their bitch.

I came across this tight bit of travel genius on Condé Nast, the official publication for the Association of the Voyage Impaired:

Made for Spain has booked a car for you in Barcelona’s Sants Station—and supplied instructions on how to retrieve it. It’s a 90-minute drive north to Girona, the capital of the province of Girona, near the French border, so leave the hotel by 10 a.m. Park in the train lot, where you’ll meet your guide.

Maybe that doesn’t seem terribly wrong to people who don’t know Catalonia, but read it again and keep in mind that this is for a person staying at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on Passeig de Gràcia. You’re picking up a rental car at a train station to then drive it to a train station. If that doesn’t seem odd because you’re thinking, “well okay, but it’s so much faster to drive!” then let me emphasis that the “90-minute drive” is complete and utter horseshit.

Getting from Barcelona Sants out to the highway takes a good 20 minutes without traffic. Leaving in the morning means that there will be traffic. Getting in to the center of Girona is a) slower than getting out of the center of Barcelona and b) not easy as Girona is probably the most difficult town to drive in, in all of Catalonia. Also, to make this time, you have to take the toll road as the non toll road takes a good hour longer.

Let’s get back to the train station to train station by car thing. You see, from Barcelona Sants to Girona, there’s the very nice, direct Media Distancia train. It takes one hour 15 minutes and costs just a bit under 10€. Oh yeah, you can take it at the Passeig de Gràcia station instead of taking the Metro or a taxi to Sants because the Mandarin Hotel is right on top of Passeig de Gràcia!

So, here’s the suggestion by “travel specialist” Virginia Irurita at Made for Spain to go from Barcelona to Girona: 100€ (50€ for the car, 20€ in tolls, 30€ in gas) minimum in travel expenses plus 3-5 hours in round trip travel plus the stress of driving in a very foreign setting. And here’s the suggestion by anyone with the smallest fleck of common sense: 20€ round trip train (15€ if you want to save more and take a slower Regional train) plus two hours 20 minutes in total train time, up and back, plus getting to chill the fuck out while riding the very comfortable trains that Renfe has.

So, brav-o Condé Nast and Ms. Irurita for guiding travelers to Catalonia in such a “special” fashion. I’m sure their credit card providers salute you.

New Year’s Eve of 1999 I spend lying in a bed hearing the Campanile bells chime Auld Lang Syne at midnight. I would have much rather have been in San Francisco with my friends, but was unable to walk given that I’d torn both of my quadriceps in an ungracefully dismount of the stairs in my North Berkeley house. While my legs mostly healed, the lesson not to run down stairs is one that I’ve held dear to this day.

Sometime back, while sitting in El Prat’s Terminal 1, waiting for a flight to Menorca, it appeared that I should add not running through airport terminals to the list of life’s no-no’s as well. While astute planning [and luck] had brought us from the center of Barcelona to the airport and past security, to our gate in a mere 40 minutes, another fellow was apparently running late.

Sprinting up the gate with a large satchel on his arm and a rolling suitcase behind him, he gave off the grace of a camel a full gallop. All it took was one minor infraction of physics to then trigger his left foot to catch on the granite floor. His right foot soon followed as then in slow motion his body started bending in half, crumbling in form and succumbing to the untamed forces of gravity. His arm with the satchel tried in vain to catch himself, but got caught in the strap and then he landed. Hard.

Like a sack of potatoes thrown upon a beach, he was down and not moving. Those near him started calling for a medic. A crowd gathered, mostly comprised of tourists and I swear I saw someone taking a photo that they will never look at upon returning home. All through this, the fallen traveler lay still.

The medics arrived and looked him over as he continued to lay face down. A small bit of blood seeped on to the floor from where his head had blessed it. Just as it seemed that fears of the worst had happened, he suddenly came to and sat up, shocking those gawking. The medic put a piece of gauze on what turned up to be a minor head wound despite all the blood.

Seemingly oblivious to the crowd that had gathered around him or the medics attending to his injuries, he started to stand up, gather his belongings and try to make it to his flight. At that same time, I had to board my plane as well (without running), so I’m not sure if he made his flight or not, but his determination was admirable, if not uncoordinated.