Just back from a weekend in Barcelona. I can’t quite believe I lived there for nine whole years. Going back in total tourist mode was a delight – I’d forgotten how beautiful the place is, as it’s easy to do when a city becomes the backdrop for the day-to-day whirl that is your life. It was funny to go somewhere so familiar yet so different. We did a lot of walking – a lot of the time I knew where I was going but not what I was going to find there: a city changes a phenomenal amount in 10 years. Where once there were bars selling paintstripper grade wine for a few pesetas and as much pan con tomate as you can eat there are Starbucks and foccacerias. Instead of grotty old pensiones there are boutique hotels. And tourists a gogo. (Mind you, if you’ve been to Camden recently you’ll know that for every one we export we import two of theirs).
Needless to say I consumed my own body weight in alcohol. Now, you know me – I’m good with hangovers and believe that if you are big and bad enough to go out and get messy, you are big and bad enough to get up the next day and do what it is you have to do but the one I woke up with yesterday was a killer. It was a lot bigger than the sum of the drinks that made it. My belly hurt, my brain hurt, my eyes probably would have hurt if I’d been able to find them. I felt that if only I could be sick/cry/sleep for six hours/die I’d be fine. Bizarrely it was the old hair of the dog that saved me – a mercy dash to the airport to hand over some keys to some friends who should have been in Buenos Aires (don’t ask) turned into a mini drinking session in the airport bar (called ARS!) had me feeling right as rain in no time.
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