Boring Barcelona

I don't mean to imply that Barcelona is not a city that you should visit. But, when we were there in 1973, it was kind of boring. No night life to speak of. About all one could do was shop. There was a dictator running the country. The hotel said that we couldn't use their phones to call long distance, because there had been a fire somewhere in the country, and the phone lines had burned up. But, we could go to the nearby post office and use their phones. That made no sense. Barcelona was the last stop on our three-week tour, and we were all getting kind of tired. I guess we really didn't appreciate the Picasso paintings and the architecture. We went into one church with a beautiful chandelier. Sandra pulled out some glasses to look at it. I had known her for almost two years but didn't know she wore glasses. I asked her about it, and she said she only wore them if there was something worthwhile seeing. Thanks a lot, Sandra. We went to a section of town with a lot of artisans. One of our tour ladies bought a sword letter opener that would be confiscated by the airport security the next day. She never got it back. The real highlight of the tour was seeing a large statue of Christopher Columbus pointing toward the New World. We would be heading that way tomorrow. It was time to go home. That afternoon, Sandra wanted me to go with her to the post office to call home. She called her boyfriend. I couldn't hear the conversation, but it went on for quite a while. It was good she called collect. After it was over, I could tell she had been crying, and she was very quiet. She was upset. We went back to the nine-story department store. If anyone was having a bad day, shopping made up for it. During the tour, since I was assigned to protect the girls, I had been shopping for dresses, lingerie, swimsuits, shirts, pants, watches, crystal, souvenirs, linens, towels, jewelry, perfumes, and whatever else there was out there. Sometimes, I had to look interested. Other times, I was interested. Still other times, it was a good excuse to just sit. I didn't really have much time for myself, but that was okay. After all, we were friends. And, we had fun. I do wish that I was collecting music then, because the department store had a great record department, and I could have racked up on original Beatles albums, but I didn't know about the values of things like that back then. That night, we packed and got ready to fly back to the States tomorrow. It was time to go home. We were ready.