Day 4: Barcelona & Montpellier

After we returned, parched and exhausted, from the Park Guell, we had a bit of a wash (but not much of one) and ventured, refreshed, back into the city to watch the football at Robbie's. A friend of Juliet's, his apartment looked out onto the wide Carrer de Saint Joan. For the second time, we ate spaghetti bolognaise  and slurped cheap wine and cheaper sangria as we cheered Chelsea onto victory. Glory for the glory supporters and ecstasy for Harriet, screaming like a maniac, arms punching the air, in a delicate green frock. The world's poshest football hooligan. We befriended Juliet's friends through the medium of alcohol and loud conversation, and were herded out into the streets by George, regimental in a way only the English are capable of, a cross between a commanding officer and a geography teacher on a field trip.

We leapt metro barriers and piled on and off trains and filed down tall thin streets to find a tiny nightclub with golden crabs all over the walls and a drag-queen barmaid. So packed we couldn't move, but we danced with all our might before the heat and tiredness got all too much and we exploded out into the cool street. (The sea breeze wove around corners). Heading home on the metro, it seemed like the city didn't sleep. The streets were full of people, and men selling cans of beer and sandwiches. They knew their target market, and knew them well.

Between our station and the boy's flat, the sky burst open like train doors and the rain hit us like so many commuter's feet. We ran through the rainforest of fragrant trees and wrought iron balconies, until we reached the flat, hearts pounding, soaked with victory.


Today we woke with difficulty, after a deep sleep to a rainfall soundtrack. We left a thank you note to the four poker players, packed our bags and planned our carshares and couchsurfs. We were heading for Montpellier, but had no confirmation from our host. Our driver would be Eduaro, a Franco-Chilean who lived in Marseille. He picked us up outside the Sagrada Familia. I was glad to see it again before we left. I vowed I would come back when it was complete one day. Adios, Barcelona.

Eduardo drove a purple Ford Ka. He was middle-aged, but young minded, liked cannabis and Cuban music, and made his living as an iron-smith. Making balconies. As we left Spain the rain came back, falling mainly on the plain but also very much on the motorway, forceful like a waterfall, fierce vapour rising off the asphalt as we ploughed through it as though through thick cloud. The sound on the roof lulled me back to sleep. I opened my eyes later to see the sea, running alongside the autoroute past the freshly verdant landscape.

Hours later Eduardo dropped us off in Montpellier. We took a tram to the centre. It was full of people wearing football shirts - Montpellier were playing in the final. The tram itself was wearing a brightly coloured jacket, flowers in gaudy colours even Gaudi would have raised an eyebrow to. Having heard nothing from Philippe (the host who betrayed us), we cut our losses and paid €22 for a room at Le Strasbourg Hotel. A welcoming marine monstrosity, posters of whales in the foyer and stencilled sea life in the rooms. Curtains and bedspread like the Hawaiian shirt of a Miami pensioner.

Famished, we followed the tramlines to the city centre, where we bought ourselves delicious kebabs on freshly stone baked bread. The streets were swarming with people in orange and dark blue; the Place de la Comedie was a heaving mass of bodies, heads craning towards a big screen. We slipped through it and found a bar elsewhere. For those 90 minutes we became Montpellier supporters, as fierce as the rest. On screen the crowd threw toilet roll and tennis balls onto the pitch, and later a smoke grenade. The police lined the pitch like a navy picket fence. The tension was brittle. A goal shattered it. We jumped and screamed with the rest of the onlookers; our 24 hours as glory supporters had certainly been very glorious indeed.

We wandered home through the dark, riotous streets, dodging horn-blaring cars and revving scooters, laughing at revellers, marvelling at the mass of people who had swarmed up a fountain like a nest of termites. One held a red flare; the effect was that of a burning pyre of happy infidels. Il pleut, said a banner, les larmes des Parisiens. It's raining Parisian tears.

Better than real rain. Dry and happy, we trudged home and climbed into clean and hideous sheets.