Monday, July 31, 2006
Part III
Barcelona. One of my favorite cities in the world and the reason for this 16 day tour. We pulled into Barcelona proper after our marathon trip and immediately took stock of where we were. We needed to get to Malgrat de Mar and check into the Hotel Rey Mar Playa and we eventually made our way there. The hotel was nothing special but they treated us right. We immediately hit the beach for some sun and a much deserved cleansing of the body. We hadn’t taken showers in a while and the ocean felt good. After some relaxation, we headed back to the train station to go back to Barcelona. We needed to meet Dr. Pauley and discuss tickets. She was with her husband (Roger) and daughter (Rachel) and we met up with her at the hotel. We had six tickets to the track & field finals, mostly relay events and would get to see the men and women 4x100 meter relay and hopefully some USA gold medals. We were happy with that, I think we could have gotten some other events but we were all pretty poor. 1992 was the first year that professional basketball players could participate in the Olympics and the US had sent the “Dream Team” over. Tickets were too expensive for us though.
We hit some place for dinner and Horner had his first octopus tentacle in some dish. I know that because we have a photo of him eating it. We met the Nigerian Olympic team at the restaurant and they wanted to trade stuff with us. They really wanted my official USA Track & Field hat but I was holding out for an official credential. I was stupid, no way was I getting that. It was their meal ticket and entry into Olympic Village. Later, we went out with Rachel and two of her friends, first to a little cerveceria for pitchers of Sangria then to one of the craziest nightclubs that I’ve ever been to. It was huge with probably 300-400 people sweating and dancing and hundreds more on the balcony above us. We danced, we drank, we had a great time. And somehow we got back to Malgrat de Mar that evening.
The next day we celebrated Shep’s birthday, which was actually the following day. We hung out in the hotel and swam and had some beers. Montse had left several messages for me at the hotel and I finally took her call and she told me that several of the gang wanted to come down to Malgrat and see us. Although it was Shep’s birthday, we didn’t have any plans other than drinking a few beers and going out on the town. Montse (and her daughter) and Flora and their husbands ended up arriving around dinner and we ate and drank some beers with them into the night. They were pretty subdued but we hit it pretty hard. After all, how often are we in Spain on someone’s birthday? They wanted us to stop and visit them in their town on our travels but we didn’t commit because we didn’t have any real schedule and weren’t sure if Figureres would fit into our agenda.
After they left, we walked down to a hopping nightclub. We celebrated pretty hard but everyone was having a good time. Malgrat de Mar is a tourist town for the English and the Germans and I hear they both like to drink some beer. We eventually rounded everyone up and decided to go skinny dipping in the Mediterranean. How many people can say they did that? Anyway, it was a late night for us and we had many many cervezas.
Morning came and it was Olympic day. We were all pretty hungover from the night before but we got our stuff together and made our way to Barcelona. There’s nothing like McDonald’s to make things right and we found one when we got off the train. We eventually found the Stadium and walked around, enjoying the festivities and trying to trade for Olympic pins. Someone had thought of a great idea prior to the trip and bought face paint in the Olympic colors. We planned on painting the Olympic rings on our stomachs outside the Stadium. Everyone remembered their paint except for George so we tried to mix all the colors to get black but it turned into more of a gray. Nevertheless, we painted the rings on, we stood in the correct order and we had one of the few “celebrity moments” of the trip. There were hundreds of people coming by that were snapping photos and asking if they could get a picture taken with us. We should have been charging for each photo. When I think back to all those photos taken of us, I wonder how many are still out there and how many countries they are in. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see us in a national magazine when we got back but it didn’t happen. But we did get a great souvenir photo of the trip.
Security for the Olympics was tight and I imagine it has been since Munich 1972. I held onto my ticket for dear life, afraid I would lose it, and waited in the long line to get in. We bought some souvenirs inside but the shirts all ran very small. Of course, it was the last day of events but I was hoping for a bigger selection. We made our way to our seats and discovered we were in the 10th row. Now I’ve sat in some nice seats in my life but these were pretty sweet. Ironically, we were in the corner of the Stadium where the second exchange is made in the 4x100 relay, the same corner I used to run on Massillon’s relay team. It was still early and we just enjoyed the atmosphere. I had a big American flag that I hoped to be waving once the events began. I did run up and visit Rachel Pauley in her seats. She was high up but I preferred our seats down low.
There were a bunch of events going on that day, some of which I don’t even remember. I know there was the men and women’s high jump. The USA didn’t fare well there. But the marquee events were the 4x100 and 4x400 relays, both men and women. I was excited to see them because the US was supposed to do very well. And the men didn’t disappoint. First, the 4x100 team took the gold and set a new record del mundo (world record) and we saw Carl Lewis win his eighth and final gold medal of his incredible career. The whole team did a victory lap and I swear King Carl pointed at me during it. Of course, I was waving that big flag I had brought. We had some Russians behind us and they kept making comments about us sitting down but who sits down during the most exciting races of the Olympics. Then the women followed suit with Gwen Torrence and Evelyn Ashford leading the team to gold. The men’s 4x400 team then set another record del mundo, breaking the last world record set in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. The women took the silver but we were still excited. We had seen what we wanted.
The men’s 1500 was pretty crazy. Apparently the Spanish had a favorite in the event and he ended up winning the gold by a hair, setting off pandemonium in the stands. I had never seen such excitement and it made me appreciate how many Spanish were actually in the Stadium that night.
There was a nice light show in a big plaza next to the Stadium and we walked through it. We were tired, hot and sweaty and ready to get back to our hotel. We figured we would jump in a cab to the train station and get back in time for another dip in the pool. But that was not as easy as you would think. There were no empty cabs anywhere so we walked and walked and walked. No one had a good idea about where we were going and we eventually were walking in residential neighborhoods, just hoping for a cab to come by. We somehow made it to the train station, only to find out that last train had already left so we were stuck in Barcelona. I guess had we been drinking and having our normal good time it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal but the previous night and the long day had taken its toll. We ended up taking two cabs back to Malgrat de Mar and paid some ungodly amount of money.
The next day we decided to pack up and head to Barcelona one last time. We checked out of the hotel, took the train in and stowed our bags in some lockers. We did some touristy things, visited Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia (it wasn’t finished on my 1988 trip, wasn’t finished then and still isn’t finished), did a little shopping, looked around Picasso’s old neighborhood and wanted to see a bullfight. Alas, the arena was being used for a private party for NBC VIPs. We wouldn’t get the chance to see the toros but I saw two fights on my first trip to Spain so I was okay with that. We discussed whether we should go to Figueres to see Montse and Flora and finally decided that we would. I called them and told them we would be on the next train and they promised to pick us up. They didn’t know that we were going to play it by ear, if things were slow we were just going to jump on a train and head back to France. Little did we know that we were about to experience one of the highlights of our trip.
Barcelona. One of my favorite cities in the world and the reason for this 16 day tour. We pulled into Barcelona proper after our marathon trip and immediately took stock of where we were. We needed to get to Malgrat de Mar and check into the Hotel Rey Mar Playa and we eventually made our way there. The hotel was nothing special but they treated us right. We immediately hit the beach for some sun and a much deserved cleansing of the body. We hadn’t taken showers in a while and the ocean felt good. After some relaxation, we headed back to the train station to go back to Barcelona. We needed to meet Dr. Pauley and discuss tickets. She was with her husband (Roger) and daughter (Rachel) and we met up with her at the hotel. We had six tickets to the track & field finals, mostly relay events and would get to see the men and women 4x100 meter relay and hopefully some USA gold medals. We were happy with that, I think we could have gotten some other events but we were all pretty poor. 1992 was the first year that professional basketball players could participate in the Olympics and the US had sent the “Dream Team” over. Tickets were too expensive for us though.
We hit some place for dinner and Horner had his first octopus tentacle in some dish. I know that because we have a photo of him eating it. We met the Nigerian Olympic team at the restaurant and they wanted to trade stuff with us. They really wanted my official USA Track & Field hat but I was holding out for an official credential. I was stupid, no way was I getting that. It was their meal ticket and entry into Olympic Village. Later, we went out with Rachel and two of her friends, first to a little cerveceria for pitchers of Sangria then to one of the craziest nightclubs that I’ve ever been to. It was huge with probably 300-400 people sweating and dancing and hundreds more on the balcony above us. We danced, we drank, we had a great time. And somehow we got back to Malgrat de Mar that evening.
The next day we celebrated Shep’s birthday, which was actually the following day. We hung out in the hotel and swam and had some beers. Montse had left several messages for me at the hotel and I finally took her call and she told me that several of the gang wanted to come down to Malgrat and see us. Although it was Shep’s birthday, we didn’t have any plans other than drinking a few beers and going out on the town. Montse (and her daughter) and Flora and their husbands ended up arriving around dinner and we ate and drank some beers with them into the night. They were pretty subdued but we hit it pretty hard. After all, how often are we in Spain on someone’s birthday? They wanted us to stop and visit them in their town on our travels but we didn’t commit because we didn’t have any real schedule and weren’t sure if Figureres would fit into our agenda.
After they left, we walked down to a hopping nightclub. We celebrated pretty hard but everyone was having a good time. Malgrat de Mar is a tourist town for the English and the Germans and I hear they both like to drink some beer. We eventually rounded everyone up and decided to go skinny dipping in the Mediterranean. How many people can say they did that? Anyway, it was a late night for us and we had many many cervezas.
Morning came and it was Olympic day. We were all pretty hungover from the night before but we got our stuff together and made our way to Barcelona. There’s nothing like McDonald’s to make things right and we found one when we got off the train. We eventually found the Stadium and walked around, enjoying the festivities and trying to trade for Olympic pins. Someone had thought of a great idea prior to the trip and bought face paint in the Olympic colors. We planned on painting the Olympic rings on our stomachs outside the Stadium. Everyone remembered their paint except for George so we tried to mix all the colors to get black but it turned into more of a gray. Nevertheless, we painted the rings on, we stood in the correct order and we had one of the few “celebrity moments” of the trip. There were hundreds of people coming by that were snapping photos and asking if they could get a picture taken with us. We should have been charging for each photo. When I think back to all those photos taken of us, I wonder how many are still out there and how many countries they are in. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see us in a national magazine when we got back but it didn’t happen. But we did get a great souvenir photo of the trip.
Security for the Olympics was tight and I imagine it has been since Munich 1972. I held onto my ticket for dear life, afraid I would lose it, and waited in the long line to get in. We bought some souvenirs inside but the shirts all ran very small. Of course, it was the last day of events but I was hoping for a bigger selection. We made our way to our seats and discovered we were in the 10th row. Now I’ve sat in some nice seats in my life but these were pretty sweet. Ironically, we were in the corner of the Stadium where the second exchange is made in the 4x100 relay, the same corner I used to run on Massillon’s relay team. It was still early and we just enjoyed the atmosphere. I had a big American flag that I hoped to be waving once the events began. I did run up and visit Rachel Pauley in her seats. She was high up but I preferred our seats down low.
There were a bunch of events going on that day, some of which I don’t even remember. I know there was the men and women’s high jump. The USA didn’t fare well there. But the marquee events were the 4x100 and 4x400 relays, both men and women. I was excited to see them because the US was supposed to do very well. And the men didn’t disappoint. First, the 4x100 team took the gold and set a new record del mundo (world record) and we saw Carl Lewis win his eighth and final gold medal of his incredible career. The whole team did a victory lap and I swear King Carl pointed at me during it. Of course, I was waving that big flag I had brought. We had some Russians behind us and they kept making comments about us sitting down but who sits down during the most exciting races of the Olympics. Then the women followed suit with Gwen Torrence and Evelyn Ashford leading the team to gold. The men’s 4x400 team then set another record del mundo, breaking the last world record set in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. The women took the silver but we were still excited. We had seen what we wanted.
The men’s 1500 was pretty crazy. Apparently the Spanish had a favorite in the event and he ended up winning the gold by a hair, setting off pandemonium in the stands. I had never seen such excitement and it made me appreciate how many Spanish were actually in the Stadium that night.
There was a nice light show in a big plaza next to the Stadium and we walked through it. We were tired, hot and sweaty and ready to get back to our hotel. We figured we would jump in a cab to the train station and get back in time for another dip in the pool. But that was not as easy as you would think. There were no empty cabs anywhere so we walked and walked and walked. No one had a good idea about where we were going and we eventually were walking in residential neighborhoods, just hoping for a cab to come by. We somehow made it to the train station, only to find out that last train had already left so we were stuck in Barcelona. I guess had we been drinking and having our normal good time it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal but the previous night and the long day had taken its toll. We ended up taking two cabs back to Malgrat de Mar and paid some ungodly amount of money.
The next day we decided to pack up and head to Barcelona one last time. We checked out of the hotel, took the train in and stowed our bags in some lockers. We did some touristy things, visited Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia (it wasn’t finished on my 1988 trip, wasn’t finished then and still isn’t finished), did a little shopping, looked around Picasso’s old neighborhood and wanted to see a bullfight. Alas, the arena was being used for a private party for NBC VIPs. We wouldn’t get the chance to see the toros but I saw two fights on my first trip to Spain so I was okay with that. We discussed whether we should go to Figueres to see Montse and Flora and finally decided that we would. I called them and told them we would be on the next train and they promised to pick us up. They didn’t know that we were going to play it by ear, if things were slow we were just going to jump on a train and head back to France. Little did we know that we were about to experience one of the highlights of our trip.
