Category: Barcelona

Jan 27, 1963

1/27/2011

Had breakfast then ventured into Barcelona. Went to the docks, Montjuic and the Palau Nacionale. Along the way, a bunch of guys started following us. We stopped for a Pepsi in the funicular station and they talked us into going with them to a place where they practice bullfighting Juan and Jesus got the horns and cape and showed us how it was done. They told us that they fought bulls in the ring in Malaga.

In the evening they went with us to a grubby little bar across the Ramblas from our street - Flamenco music and dancing. Later we walked back down the Ramblas and went to the Cosmos for dinner at 11pm That's dinner time in Barcalona.

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Jan 26, 1963

1/26/2011

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Boys in - Barcelona

As we were leaving the hostel at Perpignon, the man at the desk handed us a broom and said "sweep." So we did. It was our first hostel duty.

We arrived in Barcelona determined to find a place with heat and hot water. After checking a couple of places we took the Hotel Cosmos in the Gothic Quarter, near the docks just off the Ramblas. It was on the narrowest street we’d ever seen, barely wide enough for our car. We took a bath and washed hair. What a relief.

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A daily diary of a journey in 1962. Please post comments about where you were then on the Background page.

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1962 was pivotal. This is the background:

It was a year colored by the Cuban Missile Crisis, an escalating involvement in Vietnam, the Berlin Wall and the Cold War with Russia, Civil Rights issues, a nascent space program, Nelson Mandela in prison, Betty Friedan's, The Feminist Mystique, the Beatles, Rolling Stones and the death of Marilyn Monroe.

In the face of all of this, Pat, Judy and I blithely took off for Europe with the intention of traveling through Europe and North Africa until our money ran out. We had a travel guide and a book titled Europe on $5.00 a Day. Since we had all read The Ugly American in preparation for the trip, we thought we were very smart to buy a used Volkswagen with Dutch license plates. We dubbed the car "Louie" since a cute guy from Switzerland named Louie had helped us acquire it.

There was no such thing as a cell phone, a computer, Twitter or Facebook. Our parents didn't hear from us for weeks on end. We wrote regularly, but letters took forever to deliver and we only vaguely knew where we would be next. It was a very cold winter and we followed the sun.

Jan 27, 1963

Jan 26, 1963

1962 was pivotal. This is the background:

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