The people you meet…

This is the next instalment of Ann’s blog, read Fabulous football in Barcelona,  Barcelona, Reims and a dud hotel,  Leaving London  for her previous updates. 

Someone once said: “You’ll be the same in five years time as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read” and one of the best things about travel is the people you meet. I have learned a lot and been inspired by the people we’ve met along the way.

Our new friend, Imna met us and took us to the football where Basa defeated Ajax 4-0. Because of our conversations with her last Saturday, we went to the Museam of Catalunya History yesterday. Catalunyans are voting for independence (from Spain) next year. We learned why at the Museum and from Imna and her friend Karmen (who has a daughter, called Africa, currently surfing in Margaret River, Aus!)

The cab driver who took us back to the hotel after the football was Pakistani. He’s been here 10 years and previously lived and worked in London. He said all the 24 hour shops are run by Pakistanis. The hawker who chatted to us the next night in La Rambla, the effervescent avenue that leads from the centre of Barcelona to the sea, was also Pakistani. He eventually sold us these colorful wirly-gig thingies, we’ll never get to fly because the instructions are so complicated but maybe the grandkids will figure it out! As soon as I said we were from Australia, he said “Ricky Ponting” and he and Leon were off talking cricket! We had to buy from him, at 5 Euros, it was worth it for the entertainment and these guys work so hard.

Not like the beggars. That’s pretty confronting. In Paris, there was this woman pushing her child in a stroller, with a pathetic look, trying her luck for the couple of hours we were there. There was also an extremely well dressed guy you would have thought was a tourist who obviously had a good story and targeted the better dressed, up-market travelers (not us). Even on the train there was a young guy who hit up a young male traveller and when he gave him some coins, hassled him to give more! Then there’s the guys outside our hotel. They work in shifts and have a couple of well fed, quite nice looking dogs with them. There’s some older, Indian looking ladies who shake a plastic cup at you. Mixed feelings. Are they desperate people or opportunistic con artists?

As we left Barcelona, another hard-working, female cab driver spoke very good English and told us her Australian friends had taught her. She’d spent six months backpacking the east coast and Western Australia. She’d just come back, got her taxi license and joined the family taxi-driving business so she could save up and go traveling again.

It’s true what they say, too: travel broadens the mind.

Ann’s blog #20