If you ever go to Barcelona, do not stay at hostel Kabul. Unless your idea of a good time involves bed bugs, vomit, airborne STIs and a high probability of seeing someone OD, in which case you probably won’t find anywhere better. Given that Kabul, like Villa Saint Exupéry, is one of “Europe’s Famous Hostels”, one would expect it to be pretty great. Let me put it this way - the Kardashians are famous. Kabul is, hands down, the worst hostel I have ever had the misfortune of staying in. The reasons are innumerable but it does have one thing going for it: an amazing location. But first, we had to get there.
Our train to Marseilles left Nice at 7.55am, meaning we had to leave the hostel at about 7.00. It was absolutely pouring that morning, even with garbage bags covering Kaitlyn’s pack and my shell, they were still completely saturated by the time we got to the station. By 8.05 the train still hadn’t left, but we weren’t worried because we had almost two hours between our arrival in Marseilles and our bus departing. It was when the train stopped in the middle of the tracks at about 9.00am and they made everyone get off that we started to worry. We were standing outside beside the train for at least ten minutes before anyone official appeared. They made some cursory statement to placate everyone, the extent of which was that we were delayed. Well no merde, guys. Thanks for the informative news.
At least another twenty minutes went by, during which it started to rain. Then the official re-appeared. It was hard to hear him above the gale-force winds but I could make out at least two words: “annulé” and “Toulon”. “Annulé” means cancelled and “Toulon” means “Toulon, a town which isn’t Marseilles and not where your bus to Barcelona is leaving from”. People were shouting questions at the man and I had many of my own to shout. Most questions were being answered, but I was so stressed that I was struggling to process a single word of English, much less French. Eventually, I was able to make out that the train was unable to get to Marseilles and was instead detouring to Toulon, from where we would have to catch a different train to Marseilles. As we were all herded back onto the train, one of the children who had been incessantly screaming in the cabin next to ours for the entire trip, swung the carriage door right into me, smacking me in the face and sending me flying backwards into the door of the filthy bathroom which, unoccupied and not locked, crashed open upon impact and sent me flying onto its urine-coated floor. It took all of my strength to not cry. It’s probably a good thing I preserved those tears, as I ended up making good use of them later.
The train crawled to Toulon at a speed significantly slower than Flashdance’s neural oscillation activity. Our window to catch a train to Marseilles and catch our bus to Barcelona was getting narrower by the minute. The best way to describe Toulon when we arrived was SNAFU Central. There were people everywhere. Evidently, there was a problem with the rail system somewhere, and Toulon was the place we had all been dumped. The platforms were jam-packed with people waiting to get on trains and it quickly became obvious that it was a first-in-best-dressed situation. The chances of us getting to Marseilles and catching our bus were all but gone but, even if we did miss it, our best chance of making alternative arrangements lay at Marseilles’ much larger train station. With this in mind, we pushed our way to the front of the pack on the appropriate platform and, when the train pulled up, I engaged my shell and we made sure we were amongst the first people on-board. I probably knocked someone onto the tracks. I really didn’t care. With any luck it was the little brat who nearly gave me a concussion.
We arrived in Marseilles about forty minutes after our bus was supposed to leave. We tracked down the bus station in the hopes there was something we could possibly do but, alas, the next bus wasn’t until the following day. Having already paid for accommodation in Barcelona, we were determined to get there that night, so stingy is the back-packer mentality. Had we known then what we know now about Kabul, we would have been happier sleeping on the floor of the train station; happier (and safer) sleeping on the live train tracks. We made our way back to the train station to see what we could do about train tickets. The ticket hall was an absolute train-wreck (geddit?!) and made Toulon look like a military exercise in precision. We found the closest thing resembling a queue and jumped on the end. I recognised the two people in front of us from the train from Nice. They were Americans who were desperate to get to Barcelona to optimise their week-long honeymoon as, apparently, it would be “a complete waste of time” to only be there for six nights. Logic was lacking, but their “woe unto me” mentality was not. Did I mention she had a bad ankle? Well, she did. It was really sore. Their violin-playing was drowning out the furious ranting of the disgruntled French train passengers – maybe a blessing, but a twisted ankle is only interesting for so long and an hour well and truly exceeds this.
It was quite some time until we made it to the front of the queue and quite some more until we had secured train tickets to Barcelona that afternoon. Although there was a degree of jubilation of said acquisition, the knowledge that our journey was more broken than my heart upon hearing Ryan Gosling was dating Eva Mendes was quite sobering. Unfortunately, the only way we could get to Barcelona that day was to take this route – keep in mind each time we had to swap trains: Marseilles – Nice – Montpellier-St-Roch – Narbonne– Figueres – Barcelona. So as well as having to go back through Nice where we had started at 7.30 that morning, we had to swap trains four times just to get on the train to Barcelona. Add to this the two stops we had already made – three including the one in the middle of the tracks in Hicksville – and our journey looked like this: Nice – Hicksville –Toulon – Marseilles – Nice – Montpellier-St-Roch – Narbonne – Figueres –Barcelona. Keep in mind that it wasn’t just a matter of getting ourselves on and off the trains, but all of our stuff as well. Although I had definitely put on weight through the gaining of muscle, my shell still weighed more than half of me.
It wasn’t until late into the evening in Narbonne that we even had enough time between trains to track down food and water. Add hunger to the mix of stress, mental fatigue and physical exhaustion, and it’s a wonder neither of us didn't stab anyone. We took turns crying and we took turns sleeping, the only good part of our day coming when a little boy on the train from Montpellier-St-Roch gave us his bag of lollies. We must have looked so pathetic that, when he disembarked, he came over and left us at least 500grams of sweets. If he hadn’t been about eight years old, I would have kissed him. They were really, really good lollies and gave us just enough happiness to make it on and off the trains in Figueres and to Barcelona.
When we got off the train in Barcelona, this odd Australian girl befriended us. I say “befriended”, when what I really mean is “latched onto and leached off”. I don’t remember her name but I do remember it instantly being evident she was high, so I mentally called her Schappelle. Schappelle was travelling south the next morning but had no where to stay in the city that night and decided to follow us to Kabul to see if they had any spare beds. She also had no money to buy a metro ticket which I believe was the primary reason she “befriended” us. We had been travelling for seventeen and half hours by this point, so lending someone €1.00 was the least of our worries. Or so I thought, until she lit up a joint in the middle of the train station. ‘Really don’t think you should be doing that in here.’
‘You’re right, I should probably wait until we’re outside.’
Until “we’re” outside? I don’t think “we’re” going anywhere together, honey.
We desperately tried to lose her, but she was like a damn bloodhound. We had to catch two different metro lines before emerging in La Plaça Catalunya and walking down La Rambla, arguably Barcelona’s busiest, most lively street. We tried our hardest to shake her during this walk, but she morphed from Schappelle into Mercedes and was freaking everywhere; we couldn’t escape her. Kabul is situated in the city’s premier plaza, La Plaça Reial, and we finally made it here minutes before 1.00am – 18 hours after leaving Villa Saint Exupéry. You would think our arrival after such a draining day of travel would have been nothing short of relief. It was, for about five seconds, until one of the security guys on the door offered us some coke. Not the beverage. At first I thought it was a joke, but it didn’t take us long to realise that things are done very
differently at Kabul. As we politely declined the offer of illegal narcotics and made our way inside, a girl came out wearing the most hideous dress I had ever seen. In fact, I’m fairly sure it was a belt, but she was wearing it as a dress. In many ways it was probably a good thing there wasn’t much of it because the garish, sequined material was hurting my eyes. Having said that, her streaky, dimpled skin wasn’t exactly a pleasant sight either. It was six to one, half a dozen to the other really. We checked-in and made our way up to our dorm, a room housing 20 occupants although, at that early hour (anything before 6.00am is early by Spanish-standards), we were the only ones in there. It was dirty and generally gross, but we were so tired we just went straight to sleep.
I woke up in the morning to a strange sound. In my sleepy-state, I struggled to identify it. It wasn’t until my sense of smell became engaged that I realised it was, in fact, someone throwing up. I sat up and looked around, eventually locking eyes on a girl in one corner of the room who was spewing her not-so-little guts out all over the floor. I was completely stunned when she lay back down, rolled over to face away from her vomit mound, and fell back asleep. But I didn’t have time to dwell on it because a guy in the bunk across from mine asked me a question. ‘Can you smell that?’
‘The vomit? Yeah, that girl just threw up. A lot.’
‘No, I can smell something else. It smells like piss.’ He was right, the room had suddenly taken on the distinctive odour of urine. He got up and looked around, seemingly trying to identify the source. He didn’t need to do much investigating; removing the blanket from on-top of his friend on the bunk below, the case was solved. ‘Oh my GOD! He’s PISSED himself! Holy F@#%!’ He seemed more amused than repulsed by it. ‘Hey dude, wake up! You’ve pissed yourself, man.’ With all of these bodily fluids flowing so freely, I felt it was time for a shower. As I got out of bed, I noticed two things in quick succession: the first was the sequined monstrosity from our arrival, haphazardly slung over the end of a bunk; the second was the six bodies on mattresses littering the floor and blocking the exit. Apparently when you pay for a dorm of 20, you actually get 25 other room-mates. Had I woken up in the middle of the night and needed to go the toilet (or, more likely, evacuate the premises because someone’s joint had caught alight and the place was burning down), I would have tripped over someone and broken my neck. But it was quickly becoming evident OH&S wasn’t exactly a priority here –in fact, I’m not sure it was a factor at all. Welcome to Kabul.
We showered and high-tailed it out of there as quickly as possible, skipping the hostel breakfast in favour of doing our own thing in La Plaça Catalunya. It was an absolutely magical day, bright blue sky, the sun beating down. Barcelona is one of my favourite cities in the world, and it was a perfect Spanish day to wander around the city and explore it. We strolled down La Rambla which, with its tree-lined length filled with everything from cafés to street artists to prostitutes, is a colourful, vivacious Catalonian Champs-Élysées. We walked its length all the way down to the Columbus monument and onto Port Olímpic, basking in the sun, sand and water as we Australians like to do. We spent the afternoon wandering the wide streets, eventually heading through the Arc de Triomf and into the Parc de la Ciutadella. With its 40-odd acres of greenery, lakes, paths, fountains and the city's zoo, it was the perfect place to escape the heat of the day before heading back to the hostel to get ready for the evening.
On the way back we stopped off at the supermarket (a Carrefour) and were elated to discover that amaretto is only €4.00 a bottle in Spain as well. We spent the early evening on Kabul’s deck (its only positive feature), until the boys started appearing with their bongs, upon which we took our leave and drank the remainder of our amaretto while getting ready. Not that the room was all that much better but the vomit, at least, had been cleaned up. Kabul’s pub crawl was pretty average, as far as I was concerned. Kaitlyn, who met Apple (an Australian guy working in London for Apple) liked it a bit more. We started off in one bar which had the ability to house maybe a dozen people at a stretch - definitely not the 60-or so of us Kabul crawlers. From there we moved on to a shot bar which, while roomier, only let half of us in at a time. We literally had to take it in turns, half of the group going in and taking a shot while the other half waited outside, before swapping over. This was repeated several times until we all went back to Kabul. Yes, back to Kabul, where we had to wait for two hours until it was an acceptable time to herd us all into taxis and to some horribly pretentious club on the other side of town. Just to give you an idea, Zac Efron was there at the club. Can you imagine me frequenting an establishment where Zac Efron parties? Exactly.
The next day we woke up early hoping to find India and Cheianne who should have arrived the night before. It was hard to find anything that wasn’t illegal in the Kabul warren, let alone specific people, so we wandered off to get some food before the free walking tour. It appeared to be affiliated somehow with Kabul, so we didn’t have high expectations of it. They were lifted considerably when we spotted India and Chei across the plaza, also waiting for the tour. The tour was predominately of the Gothic Quarter, my favourite part of the city. The Barri Gòtic is an inviting jungle of alleyways, school yards, courtyards and shops, full of inspiration and surprises. Alas, in keeping entirely with the tradition of our attempts at free walking tours, it rained, impacting detrimentally on our enjoyment of it. It started off as a light drizzle but, after about an hour, it was a full-blown torrential downpour. We escaped most of in this great, quirky little café the tour leader took us to, where he divulged many an interesting fact over some brilliant café con leche. Did you know, Picasso was a total manwhore?
That night we planned to go to the Font màgica de Montjuïc – the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc. India had heard about it from someone and had asked the guy on the walking tour how to get there. He’d given us vagueish directions, so we set off to spend the evening there, stopping on the way for drinks. It was here, in a grotty little corner store, we met Don. I could wax lyrical about Don Simon all day, telling you he satisfied India, Cheianne and me like no one ever has – and probably ever will. But I won’t. You don’t need to know the sordid details. All you need to know is Don Simon is pre-packaged sangria. At €1.00 for 1.75l, I don’t think we would have cared if it tasted like copper. But, as the box states, Don Simon Sangria is a “top quality product”. (In case you were wondering, Don didn’t leave Kaitlyn high and dry but, given her aversion to red wine, she turned to Rekoderlig to satisfy her needs.) However, before we sampled Don for the first time, we had to find the fountain. Easier said than done. Can I just say, it had nothing to do with women not being able to follow maps - it was just that the map that we had was so incredibly abstract, I don’t think a cartographer could have made head of it. What also made it harder for us to find the fountain was the fact that it didn’t operate on Thursdays, at least at that time of year. This is probably something the tour leader might have wanted to mention. Nevertheless, we found a miniature fountain – well, more “water feature” than “fountain” and, with the assistance of Donny, still had ourselves a great night at the foot of Montjuïc hill. We ended up with a little bit of surplus Don and, as we planned to return the next night to see the actual fountain, we hid it in a bush with the intent of retrieving it. Just because Don was cheap, didn’t mean it was okay for him to go to waste.
The next day was Gaudí Day. If I could talk about Donny all day, I could talk about Antoni Gaudí all year. The figurehead of Catalan Modernism and, in my opinion, the world’s greatest ever architect, Gaudí is Barcelona. Even if you don’t know him by name, I guarantee you would be familiar with his work. Gaudí was an absolute genius and he is my homeboy. We spent the day visiting the Sagrada Família and Parc Güell. It was touristy, yes, but Gaudí’s masterpieces simply cannot be missed.
We made our way back to Kabul to get ready for our second attempt at the Magic Fountain. We reconvened in the “bar” (which was about as much of a bar as my lounge room) and set off, first procuring a take away dinner from this amazing place we discovered called Maoz. Vegetarian, they did the most amazing falafels and salads, you could fill up a large container for €3.00. We made a second stop for some more Donny (we didn’t have enough hidden to last us very long) and with that we were off. This time we had no trouble finding the fountain, not just because this time we knew where we were going, but because there were thousands of people crowded around it. Our trip the night before paid off in more ways than one: firstly, Don was still patiently waiting for us in his bush, ready to service us again; secondly, our spot next to the Magic Water Feature of Montjuïc turned out to be the perfect vantage point of the fountain, especially when the rain started and we were protected by a wonderful awning. The fountain itself really was magical. Nothing I can say will ever be able to do it justice. The co-ordinated light and music show was beyond spectacular. We sat and devoured the whole thing and, despite it running for over two hours, we were disappointed when it came to an end.
We made our way back to Kabul and, as we weren’t sure what else to do, joined the pub crawl again. If nothing else, it was actually quite a cheap way to obtain several drinks. While we were waiting in the “bar” for the crawl to leave, we happened across a sight even more spectacular than the Magic Fountain. We were sitting at a table when India, seated opposite Kaitlyn and I said, ‘When I tell you to, turn around and check out the girl behind you. Curly hair.’
‘Okay. Tell me when.’ Her and Chei were struggling to hold in laughter, so I figured it must be good. It was better than good. I turned around and made eye-contact with the two largest, creepiest eyes I had ever seen. Much like the Magic Fountain, nothing I say will properly describe their shockingness. But I will try. Imagine if Marina Prior and Kero Kero Keroppi reproduced. That, my friends, is probably an accurate indication of what this girl looked like. I was once told by an optometrist that my eyes were too big for my face, but this girl’s eyes took up at least a third of her visage. And it wasn’t just the size of them, but the shape – good Lord the shape! They were round and were bulging out of the sockets, protruding at least an inch, practically in-line with the bridge of her nose. She looked like a tarsier. She was terrifying – half human, half predatory primate. I could imagine her feeding off all of us the way a tarsier feeds off lizards. Kaitlyn and I turned back around our eyes, I imagine, unconsciously mirroring Kero’s. Kaitlyn summed up all of our thoughts, ‘What the f@#%?!’
The first stop was the hovel of a bar from the last pub crawl. As we stood around waiting to go inside, I started taking notice of all the other girls there. When I say “take notice”, I could very well mean “conducted a gynaecological exam”; I saw breasts, I saw va-jay-jay, I saw cervix. What I didn’t seen much of, was modesty. In fact, I am quite certain that the four of us were the only girls who weren’t exposing at least our nipples. To make matters even worse, the pub crawl leader was hooking these girls up with a myriad of drugs, not really necessary when they were barely able to stand up as it was. One of the girls, sporting a particularly revealing leopard-print body-con “dress” bent over right in front of us, allowing us to be certain that she wasn’t wearing any underwear. That was the night Slut Dress became known as Nun Dress. It wasn’t a huge one, as we were saving ourselves for an epic Saturday the next night. Without a doubt, the highlight came when we returned to Kabul. We always took the stairs, so I’m not sure what prompted us to take the lift on this occasion. Maybe we knew the human spookfish was inside. We rushed in and, there she was, leaning up against the back of the lift, all gobbley-eyed. She turned her Twisted Whiskers gaze onto each of us. We tried not to laugh. We were not successful.
The next morning, the four of us decided that we would go the train station to organise our tickets for our next journeys, before enjoying an awesome breakfast somewhere. It was quite exciting because the girls were heading to Granada a couple of days after we left Barcelona, and we were heading to southernmost Spain for two days before hitting up Granada ourselves, so we had decided to get a room together. Provided we didn’t become Kabuli casualties before then. We made our way to the train station, expecting to find the ticket counter, book our tickets and leave. We found the ticket counter and took a number. This wouldn’t have been an issue if 300 other people hadn’t taken numbers before us– 300 other people who were still waiting to be served. In the time we waited, I could have moved a sand dune from one end of the station to the other with tweezers. Advice from an objective foreigner: if you have 21 counters servicing the ticketing for the “Larga distancia” routes and there are droves of people waiting, perhaps you should staff more than four of them. Eventually we were all served and, with tickets booked for Monday (for us) and Wednesday (for the girls), we went off in search of food.
Even though it was past lunchtime by this point, we had tracked down an Irish pub which offered all-day breakfasts. They also offered waitresses who were all-day bitches. For reasons I cannot remember, after looking at the menu, we all ended up deciding on burgers and chips rather than breakfast. It might have been in order to take full-advantage of the dozen-or-so condiments on offer. Despite the fact we made eye-contact several times and eventually started gesticulating to the waitress, she continued to stand in the corner polishing cutlery – cutlery she had already polished at least twice, staring back at us, her eyes taunting us with a “I’ll-come-when-I’m-good-and-ready-watcha-gonna-do-about-it?” expression. Whore. When she did eventually grace us with her presence, she made the process of taking our orders seem like the greatest hardship she had ever endured. She sighed, she huffed, her eyes rolled so far back into her head she would have been able to see her pygmy-sized brain. When we asked for a fourth set of cutlery, given than there were four of us and all, you’d have thought we’d asked her to be a surrogate. We found it quite amusing that, when she did finally bring some over, it was filthy, despite the fact she spent at least two minutes polishing each piece while she kept us waiting.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon wandering around the neighbourhood before heading back to Kabul. We had enjoyed the Magic Fountain so much the previous night that we had decided to go back there again. As we were staying in different dorms we again made plans to convene in the “bar” before heading out. Just before we left, we spotted Kero using one of the computers to check her Facebook. It was funny because, despite having a similar eye-to-face ratio to Spongebob Squarepants, she had her face less than an inch from the screen. As well as being humorous to watch, it allowed us to do a stealth walk-by and see that her name was Amy. We hit up Maoz for some takeaway dinner, the corner store for some Donny and Rekorderlig and made our way up to the Magic Fountain, reassuming our position next to the Magic Water Feature. If anything, the show was even more spectacular.
We headed back to Kabul so we could get ready for our big night out. The pub crawl that night was going to Razzmatazz – five clubs in one. In typical Spanish-fashion, it wasn’t leaving the hostel until 1.ooam, so we decided to go out and get our drunk on first. We went to our respective rooms to change. I went down to the bathrooms to hot-up which was where I found Amy. She was leant-up against the bench, nose pressed-up against the mirror as she lined her bulging eyes with pencil. I assume she was using a dark colour to make them appear more deep-set. While I was standing there, a few more girls Amy obviously knew came in and started their primping routines. They were talking about make-up and Amy offered this: ‘I, like, don’t know why, but I go through so much eyeliner. Like a pencil a week. It’s so weird.’ My eyes watered so much from the exertion of trying not to laugh that I had to take off all my eye make-up and start again. The four of us didn’t venture far, finding an Irish pub just off La Plaça Reial. It was packed with what appeared to be heaps of men on bucks nights, none of whom were attractive. There was also a guy who looked just like Stephen K. Amos, but a quick Google search led to the disappointing discovery Stephen was in Australia.
We arrived back at Kabul in time for the pub crawl. In fact, we headed back way too early and had to wait in the “bar” for a long time. While we were waiting, India and Chei introduced us to “Who Invited?” In the same vein as nicknaming people, “Who Invited?” is used when someone looks like someone else or embodies characteristics of someone or something. For example, rather than saying “That guy looks like Stephen K. Amos”, you would say “Who invited Stephen K. Amos?”. Apparently the best (read: hilariously inappropriate) one the girls had employed so far was the “Who invited the Death Eaters” in London. Upon closer inspection, it became apparent they were actually women in black burqas. When one of them said ‘Who invited Nate Archibald?’, I practically gave myself whiplash turning around to get a look. Chace Crawford isn’t really my type, but the Kabuli talent had been lacklustre at best, so the prospect of a Nate-lookalike was exciting.
The crawl finally got going. It appeared the entire hostel was hitting up Razzmatazz that night…well, that morning, I guess. We had to catch a metro there and, on the way, I got talking to Nate and his friends who turned out to be Irish. I was starting to think Razzmatazz was some kind of ironic name for the place as the industrial neighbourhood it was in had about as much glitziness as Glenorchy. Although it wasn’t exactly the ostentatiously snazzy place its handle suggested, the place was ridiculous…in a good way. It was, indeed, five clubs in one: Indie, Techno, R&B, Pop and something else. It was absolutely enormous - I didn’t even find the Pop or R&B rooms until I stumbled upon them when I was leaving hours later. The Indie area was the bomb with excellent music: Two Door, M83, TV On The Radio, Animal Collective – my personal collection, essentially. While the music was great, the drinks were not. You can’t really stuff-up a vodka soda, so I was okay, but Chei’s vodka lime was a huge glass of vodka and lime syrup. Razzmatazz may have been light on skilled barmen, but it wasn’t light on the amusing clubbers: geriatric pervs, people dressed as chickens. There was no Zac Efron this time around, but we did have two doppelgängers: “Who invited Che from The OC?” and “Who invited Draco Malfoy?”. The girls went home a bit before me, I stayed-on with Nate and his friends. He may have looked like Nate Archibald but, as the night wore on, it became apparent he was more like Chuck Bass in character. Actually, no, he was more Jack Bass. He and his friends were complete wankers, even the several drinks they bought me didn’t make them anything more than borderline-tolerable.
The next day was Kaitlyn and my last day in the city. We had seen all the sights on our list and had no agenda, so we took the day as it came, eating ice-cream and aimlessly wandering the streets and alleys around us. We did, however, have plans for our evening: the movies. After spending the latter-half of my night with a group of assholes who excelled in misogyny, my opinion of the male species had diminished considerably. There was only one way to restore my faith in men: Ryan Gosling. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in Barcelona knocking on my dorm-door and offering to do this in person (I imagine he was holed-up in a palatial bungalow on a private Caribbean island with that fugly slurry, Eva Mendes – I am so much hotter than her but, whatever), but a ten-foot shirtless-version projected on the big-screen was the next best thing. The four of us found a cinema which showed English films in their original formats (i.e. non-dubbed) and, with a final takeaway from Maoz, sat back and enjoyed Crazy, Stupid, Love. Did I mention Ryan has a topless scene in this film? What a way to finish up in Bar-tha-lona.
Next stop, southernmost Spain: La Línea de la Concepción and Gibraltar.
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