It got its name about two years when it was run by three 25 year-guys that all had names beginning with a G. Then, after that, it was run by a Scottish guy named Gregor who took over for the next 2 years. During this time, the nickname G-Spot had been sealed and it had been cleaned maybe twice.
I found the G-spot by word of mouth. There were/are no advertisements and you could go right passed it and not know it was there. I had gotten into Barcelona at about 10 at night. I walked into the nicest looking hotel I could find and I said: "Hello, I don’t have nearly enough money to stay here, but would you know where I could find a hostel?" He drew a dot where we were (Plaza de Catalunya) and then an arrow down the La Rambla, leading to the Plaza de Reis. I trekked down La Rambla, taking in the wonderful, new atmosphere, but looking to rid myself of my pack quickly. La Rambla was, and is every night, a gorgeous area of Barcelona. Tall poplar trees and elegant lampposts line either side of the pedestrian walkway, cars drive on one lane on either side. People walk up and down, shops and stalls and street performers dot the street periodically.
Along this walk I met Red. A tall, charismatic Australian with a long crop of red-brown hair. “Are you looking for a hostel?” I confirmed that I was. “Well, there’s a hostel just down the street here that I can take you to. It’s a bit cheaper than other places in Barcelona, 15 a night, and it’s basically a shed with a bunch of people sleeping over top of each other.” “Sounds alright,” I said. “It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’ll show it to you and you can see for yourself.”
He led me down Ferran and up to a door that said “NS tattoo supplies.” To open this door he, pushed on the door and kicked the bottom of it. It opened. We walked upstairs and he showed me the bedroom. There were three bunkbeds, one heaped with various items (sleeping bags, a couple hats, an ironing board ... who would ever do ironing in the G-Spot is beyond me). “You see, it’s shitty, but it’s so shitty that only cool people would ever stay here.” I was already in love with this shit-hole. “Yeah dude, I’m down.” “Great!” said Red and with one sweep of his arm, pushed a whole bunch of junk off the top bunk onto the floor, “check in complete. Where are you coming from, by the way?” “Madrid.” “Well dude, if you want I run this bar crawl, I could get you in for free there.” I dumped my shit among all the other shit and headed out, looking to take the edge off of the day and meet some new people.
I’ve been in Barcelona 3 days now and the G-Spot has been the focal point of my experience here. It’s where I sleep, hang out. If you slogged through my 4,500 word theory on travel, you would know that the goal of finding authenticity and authentic experience is the core of my trip here and (as goes my general consensus supported by travel scholars) is that authentic experience is what separates the traveller from the tourist. In my travels, my goal was to find this challenging and ambiguous ideal and transcend the label of tourist to traveller (But these ideas are explained in greater depth in Booked Porch).
I feel I have found authenticity in Barcelona due to the G-Spot. I’ve been here 3 days and I haven’t seen any of the famous shit in Barcelona, but I’m in no rush. Those places aren’t going anywhere. I planned to stay in Barcelona 2 or 3 nights and then move on to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, but those cities aren’t going anywhere either. Instead, I’ve got a grimy mattress in a shit-hole hostel, a job working on the bar crawl and no plans to leave any of this anytime soon.
The G-Spot obviously does not serve as an authentic experience of Spain. If I was looking for that, I’d stay with a host family in a smaller city than Barcelona. Instead, what I have found at the G-Spot is authentic experience of travel. I did not come to Western Europe to conduct an anthropological study of Portuguese, Spanish, French etc. culture. I came to travel. When I look around at the G-Spot, there is no a single inch that presents even the faintest glimmer of tourism. It reeks of travel. Well ... travel, beer, b-o, cigarettes and 75 other things. As Red said, “It’s so shitty that only cool people would ever stay here,” he could have said, “It’s so shitty that only travellers would ever stay here.”
There are rules of conduct to the G-Spot that are concerns of the traveller, not the tourist. 1) If someone is in the bathroom or it is being cleaned, then you can just pee in the sink in the laundry room. 2) ALWAYS check for toilet paper before you poop. It is not always a guarantee that it will be in stock. On my second night, one traveller named Ty (a 34 year-old American) told me about the protocol if someone brings a girl back and he then continued in detail to relate his protocol for when he has brought girls back. These were all codes of travel, not tourism.
Today, for the first time in maybe 4 years, I have no idea, I took a bath ... with bubbles. Call me vulgar, or say that I have been reading too much Joyce lately, but it is these basic acts (taking a dump, peeing in the sink, having a bath) that really jumps out at me in my quest to define travelling. All these things you have to do every day of your life; and, along with physical relocation on the globe, you have to do these things differently, because you are not in Kansas anymore and life is different in Barcelona than it is at home. Brushing your teeth, doing laundry, it doesn’t matter; they cannot be done in the same manner in Barcelona as in Norwich. The world is too vast and there are too many variables to life that unconditionally exclude crapping in Norwich from ever being the same as crapping in Barcelona. Tourism aims to avoid these moments. It aims to ignore these differences in life and incorporate the familiarities of your home life into your 3 night stay in Paris or Venice by means of people’s dependence upon familiarity and willingness to pay for it. Travel not only devoid of this intention of tourism, but it actively embraces difference and change (in my opinion the only times in your life that you can learn experientially) and looks to pass them along to those able to accept them. The tourist has an expectation of what the experience will be and pays money to ensure their expectation is fulfilled. The traveller, very Socratically, knows of their own ignorance and views to gain knowledge from people, not with their wallet.
Barcelona feels great. I finally feel like a traveller. But it seems paradoxical to me that I now feel I am travelling when I have no plans to leave ... LW
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