The Wheel Of Fortune

Barcelona second stop: El raval

This is my now-favourite district: the cleaning is not — yet? — completed here.

Here you can still see the city as it once was. It seems that all the people I used to see in bars and streets have moved here. I'm in a bar surrounded by movie-like characters(?) and by the flavours — and smells — of the eighties. It's early afternoon, and the television is on "La Ruleta de la Suerte" with all of the customers trying to guess the words at a very loud voice. Priceless!

A small advice: all the stuff that is not-so-turist-shaped is already doomed. Hurry up!

Barcelona, again

I can't help it.

This city has a special strength that pulls me towards her.
This time I bent westwards my counter clock-wise trip to see my old friends and spend some quality time with them.

First stop: La playa

The privilege of living in a city with a beach is something that you can't imagine until you actually try it. You have like a free hour so you just go down to the beach, take a dip, dry yourself under the sun and that's it! It feels like heaven.

On my way back from the playa I stopped by a kebab shop, and I had to take this picture. On the same street you can see those super-modern skyscrapers and 17th-Century buildings and roads. I love this city! :-)

How not to get bored while you are visiting Milan

So you want to go to India, don't you? Then you need a visa, and if you are Italian you can't do it at the airport or at the border, you have to apply for a tourist Visa at the Indian Consulate, that is in Milan.

So you go to their web site, you write down the address and the rules, you download and fill in the form.

Very easy, so far.

Then you search a suitable couch in Milan the usual way and just go there. First thing in the morning you go to the Indian Consulate, and as you get there you notice a sign saying « Consular Services » and you go there.

There you find yourself at the end of a line of Indians spanning two rooms and an aisle.

During your stay in the happy line, you can entertain yourself wondering why you are the only Italian: you look around, but there are no signs, and your waiting neighbours have no idea about visa for Italians — of course: as they all are Indians they have little use for such a thing.

After an hour of this, you eventually reach the counter, and that lady explains that they don't do visas any more, and you have to attend at another office — that's in another part of the city, lucky you, thus giving you the opportunity of site-seeing ten metro stations.

But when you have your receipt in your pocket you feel just very happy — and very sweaty too — and you just start thinking in the next beer.



Just for the record, the new visa service is located in Via Marostica 34, metro Gambare.