Alto

  We were leaving Paris for our last stop of our tour, which was Barcelona.  I went by the perfume shop near our hotel in Paris to pick up the Paco Rabanne for me, since the girls said it smelled good on me.  Anything for them.  The morning was cold and rainy as we headed for the airport. 
  The Air France jet flew out of Paris for Barcelona.  It was an uneventful flight, although the group was getting a little tired of all the places.  It had been almost three weeks of airplanes, trains, buses, cars, and a lot of walking.  As the plane began its descent into Barcelona, we saw a beach nearby and thought that would be a great place to go to on our free afternoon tomorrow.  The beachgoers waved at our plane as we were landing.
  We got our luggage, and I went toward the door of the airport.  In all previous arrivals, we had just been zipped through and hadn't had to stop for customs.  Behind me, I heard a man's voice yell "Alto!!  Alto!!".  I didn't think anything about it, and I thought to myself that I was more of a baritone or bass, and I kept walking.  Right before I got to the front door of the airport, a soldier stuck a machine gun in my face and yelled "Alto!!".  I figured that meant "stop".  He motioned me over to the customs table.  When I tried to explain that I was an American and not Spanish, he nudged me with his gun, and I complied.  I could see the news report of "American shot by Soldier at airport".  That wouldn't look too good. 
  Spain was still run by the dictator Franco, and it showed.  The soldiers were on the street, and obviously in the airport.  There were pictures of Franco everywhere, and streets were named after him.  The city was very dark.
  We got to our hotel, and found the rooms to be very sparse.  Just a bed and table with a bathroom.  There was a speaker on the wall that we could tune in music with, but there was just one station.  In Paris, the view from our hotel window was the Opera House.  The view from our window in Barcelona was a grey stone wall. 
  The girls and I walked around the downtown area that afternoon and found a nine-story department store.  They had everything.  One of my regrets is that I didn't buy the Spanish Beatle records they had for sale, but I was not into collecting then.  We looked at clothes and housewares, too.  There was also an open-air food market near there.  They mostly had vegetables, fruits, and fish. 
  One of our tour members was a woman who taught Spanish in high school back home.  She was looking forward to using her second language in Barcelona.  That night, we ate at the hotel, and she couldn't read the menu.  She found out that the Spanish she taught, and the Spanish they spoke in Barcelona, was totally different.  It was the same experience I had in Paris.  It turned out that she taught Mexican Spanish, and I learned Riviera French.  Why couldn't everybody speak the same?  So, we had to depend on the waiter to bring us something edible. 
  Since this was our last stop before going home, some of the people wanted to call home to tell them when we expected to arrive.  The desk clerk told us that there had been a fire in the countryside, and all phone lines had burned, so there was no way for us to call out.  His story didn't hold water, but we had to go with it.  I felt very alone in Barcelona.