Spending an evening strolling the streets of Barcelona’s Barri Gotic can take you anywhere your feet or heart desire. Along streets, through plazas, into bars abuzz. Then adrift again, down vacant alleys, around bends before the fun begins again. You can eat your way though as many hours as tapas, indulge in sights and sounds and sangria, and once you realize the time is nigh, the metro falls silent and the night bus becomes your ways and means.
It was just such an evening, when suddenly, my thoat snatches my inhale, my face morphs from wanderlust to incomprehension to dread… oh shit! My falling eyes are pulled left. The shadow comes to life revealing a perfect row of teeth, framed by erect incisors jutting from a hairy bottom jaw. Wet heat licks its way between my toes, around my flip flop, up my foot, and my eyes find their resting place. The biggest, sloppiest, smelliest dog turd I have ever seen caresses me in all the wrong ways.
The bottom jaw prowls towards me, attached to an enormous black dog, hind legs higher than the fore, giving him more menace than most… I freeze. He comes very close, eyes locked with mine, he sniffs around my foot then breaks into a proud grin, “yep, that one’s mine”.
What was it you said Bikram, “Don’t let anyone steel you peace”?
