Wasn't meant to be

My friend Dipika (who is not from California, but does do yoga) believes that if you want something bad enough, The Universe will align itself so that you will get what you want. But, if you don't in fact get what you want, The Universe has other plans for you, and in the end you'll understand why. I pick and choose pieces of this philosophy as they're convenient to my life, but since I value her opinion, I at least give it some thought when I've been disappointed.

Today, The Universe didn't want me to go to my race (today, as usual, the part of The Universe will be played by public transportation). I was slated to do a little Aquathlon (Aquathon? I swear I've heard the word in English, but have no idea what it is???) in the town of El Prat de Llobregat right next to Barcelona. El Prat is far and away THE ugliest place in all of northeastern Spain. It is home to little more than the airport, the shipyards, the industrial areas and warehouses, drug dealers who decide to live where there is little police surveillance, and empty lots left over from when it was a farming town and Barcelona had no industry. It's so ugly that I can't even find an image on google to give you an idea of what a dump the place is. But they have a tri club who put on an Aqu... a triathlon minus the biking, and I'd committed to go.

I wasn't too pumped to do the race, especially since Shane showed up on my doorstep Tuesday morning (8 days early) after spending all his money in Italy and it was all I could do to get ONE training session in all week. But I'd sworn up and down to my club that there was absolutely, positively no reason I would not be at this race. I meant it. I'm sick of flaking.

But then The Universe made her debut, this time dressed in the costume of Iberia airlines. Shane wanted to change his ticket and go home as soon as possible since he was broke. We went to the Iberia headquarters to make arrangements where The Universe told him that there were no available seats from Chicago to San Francisco until the 11. "I don't want to fly on September 11," Shane said gravely.
"Ah, si, es veritat" (Oh yeah, that's right), said The Universe, who in this scene was being played by a middle-aged Catalan woman. The Universe told us that we would have to talk to American Airlines to try to change the itinerary since his ticket wouldn't allow him to change his rout via Iberia. The Universe spent the next day hopping back and forth around American Airlines, Iberia, and Expedia.com (making some stops to fuck us over by not putting us through on some international phone calls) until finally she settled down in El Prat at the Barcelona Airport. Finally, face to face, The Universe granted Shane a ticket for Saturday morning, just in time to take off at the same time as my race started.

Now the plan was for Shane to carry a suitcase home for me which my dad would pick up on his business trip to San Francisco in a couple of weeks. However, The Universe quickly changed costumes in order to play the part of the board of executives at my dad's job, which was in the midst of major layoffs. Dad got the axe, which meant no trip to San Francisco, which meant that instead of a suitcase I would be sending a self-addressed box home with Shane. I bought a box and packed it up with winter clothes, CDs, and a couple of trophies I couldn't bring myself to part with. When I picked it up it was HEAVY (16.6kg/36.6lb) and unwieldy. I figured if I made a handle out of packing tape the box wouldn't make it a block. I figured I would either have to cough up cab fare to the airport or go with Shane myself.

That night I sat down to look at the race's web site and figure out how long I would need to get there. I figured I could just take my race stuff to the airport and go directly from there. However, The Universe (possessing the body of the El Prat Triathlon Club's webmaster) made the site really hard to navigate. When I looked to find directions to the start, all I could find was a screenshot of a close-up satellite image of the beach.

From top left to bottom right: "Transition Area 1, 2, 3, Triathlete parking, swim start".

This was not a link. I looked all over the web site for an address and there was none. Finally I was reduced to zooming in all the way on google maps and looking at the El Prat coast200m at a time until I found something that matched my picture. After a little more investigation I found out that where I was looking was in the extreme northwestern corner tucked under the airport (Barcelona is southeast). In order to get there, I was going to have to cross all of Barcelona, all of downtown El Prat, all of industrial El Prat, and go around the airport. On top of that, neither of the town's train stations were anywhere close, that is, unless I wanted to walk around the airport. Here is a crude map to give you an idea:

I plunked a virtual stickpin on where the start was and looked for driving directions to my little stickpin from my house. The first directions I got told me to take a ferry. I found this even a bit over the top for The Universe, but then I realized that it was directions from the street Sant Antoni Maria Claret 121 (my address) on the island of Mallorca. I looked at the Sant Antoni Maria Claret 121s that there were all over the world, but none of them were my street (it's a main street!!!). Finally I got working directions which ended in the following instructions, "Take a left, take a right, take a right, take a left, take a left," there were no street names of ANYTHING in the last 6 directions or so! I took a few more looks at the map and figured I could do it on my bike... until I saw the freeways that made up about half of the rout. Crap, there's got to be another way around this! I went to bed and decided I'd deal with it in the morning.

Meanwhile, on his final night in Barcelona The Universe led Shane to a sushi party where pretty girls convinced Shane to drink too much wine and stay out until 3:30 in the morning (only an hour and a half before his 5:00 wake up call). When his alarm went off at 5:00, he didn't get up. At 5:10 I poked him a few times, "Shane? Shane?" No response. At 5:25 I turned on the light and shook him saying, "It's time to get up now."
"I just need to rest a little more!" He whined. At 5:45 I finally got him to get his ass out of bed. I'd already put on clean pants and sat down to read my email and drink coffee while I waited. Only he didn't tell me when he was almost ready, and I rushed to put on my shoes and get out the door while he held the elevator for me. We walked down to the metro station, taking turns heaving the huge box and his suitcase filled with wine past all kinds of drunk people and a couple of whores ("yoo-hoo, guapo!" a whore cooed, waving her hand in front of the box that was perched on my shoulder to try to get Shane's attention). Meanwhile, The Universe was settling in 3 stops away in the station that goes to the airport. We schlepped with the box through the longest transfer in all of Barcelona (a half kilometer hike underground) and went to buy our special tickets for the airport.

When we got to the ticket machine The Universe was cleverly hidden inside. I reached into my pockets, "Shit! Shane! I left all my money in my pants from yesterday!" I tried with my debit card: DE-nied! I went to another machine, where The Universe was also waiting for me: DE-nied! I went up to the window, where The Universe said, "We only take cash. If the machine won't take your credit card, we can't either." Shane only had enough money on him to get his own ticket. We tried my American credit card and also Shane's even though I knew it wasn't going to work, "We are unable to process your request," paaaa-tewey! it spit the cards out at us. Finally I just had to bum the money and we went down to wait for the train (when we got to the airport I found some money in my wallet, so that took care of that).

The Universe finally delivered us at the airport at about 7:00 for Shane's 9:30 flight, but we still had to wait in line to get the box wrapped in a huge sheet of Saran Wrap. I'll never understand why Europeans are so keen on this practice since customs is likely to rip it off anyway, but my precious box needed a little extra padding since it was already dinged up pretty good. The Universe (back in its comfortable Iberia Airlines uniform) had arranged for some 6 (huge) flights all going to the American Continent to leave at the same time, and allotted them only 4 check-in desks, so the line spanned the width of the terminal. While Shane waited in line I went to buy him some water and a sandwich and looked at my watch. 7:30. The transition area was to open at 9:15 for a 9:45 start. It would take me an hour to get home (in the end I didn't bring my race stuff with me) and another hour or so to get to the start, that is, if I didn't get lost.

What kind of jerk sends their friend half way around the world with a box that weighs a ton so he can pay to ship it half way back again and then leaves him in the check-in line? I counted all the good excuses that I had not to go: friend unexpectedly needs to go to the airport, no transportation, lousy and dangerous bike commute, the chance that I'd get lost anyway, the fact that my club doesn't seem to give a rat's ass about me, my glands that felt kind of swolen... and decided to wait it out with Shane. On the way home I thought about the online conversation I'd had with my cousin last night while I was looking for directions. "It's not worth it," she said. "Your directions are telling you to take ferries and unnamed streets, of course you're going to get lost. You only have 2 weeks left and those guys kind of sound like jerks. Screw 'em." All the good reasons didn't keep me from feeling like The Universe was being a bit of a bitch though. I'd DNSed in more triathlons than I actually participated in!

My stats for this year:
Catalan duathlon champs: Did Not Start because of travel issues.
Tri-Trials Barcelona: Did it, but no results were recorded because I didn't get my chip.
Witch City Triathlon (Salem, MA): Done and dusted.
Nutmeg State Sprint (Washington, CT): Got there late, but managed to pull it off.
Banyoles Olympic Triathlon: Did Not Start because of travel issues.
El Prat Aqua... Thingy: Did Not Start.

When I came home I thought, I'm ready for an off-season anyway, and climbed back into bed.