Disembarked in Barcelona: Cocktails, Class, and Cannabis at the Majestic Hotel

Martinis and Bikinis with a View…the Womb of Wealth…From Pretension to Porters…Am I Being Robbed???…the Cannabis Club…Room Service Smorgasbord…the Fantastic Tab and Grace Under Pressure

 

Nothing wipes away travel exhaustion like martinis, oysters, and an eighth-story view of Barcelona, so when I arrived at the Majestic Hotel to find that my room wasn’t prepared and was instead ushered to a rooftop bar where I was welcomed with precisely these accoutrements, I quickly realized that the delay was an annoyance with which I could cope.

Yes, it was a moment of fine views and extravagant indulgence. The city spread out in every direction with Sagrada Familia to one side, the distant Mediterranean to another, and the rolling hills outside Barcelona bringing up the rear. Fellow patrons who presumably had bank accounts significantly more substantial than my own were lounging around drinking and eating and smoking fine cigars. And I mustn’t forget to mention the bevy of beautiful, bikinied, British bachelorettes who were splashing about in the pool.

I hadn’t gotten a real night’s sleep in days due to going away fiestas in Granada followed by long nights in Madrid, so prompt access to my room should have been my leading priority, but—martini in one hand, oyster in the other, abundant eyefuls of Barcelona and bikinis everywhere—I was unperturbed. This was, indeed, a fine reintroduction to Barcelona.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I believe it was Vonnegut who advised that one open a story as close to the end as possible, and I suppose that has been accomplished to some degree. Now it’s time for another literary device—the flashback.

For reasons that are an entirely different story, I’d been in Spain for three months, the majority of which I spent down south in Granada. Over that period I visited Barcelona three times—once to fly into the country, once to write about the million-person march for Catalan secession, and this final time I was on my way out.

When I initially arrived in Spain via the city, the place was busting at the seams with the jubilation of Dia de Cataloña, one of the region’s particularly festive celebrations. A Catalan rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s “No Surrender” was blasting from speakers strewn throughout the city. It was an omen I did not recognize until later.

Jump forward a month and I was back again. This time the city was angry and in the streets marching for Catalan secession. I made the scene last minute to cover the madness and all the hotels were booked, but it didn’t really matter—no one seemed to get much sleep. The city was gripped by an ecstatic fever that only comes from a million people unified for a common cause. No surrender indeed.

But the secession demonstrations are entirely different story, one with which you are likely at least somewhat familiar. At the moment, we are focused on my subsequent visit.

When I returned for the third time, Barcelona had changed yet again. Now there were no protests in the streets. The presence of the federal police was everywhere. The locals spoke of the situation in hushed tones with probing eyes. It had become a city of conspirators.

During my previous visit I had managed to find a raucous hostel where I would nap occasionally when I needed repose from the demonstrations. This time I decided to upgrade my accommodations to the luxury of the Majestic. Let’s just say that I felt like leaving the country in style.

When my taxi pulled up to the Majestic, a meticulously-dressed porter ran up and opened my door. “Good afternoon Mr. Hilden.”

How did he know who I was?!? It was welcoming and disconcerting all at once. I demanded an explanation, and he looked at me, confused. It was obvious that he was accustomed to dealing with people who were themselves accustomed to such personalized treatment.

“It’s…um…it’s what they told me to call you. You are Mr. Hilden, correct?”

Correct he was, so he took my bags and guitar and into the luxurious labyrinth we went.

There I was met by perhaps the slickest desk clerk I have ever encountered. Punctilious in every way—dress, speech, manners, the whole show. I liked him immediately, which is the sign of a good hotel clerk. He struck me as the kind of guy who would be relentlessly unerring at his job until the moment he clocked off and loosened his tie, at which point he would gladly accept whatever discombobulant you threw at him. My kind of people.

It was he who notified me that my room wouldn’t be available for an hour or so.

“I’m sorry Mr. Hilden, but we were under the impression that you would be arriving at a later hour. But we can hold your luggage and bring you up to our rooftop bar for a bite and perhaps a cocktail if you like…”

I wasn’t sure how they had any notion as to when I would arrive in the first place. As far as I knew I hadn’t specified a time. Interesting…

But the rooftop bar sounded fine to me. As he gathered my things he gracefully avoided my interrogation about his views on secession, but I could tell that he was for it. It was in his eyes—that stir-crazy look that comes from being under the thumb of the master for too long. A feeling I understood all too well.

It was at this point that I finally took stock of my surroundings. Lavish, left and right. Great, looming neo-classical columns and staircases and marble and ancient-looking tapestries that I am not educated enough or wealthy enough to appreciate fully. I was led to an elevator that I could have found myself, then was ushered onto said elevator and accompanied to the top floor, which I could have sorted out—again—by myself.

This, I thought, must be what Wealth is like. Like being an adult baby. No task is too menial to be taken out of your hands. They probably would have carried me and dabbed food from my chin and read me a bedtime story, had I asked. How revolting. How delightful.

You’ve already read about the oysters, martinis, and bikinis, so we’re up to speed. Let’s move on.

At some point still another employee who knew my name for some reason came up and informed me that my suite was ready, and that my things had already been delivered to it. Metaphorically speaking, he then threw me over his shoulder and carried me down to my room.

It turned out to be one hell of a place. Opulent and clean enough for open-heart surgery, it was the kind of suite where you want to have either the most or least romantic night of your life—fine wine and poetry spoken in soft tones to your eternal lover, or nose drugs and bizarre things uttered to expensive escorts (plural). It had a view of Gaudi’s Casa Batllo a block down the street, which would accentuate both of these circumstances.

If you’re guessing that I went on to take advantage of this lascivious atmosphere, I hate to disappoint you. To be honest, I was so goddamn tired from weeks upon weeks of rowdiness that all I wanted to do was laze around the hotel and sample its various epicurean pleasures, and for the next three nights I did.

And the Majestic is a fine place for this sort of proclivity. Its registry had been graced by names like Hemingway and Picasso and Miro and Trenet, and I was perfectly satisfied to follow in their footsteps and eat fantastic foods and drink far too many drinks and to wander the seemingly endless halls that are adorned with weird works from a range of renowned avant garde and contemporary artists.

I spent my afternoons and evenings talking in the bars with various upper-crust, society types, then when I tired of their tedious pretension, I would head outside with the porters and ramble late into the night about Real Human Things.

The wealthy patrons would express concern at the Catalan situation—bad for business, they’d say. The porters and bartenders and room service, on the other hand, would (once I’d earned their trust) reveal a flood of antagonisms personal and regional; territorial wounds that went back years, decades, centuries even. Here were the conspirators I was referencing earlier, these Barcelonans who are caught between Catalonia and Spain.

After 48 hours of this I decided that it was a bit ridiculous to be in Barcelona and to spend no time out in it at all. Yes, I had visited the city many times and already knew it well, but I also didn’t know when I would return, so I might as well venture forth and do something, for fuck’s sake.

About two hours and a handful of bars passed, and I was over it. There is a specific sort of vital energy that is wonderfully abundant throughout the Barcelona night-scene, and my own energies were running low. As I strode down las Ramblas trying to determine where I would venture next, I thought to myself how all I wanted to do was retire to my luxurious-ass hotel room, smoke some weed, and revel in its opulence.

It was at this precise moment that an enormous Nigerian fellow emerged from the crowd and spoke words that reached my ears like mana from heaven: “Hello sir. Do you want to go to a secret marijuana club?”

I reached endlessly upward and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You sir, have just literally read my mind. Lead the way.”

The towering Nigerian—whose name was Michael—led me north away from the tourist-infestation that is las Ramblas. We wound our way here and there, and soon I was fairly lost. I know that region of Barcelona well, but with a few drinks in your head, its narrow, twisting streets can all begin to look the same.

We took a turn into a very dark, very narrow alley—“It’s right down here”—and suddenly the realization washed over me that I was almost certainly being robbed. There could not be anything of interest down this grimy, dim passageway, and I had followed this random gigantic Nigerian into the maze with a pocketful of money and now the trap was about to spring.

I kept going. He pointed to a door that did not look like it was a door to anything.

“This is it.”

Suspicion percolated. He opened the door and I went in. Perhaps because I am stupid.

Inside was a completely featureless office-space in which there was not a single thing except for a man sitting at a desk. No windows, nothing on the walls, no chairs or waste-bin. Nothing. There was nothing on the desk, even. The man sitting at it did not look particularly friendly. He gestured to a second door that was to his left.

“It’s ten euros.” He assumed or could tell by looking at me that I spoke English. I could tell from his accent that he was French.

This is it, I thought. This is where I pull out my wallet and they see the way-too-much cash I am carrying for some reason and the whole night goes awry. Michael loomed behind me, between me and the door we’d come through…

Suspicious or not, I began to reach into my pocket, then stopped. “Can I look through the door first?”

The man at the desk gave me a puzzled look. Then his demeanor changed and he smiled.

“You think you’re being robbed!” He looked around. “I absolutely understand. Wow, we really need to get some plants in here or something. Sure, take a look.”

He opened the door and it revealed what was quite obviously a rather nice cannabis club. Perhaps two dozen people were sitting in various booths, a booze bar against one wall, a grass bar against the other, music playing softly, a haze of smoke everywhere.

We all erupted into laughter. I turned and Michael was doubled over.

“Oh man,” he said. “How is that the first time anyone has said anything? You’re right, this looks terrible!”

“Gotta get some plants…” The desk guy was wiping his eyes. “Go in. This one’s on us.”

He gave me a card that proclaimed I was a member of the “club” for 24 hours—part of the loophole that allows such clubs to exist.

I had known that weed was decriminalized in Spain, but I was unaware of the “private smoking club” allowance that gave rise to such establishments. Inside the atmosphere was mellow. It was lit with the multi-color illumination of a college dorm-room, which was nice, but it also had the soundtrack of a dorm-room, which was less nice. Lots of Sublime and Dave Matthews. People had drinks in front of them, but few seemed to be drinking them. This place was all about the pot.

Michael joined me at the bud bar where I bought ten euros worth of some sativa or another, along with a smattering of random pre-rolled joints. We went and sat in a booth and I asked Michael if he had to go find more customers on the street, or if he’d keep me company for a smoke, which he accepted. He may or may not have grabbed us a couple of beers—I can’t remember.

Over the next half hour or so Michael told me his story, and it was a doozy. Born in Nigeria, he had made his way largely on foot to Libya where he spent a long stint on the coast in a shambles of a refugee camp. From there he took one of those deathtrap boats you always hear about on the news across the Mediterranean to Italy, where he spent a year or so in another somewhat terrible camp. At some point he found himself in Paris where he worked a variety of street cons at Pigalle and la Chapelle. Then eventually he ended up in Barcelona, where he had a more or less stable job and life, and was saving up to bring over his wife and children who were still in Nigeria. He told it in a matter of fact, occasionally poetic way. It was the stuff of Homer—epic as anything I’d ever heard.

At some point Michael announced that it was time for him to return to the prowl. I decided to leave with him and take what I’d procured back to my gilded hotel. We passed through the inner door, then I paused at the outer portal and pointed back at the Frenchman at the desk – “Don’t forget to get some goddamn plants!”

I was very high in my hotel room—too high for the confines of the downstairs bar, and the open air of the rooftop bar was closed for the night—when I realized that I was extravagantly hungry. It was then that I remembered the existence of room service.

Putting through the order was something of a nightmare, for two reasons. First, because I was horrified to find that yet again some employee I had never met knew me by name—“Good evening, Mr. Hilden. What can I prepare for you?” Second, because I had not consulted the menu beforehand, which was a major tactical mistake.

I hemmed and hawed. I flipped through pages and turned the thing upside down and every which way. I ordered enough food for six people.

Some amount of time later, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find a kid who was perhaps sixteen with two carts of food, and waved him in.

“Wow,” he said once he’d gotten it all inside. “Is it all for you? You sure did order a lot for one person.”

There was a 16” pizza, a half rack of ribs, a big bresaola salad, an open-faced club sandwich topped with quail eggs, French fries with an assortment of dipping sauces, a six-pack of Heineken, and a double of bourbon.

“I’m bulking right now,” I told him. “And I need the calories. Do you smoke weed?”

He smiled. “I had a feeling you were going to ask that.”

Some amount of time later we were sitting at the open window gorging ourselves and looking out at Passeig de Gracia and the phantasmagoria that is the Gaudi down the road. The bourbon was long gone and we both had beer.

“What do you think of the whole secession thing?” I asked him.

“I’m Dutch,” he said. “I don’t give a damn.”

I looked into the room at the food. Much of it was gone, and a thought occurred to me. “Say—you’re not going to get in trouble for being up here so long, are you?”

He shook his head. “Nobody ever knows what’s going on.”

My flight out of the country was at 9am, and that not only meant getting to the airport at seven, but being in a taxi by six-thirty. And I had to have a few moments to gather myself, as my days of going straight from bed to a plane are increasingly behind me. Or at least I hope so.

I’m the sort of person for whom an early-morning anything is a terrible ordeal. Before the Dutch had left, he’d assured me that he would schedule coffee and breakfast to arrive at my door promptly at five-forty-five. I must admit that I doubted him, what with all the weed and beer, but the lad came through.

After dragging myself through breakfast and bitterly forcing myself into the 5-star shower, I threw everything into my bag and—out of habit—looked for something to steal.

No, I told myself. Deny this childish impulse. You’re not at the Palms Motel in Portland or the Kings Inn in Seattle anymore. The days of slumming it and laying ruin to dirtbag flophouses is over. You’re staying at the Majestic Hotel, in Barcelona. Behave like it.

So with much aplomb, I made my exit.

In the lobby a clerk I’d never seen before called out.

“Mr. Hilden! We already have a taxi waiting for you. If you’ll just sign for your charges, we’ll have you on your way…”

I approached the desk and looked at my tab, and for a moment I thought I was going to stop breathing.

Had I lost my goddamn mind? What madness had I been up to over the previous seventy-two hours? Had I consumed all of the food and all of the drink on the premises? Was it I who had marched through an army of Hendrick’s martinis? Had I really indulged in so many exotic (and expensive) aperitifs, digestifs, brandies, and cordials? And what about this room service bill—the pizza, the ribs, the big bresaola salad, the club sandwich with quail eggs, the French fries with assorted dipping sauces, the beer and the bourbon—who had ordered food in such monstrous quantities?

Externally I gave no sign, but inside were a million outs, an endless barrage of escapes and solutions—none of which involved paying. Cons and excuses and lies and perhaps faking a sudden illness? All of this occurred within the span of an instant.

But no. I was not twenty-three and shacking up at the Palms Motel. Nor was I twenty-five and touring with a rock band through the Kings Inn. I was now firmly in my thirties—a respectable writer and journalist, no less—and I was at the Majestic Hotel in Barcelona.

I signed the bill.

“Thank you, Mr. Hilden, and we hope that you’ll stay with us in the future.”

I nodded. And smiled.

A porter who called me Mr. Hilden in front of the desk clerk but called me Nick at the car took my bag and guitar and walked me out. He clapped me on the shoulder. “The next time you’re in town,” he said, “I will take you to that strip club I told you about with the woman and the snake…”

The sun was just beginning to touch the edges of the sky with its lavender fingers as the taxi drove me through the city’s quiet dawn streets. In most cities, the half-hour leading up to seven is a bustle, a time of people going to work and starting their day. In Spain, however, morning wakes late.

As we drove past young people who were just then walking home after a long night out, I was sad to be leaving. But I knew that I would be back.

And I knew that I would probably stay at the Majestic again. The cost be damned.

It’s difficult to attach a price to the extraordinary.