Barcelona! (3/2: Barcelona, Spain)

Woke up late morning, packed all my stuff up, and Christie and I head off to Heathrow to catch our flight to Barcelona! I won’t be coming back to London until the end of my trip, so this time I have to take all my stuff with me.

Get into Barcelona late evening, and head to the hotel. Christie had some work stuff she needed to finish up, so I read a little (“Moneyball” by Michael Lewis… can’t believe I haven’t read this yet) and then fell asleep. Around 9ish, we head out the door for our first night out in one of the biggest party cities in the world. Think I’m excited?

First we head over to a tapas place called Taktika Berri about 5 blocks from our hotel in the Eixample. Tapas here is different than from in the US. In the US, you order a “tapas dish” off the menu, and they bring you a small plate of stuff. Here, they put plates of the different tapas on the bar, each in an individual serving (usually on a slice of baguette), with a toothpick through it. So, you get a plate, a cup of red wine, and just pick what you want from the bar. At then end, they just charge you based on the number of toothpicks (one or two euros per) you have accumulated. This would probably never work in the US… you would just find a small mountain’s worth of toothpicks outside the restaurant. Anyway, the result is chaos. You have people seated at the bar, drinking, eating, having conversations, etc. You have people behind the people at the bar, drinking, eating, having conversations, and reaching over/around/through the people actually at the bar to get to the tapas. Behind the bar, not only do you have the bar tenders serving up drinks, but there are also waiters cycling in and out the tapas. It’s loud, it’s full contact, but it’s all pretty friendly. So, I head over to the bar to get plates and wine, and, of course, the bar tender speaks only Spanish and Catalan. I speak neither. Christy speaks neither. Luckily, the owner’s son is there because he is possibly the only other person in the bar who speaks English. So, he relays my order to the bar tender, explains to me how the whole things works, and sends us on our way. Christie and I probably have 4 or 5 each (a big appetizer, basically). Oh, and it was *excellent*.

After, we head down to La Rambla (the uber touristy area), and walk around for a bit, before getting sick of it. So, we duck into a little bar for a drink while going through the trusty Lonely Planet book looking for a decent restaurant nearby. We find a Mediterranean place called “Es” that’s just 5 blocks away, and head over there. When we get there the place looks a little dead, and has that look of “look how trendy we are! Red lighting!”, so we were both a little concerned how good the food was really going to be. Turned out there was no reason to be concerned. Prices were reasonable, food was really good, and the wine was pretty cheap too.

From there, back over to La Rambla, and basically walk it all the way down to the water. At this point, I’m ready to find another drink, but Christie is convinced we are near the beach, and insists we find it. We walk on and on and on, and we’re on the water, but it’s all marinas and piers with hotels, etc, but no beach. Finally we stop and look at our guide book to discover that we really are close to the beach, we just have to walk a little farther. So, to the beach. We hang out there for a while, Christie soaking it all in – I’m just waiting for her to finish so we can leave.

One of the funny things about being brown, is I have a very utilitarian view of the beach. There’s no magic to it. There’s sand, there’s water, and that’s it. I have no desire, and even less need, to go and sit on it for hours to get a tan. If we’re going for a bbq, play in the water, kick a soccer ball around, or something like that, I’m all for it. At night, if we’re going for a bonfire, to watch the waves, or something, then I’m all for it. But the bottom line is, I need a reason to be there.

Anyway, Christie wants to just sit there and be reminded of being at the beach back in Orange County, or to be reminded of previous trips to Barcelona. For the first ten or fifteen minutes, that’s fine – I’m enjoying the waves – but, then I’m just standing around getting bored. Once she’s done with that, I find myself stone cold sober, tiredness is starting to catch up with me, and my “window of opportunity” to keep drinking and keep the night going has closed. So, back to the hotel and crash for the night.