¡Hola Barcelona!

This morning we arrived in Barcelona after a relatively short (only 7 hours!) flight from Toronto. We had uneventful flights, other than our Air Canada flight from Hartford to Toronto being in a plane roughly the size of my college dorm room: one row of seats on each side and no overhead bins. The co-pilot was our "flight attendant" and said if we need anything, just come up to the cockpit and ask... ("Excuse me, could you get me some water?" "Sure, of course, ma'am. Not like I'm busy flying the plane or anything...") I don't mind the size so much as the fact that a slightly above average size sparrow could sneeze on the plane and cause turbulence... I get a little freaked out with turbulence now, and I wonder what happened to the younger me who LOVED turbulence and found it fun and thrilling like a roller coaster ride in the sky... The worst was our landing in Toronto where we landed sideways balanced on one wheel and the pilot fought to bring the other one down. When we finally were fully on the ground Gavin quipped, "Any landing you can walk away from..." ("is a good landing," for those of you unfamiliar with that quote. :) )

 

We arrived before 7am in Barcelona, and we couldn't get into our apartment until 10am to drop off our luggage. We had some coffee at the airport, the took the cheap and handy Aerobus into Barcelona, where it let us off at Plaça Catalunya, the very center of the city. Our apartment was about a half mile walk, so we headed down the still-half-asleep streets. It was around 8am by this time on a weekday, but not a single store was open. Even restaurants advertising breakfast were still closed! I guess Gavin and I don't have to feel bad about sleeping in - the whole city must be on a late-start schedule!

Me in front of the Església Santa Maria del Mar

At 10 we met Jordi, our contact for our apartment and he let us in. We are staying in a lovely, cozy but high-ceilinged studio apartment in the El Born district in La Ribera. We are right in the heart of the main shopping district of Barcelona, and within a mile of most of the major things to see and do. After dropping off our luggage, we left for another couple hours while the apartment was being cleaned. We wandered sleepily around, checking out bits of the shopping, then we went to a supermarket to buy our breakfast food for the week; one of the main advantages of renting an apartment instead of a hotel is that at least we can have a healthy breakfast... After our semi-aimless wandering, we headed back to the apartment to catch up on a bit of sleep, since neither of us had slept a wink on the flight.

Feeling refreshed after our nap, we did a little shopping in our Born district, and quickly discovered it was "too rich for our blood." Gavin went in to a little boutique and was about to try on a really nice looking coat... until he saw the price tag was 1,400 Euros... So instead of doing more shopping we headed over into Barri Gotic to check out La Rambla, the main pedestrian
drag in Barcelona. La Rambla is a pedestrian-only street about the size of a 6 lane

 

highway, lined with cafes and restaurants, all with brightly lit outdoor seating. Both our travel books recommended NOT eating at any of these touristy and expensive places, so we set out to look for a Rick Steves recommended restaurant El Pintor. After trying to find it for about a half hour (Rick Steves hand-drawn maps leave something to be desired...), we gave up and stopped at a little tapas place called El Paraigua in Plaça de Sant Real to have "dinner" of many little plates, my favorite of which was marinated red bell peppers and eggplant. I also tried Cava, Catalunya's variety of sparkling white wine, a lot like champagne, but light and fruity and not dry. Still, I prefer the sweetness of moscato.

 

Cheers! Cava and rioja and frizzy hair... :)

Rioja and Cava and frizzy hair... :)

Gavin and our tapas - his favorite was the spicy sausage.

 

After round one of tapas, we tried to look for an interesting looking bar/restaurant we had passed while looking for El Pintor, but Gavin insisted that we not pass a nice looking gelato place... I had some good dulce de leche gelato, but still Argentina has it beat... :) Then we found the bar we had seen before, called Salterio, and went inside. Salterio was tiny little place no bigger than our studio apartment with stone walls, exposed beam ceilings, and it ended up being more "my" scene than Gavin's; it was mostly a tea bar, though they did have wine and beer. (Gavin ordered a glass of "Tinto" which was a really bitter tasting red wine - Gavin said "Tinto must be Spanish for nasty." :) ) I ordered Te Rojo, which I thought would be rooibos and non-caffeinated, but I was wrong, it was a red colored variation of black tea. (it was 11pm, so I didn't want to drink caffeine and keep myself awake while still trying to adjust to Spain time...) We also ordered a stuffed pizza-ish thing with delicious mushrooms and spinach to share. (side note, we discovered the next day that both El Paraigua and Salterio were recommended in our Lonely Planet Barcelona book, but we had picked them both on our own! I guess we have good taste! :) )

By the time we left, it was almost midnight, yet the streets were still fully lit and tons of people were still out walking, drinking and eating tapas - on a Tuesday night. That is the thing that I remember the most from our last trip to Spain - everybody is out and about until the wee hours EVERY night, whether it is a weekend or not! But since we are still not fully adjusted to the Spanish schedule, we headed right back to the apartment to sleep. :)

Place de Sant Miquel at night.

La Rambla at night.

 

Beautiful tea bar in Barri Gotic.

 

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