Notes from Abroad

[Filed 09:01AM, while waiting for my plane in the airport in Barcelona, Spain.]

Trip Stats:
Cities visited: 2
Broken Sunglasses: 1
Major bruises received: 1
Lost clothing: 1 pair of underwear that I think fell out of my locker in Barcelona (TMI?)
Blisters: still ow.

Only 4 days into my trip but it feels like it’s been forever. That’s probably mostly because I had less than 4 hours of sleep last night (yay for early flights…:\). I was in a panic that I wouldn’t wake up in time and so all of that wonderful sleep I’d gotten the night before was put to waste.

Rewinding:

I finished my last post while on the train to Barcelona. It wasn’t all that eventful. We ended up being able to fully recline our seats which was great (though still not all that comfortable.) Another reason it’s good to be vertically challenged – 1: beds are short 2: beds on trains are even shorter. I never have a problem with my feet dangling off of the end.

It was a pretty long 8 hours, mostly because, again, we were worried about sleeping through our stop. We got to Barcelona at a bright and cheery 7:30AM. Lucky for us the hostel was open and we could drop off our stuff until the 1PM check-in time. Unlucky for us, the fact that it was only 7:30AM meant that most of Barcelona was still asleep and finding breakfast wouldn’t be easy.

Our hostel was located pretty close to Las Ramblas which was nice. While sleepwalking our way there and through a light breakfast we flipped through guidebooks to see what to do for the day.

Before going to Barcelona I had 3 things I wanted to see:
1) The candy stand at La Boqueria. Random, I know, but back back wayyyy back in the day when I first joined Flickr, I came across this photo. I thought it was the best thing ever and it became one of the first photos I ever favorited. If you read down in the comments I vowed to see it for myself some day. That was my main reason for going to Barcelona. I’m easily pleased.
2) La Sagrada Familia – obviously?
3) Las Ramblas – seemed cool.

So we’re sitting at breakfast and I see in the guidebook that La Bouqueria is actually located at La Rambla 89 – that’s only a block or two away from where we were sitting! We’d passed it and I didn’t even realize! It had just opened for the day, so obviously that was our first stop.

The place itself is really cool. It’s absolutely packed with vendors and shoppers and everything from dangling carcasses of god know what animals to fresh fruits and everything in between. Toward the front is all of the fruit stands which is probably a good idea since I don’t think watching butchers chop off the heads of chickens is the best way to draw in a crowd (and yes…I did see that). Each fruit stand had an array of fresh squeezed fruit juices and SO. MUCH. FRUIT. I’m talking a quartered pineapple, pre-sliced, with a fork included for your convenience. Or a macedonia (fruit salad) with a bunch of different fruits large enough to count as one meal for a single Euro. It definitely puts the Ithaca farmers market (and any other farmer’s market that I’ve been to) to shame.

A bit further back you work your way into the vegetables, then to the meats (every single part of probably every single mammal out there), then to the fish. Oh the fish… how lovely they smell. Ugh. I actually saw a man rip apart a carcass of some red meat animal with his bare hands. I managed to hold back the vomit, but just barely. Needless to say, I tried to stick around the fruit as much as possible.

We went up and down each aisle of the place just to see what was there (and to find my candy stand) and after a few circuits, we finally found it. Heaven.

Despite the crazy prices (26.30/kilo…wth!?!) I obviously bought some candy. It’s my Spain souvenier, even though I’ll probably eat it all before I get home ;)

Having only slept for a few restless hours, we decided to go back to the hostel before check-in time in hopes of just being able to hang around the lounge and maybe get on the wi-fi. I practically fell asleep on my keyboard while waiting.

Into our room, a quick nap later, and a lot of lounging around, we were off again – back to Las Ramblas for dinner. We’d decided that the best thing to do would be to go to the market and get fresh fruit and whatever else for dinner. I was craving something fresh and cool. La Boqueria closes at 8PM. We decided to go around 7:15 just to make sure we had some time to browse around. It’s a good thing we didn’t go any later! It turns out that an 8PM closing means that everything is shut down and locked up by 8PM, instead of just starting to close up shop at 8PM. The BEST part was, though, that since it was the end of the day and the market was closed on Sunday (and it was Saturday), the vendors were trying to offload as much as they possibly could. The fruit salads and juices that we’d seen earlier were now TWO for 1 Euro! I think I had 4 of those juices over the course of the day. Those things are GOOOOOOOD. I ended up getting myself a quarter of a pineapple, a giant thing of strawberries, two juices, and a small loaf of soft, sweet bread (I could not remember the word for “soft” for the life of me! I didn’t want a hard roll, but luckily I managed to say “is that not hard?”) for less than 4 Euro. You have no idea how much of a bargain that is. Amazing.

So post-dinner I spent some time uploading photos (all of the Madrid photos are on Flickr now. You can also see them in slideshow form on my Madrid post) and then decided to call it an early night. I was in bed by 12:30AM and decided to go all out and use ear plugs and an eye mask for the evening. BEST IDEA EVER. I don’t think I heard a single thing all night. The only time I woke up was when the guy in the bunk below me got home and the bed shook. Nearly 11 solid hours of sleep later I was up and ready to go. I probably could have slept some more, but the good news is I think I’m almost over my jet lag.

Sunday was a pretty standard tourist day – La Sagrada Familia, generally walking around, etc., but we also decided to make a pit stop at the beach. I’m not a huge fan of the beach, but I had to at least see it. It was so incredibly crowded. I’m talking Jersey Shore on Labor Day crowded. We found a spot by the water, took off our shoes, and just hung out for a while. The sun peeked in and out, but it was nice to just sit down and stare at the water for a while. And yes, I did put my feet in.

Back to the hostel to recharge and then there was one thing left on our itinerary. Well, actually Marquise’s itinerary: Paella (because we all know I’m not a fan of seafood). Some quick research told us to head to Barceloneta (near the beach we’d just return from) and that strip would have the best deals on paella. Let me just say that it was certainly an experience.

Picture this: a pretty long street – probably about 6 blocks long, with really wide sidewalks and restaurants with outdoor seating the entire way up and down. Now, in front of each restaurant, place menus in 6 different languages, photos of what’s described on the menus, and, here’s the kicker, 1-4 men standing out front with business cards in hand ready to pounce if they even see you glance at the menu. “We have the best paella in all of Barcelona”, “Everyone here, they have good paella. Our paella isn’t good. It’s great”, “You come try my paella, you come inside and see it’s fresh. We make it when you order. You see my restaurant is family restaurant. We make paella here for more than 100 years. You take my card. You go check the others, you come back and you ask for me and I give you free sangria.”… You get the idea.

We walked from one end of the street to the other looking for the best deal. We ended up going for one that looked decent, was moderately priced, and was close to where we were because we were getting too hungry to walk all the way to the beginning of the block again. It ended up being decent (I got paella de verduras…or vegetable paella) and the bill wasn’t all that bad. I promise I considered getting actual seafood paella, but then the guy said something about squid and then I saw the prawns with their heads still on and decided to go for something I would actually eat.

Back to the hostel we went. I had to leave early today to catch my plane to Copenhagen. Savoring my last moments of being able to understand the people and signs around me, I hopped on the metro and to the airport. Adios Barcelona y adios Espana!

Tags: Adventures, Barcelona, City, Journal, Spain