Barcelona, Spain - January 2009

After a brutal 7 ½ hour overnight bus ride, we arrived back in Barcelona. All we wanted to do was shower and sleep, but we knew we couldn’t check in until 2pm at our hostel, Solyk. We could drop our bags. . . .but first we had to find it.

Reminiscent of the great Venice map debacle of 2007, we were armed with less than stellar instructions. We wandered around the Barri Gotic streets for nearly an hour looking for our hostel. Nothing was open, and in Barcelona, when a business is closed it pulls a metal grate over the door. With nothing open, all the business covered with graffiti –splattered metal grates, and no one around but one mumbling old lady, the neighborhood looked pretty sketchy. I was ready to cry, give up, and head to the nearest internet café to start searching for a new hotel, but Dan persevered. He found a youth hostel nd asked them for directions. Our hostel was on the street we had walked down a million times, only it wasn’t marked with anything more than a tiny metal sign about 10 feet up on the door.

Looking down our street. The view at night.

We dropped our bags and headed out in the grey, slight rain to the Eixample neighborhood to see the Gaudi masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia. The line was insanely long so we opted to come back in a few days to go inside and instead walked by his other buildings, Casa Battlo and La Pedrera.

We stopped for a pizza and then browsed Altair, Europe’s largest travel bookstore, before heading back to the hostel.

We met Philippe, the owner, who gave us a map and some recommendations and then took a nap until nearly 6pm. For dinner, Dan lead the way to a place selected from our guide book, Taller de Tapas. It was a sit down tapas place; we opted for the bar and we served by a very nice girl who spoke great English. We shared a bottle of cava, some grilled octopus, sautéed spinach with garbanzo beans and pancetta (I am going to make this at home), some fried artichokes, and some amazing grilled chorizo served in a Basque cider sauce, all for under 40 euros.

We stopped at a local café, Schilling, for some people watching and a few cheap glasses of cava, and then headed off to bed.

Saturday we rose early for our cooking class at Cook and Taste. We met the instructor, Theresa, and the 7 other students (from France, Norway, Seattle and Chicago) and took a tour of the beautiful gourmet market – La Boqueria – where you can get anything from exotic fruits to amazing chocolates to live lobster and shrimps to a leg of jamón to a whole rabbit.

We bought some ingredients for the class, and then got to cooking.

We were to make 4 dishes, so we divided up into groups to make each course. There was a cold tomato soup topped with aioli, pesto and cheese (very tasty), a traditional grilled bread topped with roasted veggies (not for me), paella with monkfish, cuttlefish, langoustines and clams (amazing) and crema catalana, a dessert that is a cross between crème brulee and flan. Dan and I made it and, if I do say so myself, it was pretty tasty!

We all had a great time cooking, chatting, and drinking some wine, and then sat down to enjoy our delicious meal.

From there Dan and I headed the crowded champagne bar, Can Paixano, that I was determined to try.

We managed to squeeze in and ordered a 3 euro (yep, about $5!) bottle of cava and found out that you must order food in order to do so. So we sprang for two sandwiches; we picked at one and took the other home to eat as a pre-dinner snack.

Dan and I had read about a place called Tapioles 53 in a few guidebooks and in several magazines. All raved about the great homey cuisine so, though they had no online menu, we made reservations to go for dinner. We stopped for two beers on the way and then arrived at 9pm, at which point we found out it was a three course set menu (but they didn’t tell us the price). We shared cauliflower soup and a delicious pulled pork appetizer and then I had risotto (tasty but not amazing) and Dan had a pork belly dish that he loved.

We each had dessert and shared a 12 euro bottle of cava. We braced ourselves for the bill. But it was only 80 euro (about $120). Not what we had really wanted to spend, but it could have been worse. Had we known the place only offered the set menu, we probably wouldn’t have gone though. We stopped off at Tinto Roja, a very cool lounge, for one drink. On the way home I got us a bit lost so it took nearly an hour to get back to our hotel. We decided to just go to bed rather than head to another bar.

The next morning dawned sunny and warm so we headed to Guell Park which was more crowded that I had hoped, but still a very cool place, filled with Gaudi’s whimsical touches.

We took plenty of pictures, picnicked on some sandwiches, and then headed back to Sagrada Familia where we were pleased to discover there were no lines!

We paid 27 euro for entrance and the ticket up in the lift, and it was worth every penny. Words really can’t describethe magnitude, so here are some pictures.

We took the lift to the top of one of the spires, and I instantly got vertigo. Unlike an observation deck in the states, here there is no protective railing, no mesh screen keeping you from falling off the building, or dropping your $700 camera. I cursed the vanity that kept me from putting my camera on a shoulder strap around my neck, hung onto it for deal life, and attempted to get some pictures and keep my shaking under control.

Heading back down on the stairs was another adventure. These twisty turny stairs have no handrail and dropping my camera down the center hole was a real possibility.

There were plenty of spots to stop off and look at the great views, but once I tried to refocus my eyes on the stairs (which were not lit) I couldn’t adjust. I finally fumbled my way to the bottom, heart pounding, in complete awe.

We headed back to our room, napped and then set out for what we thought would be a quiet night. We stopped at another place Dan selected from our guidebook called Milk. They had happy hour cocktail prices so we enjoyed a few, then decided to splurge for a bottle of cava (11 euro).

From there we headed back to Taller de Tapas. We don’t normally eat at the same place twice when traveling, but there was so much more on the menu we wanted to try. Of course, then I had the spinach dish again and we couldn’t resist getting the delicious chorizo once more. We also opted for some foie gras and a dish of steamed mussels, before closing the place down at midnight with a pitcher of sangria.

We didn’t want the great night to end so we returned to Milk for another bottle of cava and chatted with the two bartenders (one from France, one from Ireland) who kept the bar open for us. It was after 2am when we finally passed out; we slept in until noon the next day.

We decided to take it easy on our last day. We had a few options for day trips lined up, but decided to stay in town and head to Montjuic park for the views instead.

We hiked up what seemed like a hundred stairs and then took the aerial gondola up the rest of the way.

I of course, was terrified.

We got falafel for lunch (yes I went all the way to Spain to try falafel for the first time, and now I’m hooked), took a long nap, packed up our stuff, and the went out for our final dinner – a slightly overpriced steak (but good), salad, soup, and pitcher of sangria – and then stopped at a crepe stand for a delicious dessert. We were back in bed by 11 and up at 6am the next day for our flight. It was smooth and mostly uneventful, though it was delayed by nearly an hour due to traffic and bad weather. We finally got home to our apartment around 6pm on January 6.