I just got here to Barcelona last night. With the exception of losing our luggage and my friend forgetting to bring his credit card, everything else seems to be okay. Hopefully, the airline will find our stuff and delivery our luggage as promised. The connection at Copenhagen was ridiculously tight, we had to go through customs and run through two terminals in a 10 minute mad dash. Our luggage must have missed the flight. The baby sitting in front of me on the Copenhagen->Barcelona flight was quite friendly, he kept on smiling and waving at me. His parents were quite pleased that some stranger decide to amuse their kid a little. Scandinavian babies must be the cutest of them all, fair skin with light blonde hair.
La Rambla – La Rambla view by nightLast night after settling down at the Hostel, we head out for a stroll on La Rambla in Old Town. From what I saw so far, I am pretty impressed with the city. The subways are on-par with most major metropolitans around the world. Barcelona is the capital of the region called Catalonia. Catalonian have their own language and culture that is different from the rest of Spain. From my non-existing linguistic skills, I gathered the language is like a blend of French and Spanish that’s closer to Latin than either two?
Anyhow, back to our stroll, the retail scene seems extremely thriving here. An abundance of street flower vendors were present even at 10pm. It’d be really easy to sweep a girl off her feet in this town. Too bad I was with a guy friend. In addition, I noticed that Barcelona girls seem to be a lot more trendy and skinnier than their American counterparts. Something I definitely don’t mind as I walk down the streets. For dinner, I had an Argentine bovine bone-in steak weighing 950 grams (That’s almost 1kg!) at a restaurant on Port Vell. It was served on top a a big sizzling ceramic block. It was quite tasteful as far as the meat is concerned. It’s weird, it reminded me of this steak I had in Mexico years ago, must be something to do with Spanish method of cooking it? Afterwards, we went to this dance club/bar place. It’s really like nothing I have seen before. I saw what appears to be bunch of local high schoolers (about 16?) dancing and drinking like nobody cares.
I guess Europeans really are a lot more open about alcohol and sex as they say. I thought I’d never say this, but I felt like an aging dinosaur in there. My friend and I bought two shots of Tequila and had our first drinks in Barcelona, we left shortly afterwards since we felt kinda out of place. We had a nice stroll back up La Rambla, and did a little bit more of sight seeing, then head back to the hostel around midnight (I know, pretty early for Catalonian standards.) We decide to hang out a little in the common room in hostel. Met some American girls, and just chatted away about our findings and stories. We called it a night around 2:30.
This morning I got woken up by the heater in our room around 6:00, I was literally getting fried by the radiator next to me. Getting back to sleep was hardly an option since I was completely awake by then due to the time difference. I guess I will have to go find myself a good coffee somewhere around town today. Shouldn’t be too hard to find here in Europe. Speaking of which, I am a big fan of sparkling water and espresso, which are both popular over here. In fact, when you refer to drinking “water”, by default it’s sparkling. You have to say “still water” to refer to the normal kind. I am now sitting in the hostel common room looking down at the city streets. I really like the feel of it all, pigeons playing around the cobblestone sidewalks and the super narrow alleys just forms a picture perfect Barcelona moment. You can see early morning pedestrians going about their own business. That’s it for now, I am going to start my day now. How about that coffee?
Be the first to comment