Hola, Barcelona!

November 19, 2017 -- We arrived in Barcelona as the sun was setting a Mediterranean orange blanket over the city. Our hotel, Citadines (https://www.citadines.com), was conveniently located on La Rambla (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Rambla,_Barcelona), in the heart of the city, close to Plaça Catalunya. I fell in love with this promenade at the first sight: only two lanes of traffic on the sides and in the middle, a wide, beautifully lit, tree lined promenade (rambla in Spanish), paved with kiosks where vendors sold flowers, gourmet treats, and of course the touristic knick-knacks, aka, souvenirs. People buzzed around everywhere - tourists and locals, rich and beggars, young and old.

Catalan flags everywhere

This evening, we headed to Barri Gotic (http://www.barcelonaturisme.com/wv3/en/page/376/barri-gotic.html) and El Born (http://www.barcelona-life.com/barcelona/born) - the two quarters close to La Rambla. It's always a plus having a local show you places, but in my case, having a local and a friend, Carmen, take us around, was downright perfect! She “sweetly” educated us about "merenda," the snack of churros and hot chocolate (churros amb xocolata) that is enjoyed pre-dinner around 6:30 in the evening. Yes, that's almost past Americans' bedtime, but here it prepares Catalans for the 8:30PM dinner... That’s life! We stopped at La Granja 1872 (https://www.facebook.com/Lagranja1872) in Barri Gotic for the merenda and I indulged in a hot, dark and dense chocolate with whipped cream and churros, as well as an ensaïmada - a delicious pastry from Mallorca, light and airy. Divine! Oh, everything was fresh and scrumptious, not overwhelmingly sweet! That’s life!

Barri Gotic

Tapas and friends

To deplete some of the many calories and admire the Gothic architecture, we walked around the narrow, mysterious alleys of El Born. Old, dark buildings made of heavy stone with tall windows waiting to hide behind wooden shutters created a Middle Age atmosphere. Light let us glimpse into the apartments and admire the antique scalloped ceilings and exposed wooden beams, ornate with color and gold. Narrow balconies lay under most windows, often draped in Catalan flags. Signs of the recent referendum were still in place – some people hung flags with “Si!” next to the Catalan flag. I got very excited and I could not stop trying to understand Catalan, which is a language quite similar to Romanian. The word for "head" is the same ("cap"), but many others are almost identical, too (street is "carrer" in Catalá and path is "carare" in Romanian). And I figured these things on the first night. Can you imagine how fast I'd learn Catalá if I stayed here for a while? Just one more comment - in Romanian, we have very few words that use the letter "x," but I loved the fact that Catalans softened the hard-angled letter into the sound "sh." They have a TON of words with “x.” We visited the beautiful Basilica Santa Maria del Mar, browsed through the jams, chocolates, and torrons in the night market at Santa Maria del Pi, and finally sat down for Spanish tapas.

Jam jars in the night market at Plaça del Pi

Santa Maria del Mar

Carmen and I said a chin-chin with a glass of beer halved with lemonade, celebrating our reunion after three years. Diluting the beer is supposed to enable one to move from restaurant to restaurant without getting drunk too fast, sampling tapas at as many places as possible. Also, each restaurant is supposed to prepare their signature tapas, most likely from a specific region of Spain. In this particular restaurant where we sat down, the bar had a line-up of plates with different tapas, and we picked the ones that appealed to us and put them on our plates. They were easy to harvest because a toothpick held them in place – and that is how one pays, too: 2 euros per toothpick! I loved the fried potatoes with eggs and small pork sausage, steamed mussels, and jámon or pernil, as well as anchovies wrapped around pickled peppers and olives. The Catalan word of the day: deliciós! (no need to translate!)