Chris suggested a few restaurants within walking distance.
One of them was a tapas bar and I asked for directions.
“I can take you there!” Chris said. “Does anyone else want
to come?”
Everyone did except Mike and Kaitlin. Mike went to go meet
up with his buddy (Sean) and Kaitlin went to hit the beach.
The route to the bar was again through twisted narrow
streets. When we got there, Chris explained that we each grabbed a plate and
then took which ever tapas we wanted to try. They were all held together by
toothpicks and we just kept our toothpicks on our plate. At the end, we paid 2
euros per tapa. We said we understood and he said he was going to go back to the square, but that he’d meet us there at 3:30.
I took four different types of tapas initially. The first
was like a little pastry cup with a meat flavored jelly and whipped cream on
it. The second was a cube of hard, white fish that had some sort of garlic and
onion paste on top. The third was a similar pastry cup to the first, but this
one was filled with diced mushrooms and truffles. These are two foods I usually
can’t stand the taste of, but I actually found that they tasted pretty good.
The fourth one was a popular one. Mary got it as well and
said it was like crab. I love crab, but of all the shellfish, I have the worst
reaction to it. Since my meds were back in Prague, I decided not to eat it.
Mary finished it instead.
In addition to the trays of tapas that were lining the bars,
servers walked around with additional options. I took two more from two of
their trays. One was a little sausage on a piece of bread that was covered in
ground tomato seeds. The next was a little chunk of melted cheese and bread
crumbs.
All of it was very good and very rich. Had I not been with
the group, I probably would have tried a few more. They were all amazing and
smelled incredible. In reality, five was probably a filling amount, and being
with the group helped me from spending all my money on food.
We all navigated back to the Royal Square to meet Chris. On
our way, we saw a man performing a marionette show with a wooden dog puppet.
The body language of the puppet, down to the last muscle movement and twitch
was unbelievable. Little kids passing by were enamored with it, and the man
would sometimes let them pet the puppet while other times he made it bark at
them erratically.
Naomi and Austin stopped off in a Starbucks and we waited by
the fountain for them to rejoin us. We found Chris in the center and sat around
sharing travel “horror stories.” Most of theirs dealt with some air travel
frustration. I shared about my stalker at Terezin, and I think I won.
Chris entered one of his worst tours into the discussion.
Apparently, a pigeon landed on his head one time. “I swatted it off and didn’t
think anything of it,” he said. “Luckily everyone was shorter than I am,
because when I got home and wiped my head, I realized it had pooed in my hair.”
We all laughed.
“Well the plan for this afternoon is to go bike along the
beach,” Chris said. “What’d you say we go grab some bikes and head down there?”
We all agreed, that sounded like fun. Just outside the
square was a little bike rental place. Chris showed them our voucher, and we
each took one. They were the oddest looking bikes I’d ever seen. It almost looked
like a cross between a classic, upright bike with a BMX bike. The gears were
all small and condensed, with the handles and seat raised very high off of
them. It was a single speed, but it didn’t require much pedaling to go a pretty
good distance.
Biking through Barcelona was an experience. Chris led the
way and most of our adventure was downhill. The natural assumption would be
that this would be easier. It would be, except there really wasn’t much of a
break mechanism on the bikes. It did have a hand break on the right side that
slowed it, but not significantly. On more than one occasion, we were dragging
our feet to reduce our speed. Helmets apparently were not included with our
vouchers, but then again, I hadn’t seen any cyclists in Europe wear them yet.
The more exciting portion was following Chris. While he was
very good about looking back to make sure we were close behind, he frequently
bobbed in and out of traffic and through large crowds of people. While I felt
very comfortable on the bike, it was clear that not everyone did, I decided I’d
rather have nervous bikes that don’t break in front of me, rather than behind
me.
We first went to the port where Chris pointed out the
Christopher Columbus statute. “It’s supposed to point towards the new world,”
he said, “but they f-ed up and it points towards Libya.” As we rode through the
port, we saw all kinds of things being loaded and unloaded from boats. We also
saw a little carnival set up on a dock. It had to have the smallest Ferris Wheel
I’ve ever seen, but the main attraction seemed to be the fun house.
I attempted to take pictures while riding one handed, but
when we bobbed through crowds of people this became hazardous. Restoring my
camera in the case around my neck, I focused on just taking in the view.
When we reached the beach, Chris told us about the summer
fire festival in Spain. Like other Spanish traditions (bull fighting, human
castle building, running of the bulls) this too was dangerous. It was basically
a party—which lasted several nights—that involved fireworks, fire shows, fire walking,
and a whole lot of alcohol.
We biked to one end of the beach and rode up to the lookout
balcony of a really ritzy hotel. We then coasted to the other end and took a
group photo on the wharf. The views were beautiful. The water of the Mediterranean
Sea glistened in the sun while a gentle breeze rattled the palm trees overhead.
Everything smelled tropical and the sparkle of the endless white sand seemed to
go on forever.
After taking the photo on the wharf, we got back on the
bikes and continued a few blocks down to the Brazilian beach where locals
played beach volleyball. We hung out there for a few minutes, and then Chris
suggested we go to a park and hang out for a bit.
We hopped back on the bikes and pedaled through town.
Getting to the park was a bit more action packed than I expected. Now we really
were riding in traffic, making hairpin turns along with cars, and dodging
pedestrians. We stopped briefly in one plaza for Chris to show us an arch that
had been designed as the “Gateway to Barcelona” and then pedaled up the plaza
and into the park.
Called Cuitadella Park, the views here were well worth the
wait. We parked our bikes for by a bench and just roamed around to take it all
in. There were endless palm trees and beautiful flowers. A jade green stream
ran through the park and families paddled down it in row boats. Statues of
animals dotted the landscape and the smell of oranges growing overhead flooded
the air.
The real gem of this little Eden was the massive fountain.
It was several stories high, with stairs to walk through the billowing water.
Its ornate statues, gilded gold, and seemingly natural waterfalls were unlike
anything I’ve ever seen. I could have stayed here for days.
After spending about an hour exploring the park (which flew
by) we met back up with Chris and headed into town to return the bikes. Doing
so was another rat race, and we briefly lost Amy. Chris retraced our route to
find her, but she found us, just pedaling in from a different angle.
“Alright everybody,” Chris said after the bikes were checked
back in. “You’ve got free time now. I’ll be by the hostel at 8:30 tonight so we
can leave for the cooking class. Anyone need a metro card until then?”
I took one, not sure what I was going to do, but figuring it
would save me money if I did go exploring. After all, it had been included in
my fee. I might as well use it.
Naomi and Austin took off together and Amy went to tour a
museum. I followed the four girls back to the hostel. Bridget was great at
navigating the map and got us back to the National Cathedral. Outside in the
courtyard, a group of dancers were setting up for a show. We decided to stay
and watch, blending into the crowd that watched them prep and stretch.
When they started, they each introduced themselves and then
preformed a few breakdancing moves for the crowd. “Everybody put your hands up
and clap!” one of the dancers announced. That felt like a pickpocket scam if I
ever saw one. My hands were firmly holding my camera case around my neck. I had
no intention of moving them from that position.
They only danced for about 4 minutes and then started
passing a hat for donations. We bolted out and continued walking back.
Eventually, we found ourselves back at the Gateway Arch we’d just seen. We cut
through a different little park, by another cool (although much smaller)
fountain, and up Diagnol—the street our hostel was on.
Back in the dorm, I journalled like crazy. It felt like we’d
seen a million and a half things and I tried to jot it all down so I could
remember every detail. Amy came back and I talked with her briefly, before
continuing to make notes like a madman.
When I finished, I let out a loud yawn. As I did, I realized
Bridget was in the room. “Oh!” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.”
“That’s okay,” she said.
“I’m thinking about taking another nap,” I said.
“Chris is going to be here in like 30 minutes,” she said. I
looked at my watch. She was right. I guess the walk back had been longer than I’d
realized and the sunshine outside was throwing off my sense of time. I got up,
stored my journal, grabbed my camera, and went out to meet up with the rest of
the group.
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