Barcelona Redux

I returned to Barcelona for Halloween weekend from Friday, October 31 to Monday, November 3. I stayed with Jennis at the flat her father owns there. It was really relaxing to stay in a home and know that we can come back and see everything we didn´t see this time. And it was great to go with a someone who has been to Barcelona before (Jennis lived there for 9 months in college and has been coming to Spain every summer since she was 11).

We bought our train tickets a month before because they were on sale. Our first train left Logrono at 4:04 am and arrived in Zaragosa at 5:55 am, and then we took the high speed AVE from Zaragosa at 6:57 and arrived in Barcelona around 9:00 am. It was a ridiculous itinerary, mostly because we decided not to stay up all night on Thursday night before leaving Friday morning. So we went to sleep at about 12:30 am on Thursday night/Friday morning and woke up at 3:00 am. Fortunately, Jennis lives across the street from the train station and she has a trundle bed so I stayed with her. We arrived at the train station over 20 minutes early. I´ve decided that train stations at night are creepy. When we boarded the train, there was a guy asleep in our car and he was blocking the door so that was a bit awkward, but other than that the train ride to Zaragosa was uneventful save for our paranoia that we would fall asleep and miss our stop. The AVE ride from Zaragosa to Barcelona was lovely; I listened to Vince Guaraldi and watched the sunrise between falling asleep.

When we arrived in Barcelona, we immediately went to sleep. I slept until about 2 pm and then we ate lunch at a place below us and wandered around Born, where Jennis´ dad´s place is. The restaurant where we ate lunch is called Il Pasatore and it has a menu del dia (starter, main course, dessert, and water or wine) for €6.90! Incredible, I know. And it´s actually good food.

It rained on Friday and we went on a rather jarring shopping adventure. We were looking for a slip for me and these Geox boots for Jennis, but along the way I had a woman tell me that I wear a size XXL American, and Jennis got kicked by an Italian man because she wouldn´t give him 50 cents. That was actually depressing and awful. The stores are full from about 6 to 9 pm here, so we were leaving an overwhelming department store and there were a lot of people around and we were on La Rambla, the huge touristy street in Barcelona. And this guy we passed asked Jennis for money and she just said no and turned away and then he kicked her shin really hard and called her a bitch and a whore in Italian. We turned around and just stood there, completely shocked. No one around us said or did anything and neither did we.

We went back to the apartment empty handed and got ready to eat dinner and go out. Fortunately, our evening got better. We ate at a crepes place where we met a group of Argentinians, one of whom was a graphic designer in Buenos Aires, I believe. We then walked to Barceloneta (the area near the ocean) and ended up spending the rest of the night at a place called Diobar. It was incredibly fun; we danced to Michael Jackson-y music and met a group of people from Milan who were living in Barcelona.

On Saturday, we woke up late and wondered around Born and tried to eat lunch at La Boqueria, a huge market, but it was closed because it was All Saint's Day or something? So we got french fries at McDonald's instead and had our first Top Shop experience.

first: Caracoles, a famous restaurant (we didn't eat there this time)
second: the upper (less touristy) portion of La Rambla

We continued walking up La Rambla passing several Gaudi buildings and then we ended up in Gracia, an area in Barcelona that is very neighborhoody and lovely. We wondered around until about 6:30 when we got coffee and a call from one of the Italians from the night before inviting us to a dinner and post-Halloween party. On our way back to Born from Gracia we encountered a small outdoor concert and several older Catalan people dancing La Sardana, a Catalan folk dance that I believe was outlawed during Franco's reign. It was really cool and the Sardana band was great. I managed to get a little video of it.

first: Gaudi's Casa Batllo
second: a view of the ceiling of Gaudi's La Pedrera
third: a plaza in Gracia
fourth: dancing La Sardana

We met the Milanese group in front of Jennis' apartment and walked a short ways to the dinner party behind the Arc de Triumph. The party was really fun and everyone there was super nice and cute and welcoming. If I lived in Barcelona, I would want to be real friends with these people. Most were dressed up. No one in Spain really celebrates Halloween and when they do, they dress up as zombies or witches or just the typical scary/spooky stuff. So there was some zombie makeup available to everyone. A few of the girls were dressed as the twins from The Shining. Almost everyone there was Italian and most were from Milan. And most didn't speak Spanish, only English. Someone's friend had rented a bar in northern Barcelona, so after a dinner of a few shared frozen pizzas, we relocated to the bar which was also really fun. Jennis and I were without a doubt the only Americans there, and on a projector screen, the bar played a bunch of clearly google-image-searched photos from American horror films.

On Sunday, Jennis and I ate kebabs at a place near her house and then we parted ways for a few hours. She went to meet up with a woman who might be able to get her a job in Barcelona next year, and I went to a cafe I had been to my first time in Barcelona to use their wireless and have a coffee. We met up again at 5:00 pm and took a long walk around Barceloneta to the beach before heading home and getting ready for dinner. We ate at a chic but mediocre fast noodle place before we drank mojitos at a bar that has the best mojitos in Barcelona.

The Mediterranean from Barceloneta

We spent Monday morning cleaning the apartment and walking around Born some more. Of course the weather was perfect for the first time all weekend, but we had to leave for the train station at about 3:00 pm. We visited a really great design bookstore before lunch and I found a few books that I might need.

first: Born and I believe the Church of Santa Maria del Mar
second: the view from the back of Jennis' apartment
third: a cute chocolate shop we walked into
fourth: a green shadow made by the pharmacy cross (how artsy)