The Weekend

A pic leftover...forgot that Susanne had a shot of the French family.

Las Ramblas is the go-to place not only for tourists but also Barcelonians; crowded, jumping.  On May 1 the holiday, the cops were everywhere including a copcopter.

There's a large median running down the center with a narrow one-way roadway on either side.  The median walkway is paved with curved-shaped tiles that give the illusion that it gently rises & falls.  It doesn't, but a newby always checks.  It comes thru in the foreground of this photo.

Some creative graffiti:

Destructive graffiti:

 

Our favorite desserts, creme brulee for Susanne, chocolate brownie for me.

By the way, I keep forgetting to mention that every so often I get a whiff of pot smoke as we walk the streets.  There's lots of regular smoking here, but thankfully outlawed in the restaurants & bars.  So in the evening lots of revelers are taking a cig break just outside the bar or resto.

Tonight called for a light meal, a few tapas at the neighborhood TJ (tapas joint) is perfect.  Good food, nice people, nothing fancy, a homey place.  We sat in the back.  A very nice British couple came in & we chatted a bit.  Compared notes on visits to New Zealand.  They're leaving tomorrow otherwise we'd hang out a bit.

That's Susanne's goat cheese (chevre in France, queso de cabra here) salad in front.  Quite good, she loved it.  I settled for the Barcelona wings and we shared the mild peppers & the patatas, yet to come.

Before coming here, I've only had tapas in so-called Spanish restaurants back home & in Paris.  Those tapas were fancy conglomerations of multiple ingredients. The REAL tapas here has just one or maybe two components. Even the goat cheese salad is really just a regular salad topped with a yummy chunk of warm, crusty cheese.

We are sleeping very well on the trip.  On board ship, they've equipped each cabin with some sort of capability to gently rock you to sleep.  Sometimes the rocking was not totally gentle, but never so much as to cause concern.

Here, we sleep well cuz we hit the sack so damned late!

May 1 is a major holiday in Europe.  It's their version of our Labor Day, started early in the last century by the Socialists (not a dirty word here in Europe...they've learned the difference between socialism & communism very painfully).

Combine May 1 with a Sunday and damn near everything is closed, including most museums which is the pits cuz the first Sunday of the month is usually a free museum day.  The Picasso Museum is within walking distance but closed.

Barcelona is a major hub of Vueling, a discount airline.  That means Tangiers is a bit over an hour away (no visa needed for US passports), Marseilles a little under two hours.  We could return to Barcelona, stay maybe only two weeks but fold a trip to another place so our return is back-to-back with the Barcelona/Phoenix flight.

An odd poster.  Are they saying "These shoe inserts are so comfortable that it's like riding a skateboard in heels???"

 

Our apartment is in a very old part of town...narrow streets, very old graffiti covered exteriors, a really worn look/feel.  But our building was completely gutted, then modern apartments built complete with a modern staircase & a modern mini-lift with a 3-person capacity or as we discovered upon arrival...Susanne + all our luggage.  I was the 2nd load.

Here's the street entrance.  Regomir is the street name.

Up that mini-lift, here's the first door, ancient.  The "V" is the 5th floor.  The doorknob in the middle is a nice decorative touch but European doors are heavy so it takes a bit of extra work to open.

There are two apartments behind this door, a larger front-facing apartment and our smaller just4two.

The photos at Homeaway.com below were obviously taken immediately after the remodeling b4 anyone moved in...the place sparkles.  In reality, the sparkle is mostly gone, but it's still a very nice apartment.












Reality doesn't include all of those designer accessories (Note the wooden pieces migrate from the kitchen view to the bathroom, they disappeared b4 our arrival) & certainly not the champagne.  Also that three branch candlestick seems to be highly portable.

Since we spread out immediately upon dragging in & unzipping our luggage, (the lovely dining table has our laptops & lots of other stuff we have to move over to eat.), we'll stay with the idealized version above.

We have no view except peering up at the sky.  But there are plenty of windows looking out to mostly white walls, so the place is light & airy.

Every trip is a learning experience.  We asked if there was a coffee maker...affirmative.  But French press only.  So we bought a drip maker & will leave it behind.  (250V outlets are in short supply in the US.  We've been thru this once before.)  We asked if there was cable TV...again, affirmative.  But only Spanish language + a few old TV/movie channels in English.  No CNN or even BBC, nothing in French or German.  This will lead us to more in-depth questions the next time we stay overseas.

OTOH, the internet is very, very fast.  What a blessing compared to the ship!

And we have a clothes washer/dryer combo.  European machines are notoriously slow, this one takes nearly 3 hours for a full wash/dry cycle.  The heavier material clothes still need some air drying.

Would we stay here again?  Not sure.

This place is more oriented towards shorter stays.  Being further north would put us closer to the center of things.  The tango milongas are quite far away.  Kinda like living in Chandler with no car, tango-wise.  The neighborhood is just fine.  Lots of restos...our TJ and the go-to nice place are very nearby + many others to explore.  Hatha Yoga is a 5 minute walk.  The major supermarket (Carrefour) is a 25 minute walk each way but we stumbled upon a very large Supermercat (think Circle K+) much closer that is maybe 70% of the Carrefour.

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Random thoughts:
There are no chain pharmacies (CVS/Walgreens) in Spain or France.  They're all Mom/Pop businesses (provided one of them is a licensed pharmacist) and very plentiful.  Like any neighborhood establishment, they know their customers personally.  So a visit to the pharmacy is partly a purchase & partly a visit with an old friend...transactions take longer.  Visitors have to keep that in mind.


Add Spain to the New Zealand list of countries that don't refrigerate eggs.

Another "Off you go!"