Hello again dedicated readers and acquaintances I have forced my blog link upon.
Our second day in Barcelona was a combination of flat hunting for Ash and light debauchery… here we go!
We started off by regaling each other with news read off our cellular machines while lying in our domestically blissed state of separate single beds. Following what became our morning ritual, we prepared for the day and headed to the canteen for fuel.
The breakfast spread was good not great and was hampered by the overbearing voice of a – most likely American – loud mouth soup mansplaining some sort of psychology to a poor woman. It was really quite unbearable. We tried to drown out his ramblings about the lack of “critical mass” among ancient Greek philosophers and other such irrelevant information.
The question really is, what on earth were these two people doing having this conversation at a breakfast buffet in a hostel in Barcelona?
Anyway, we downed our brekky and got the hell out of there. The most hilarious moment was when we were finally leaving the hostel after freshening up and we ended up passing the same man and woman – the man appearing not to have taken a pause to draw in air amidst his tirade – now just seated in a different location in the hostel.
What a day she was going to have.
We moseyed our way to Coffee and News – the stand where Ash’s new flatmate makes a hell of a flat white – and had our first in-person exchange with Guillermo.
After a chit chat and confirmation that Guillermo was a real human and not a robot who was going to scam Ash out of a flat deposit, we made plans to meet him after work to see the flat and then continued on our way.
The next play was to make our way down to El Raval to view a place. El Raval is exciting but a bit more rough around the edges than the area we were staying. We felt this change as we walked along the perfectly manicured and designer shop clad pavilion of Avigunda Diagonal and transitioned into El Raval.
El Raval houses the MACBA – the contemporary art museum – and we considered a visit. Mostly to try to use the toilet. After our realization that the permanent collection was under construction and you had to pay to enter we decided to tour around the gift shop instead. Maybe if we bought enough schlock we would magically become more cultured.
It was a nice shop though…
The MACBA has an open courtyard where skateboarders and other ‘enemies of the state’ congregate. We were out of place in the hip countercultural hub.
Naturally we moved on and found somewhere we felt much more at home: a local bakery.
I couldn’t even use the toilet there because we weren’t allowed in without a ticket. The hunt for a washroom continued…
We had a chat with the owner who was from the Philipinnes but had lived in the El Raval neighbourhood for the past 20 years. She talked of the improvement in safety of the area accompanied by gentrification but also the loud partying that goes on every night until the wee hours that makes it nearly unliveable.
We got some delicious treats and carried on our way to find the next flat viewing.
The person we met was a lovely Ecuadorian man but the flat was unfortunately small and dark. Not a winner.
We drowned our sorrows with an empanada and a beer… Initially we had planned to just get a snack to take away but it started pouring rain as we ordered so we stayed and relaxed over our snacks. We were on Spanish time after all.
I think it was just shortly before this that we sat outside the big ol’ gothic Cathedral of Barcelona and did some people watching. We were disappointed by the action and found ourselves drawn to food. As is our custom. We were passed by a very creepy man dressed as a Victorian era clown with his face painted all white and he was making clown nose honking noises with his mouth as he passed us. Terrifying. I’ve never been one to have a clown phobia but this was certainly off putting.
Another great food find of the trip were roast chestnuts – t’was the season in Barc Barc. Was so lovely to have a load of hot, roasted nuts scooped into a rolled-up newspaper and to shove them into our mouths as we wandered down the quaint streets. I’d never had them before and they are probably now in the top three of my warm nut rankings. A close runner up to warm airplane peanuts. (I know this isn’t even a thing anymore – what is the world coming to?!?!).
The real highlight of the night was going out to see the flat which has now become Ash’s new home! Located at the heart of the Eixample, Sagrada Familia and Gracia neighbourhoods, it is a lovelly fifth floor walk-up with a 130m hallway (great for indoor bowling) and a nice sunroom with a view of the Sagrada Famila! I was loitering around the flat knocking on walls and checking out the contents of the fridge trying to look like I knew what I was checking for while Ash sealed the deal with Guillermo. A few pictures later and a reassuring demonstration that the horrendous white lighting in the living room had other potential mood settings, and we were off in search of dinner!
But first… a stop in at the erotic shop.
I had reminded Ash an average of 69 times throughout the day that we had to go check out the erotic shop that day. Now, what you must know about Ash is that she is just a wee bit more of a prude than me. In fact, she had never been into a sex shop before. And, as you can imagine, I certainly didn’t make her first visit to one a carefree exploit. She was constantly teetering on the edge between fearing me embarrassing her and me embarrassing her. Poor gal.
We spent far too long in there and she eventually was convinced to make a purchase that I will not detail here for fear she reads this and then never speaks to me again. So, ‘great outcome’ you’re thinking – ‘she made a purchase and walked out of the shop proudly with her item in hand.’
Oh, no no. She made me take it to the front and pay for it, ask for an unmarked bag and to carry it the whole evening.
Flash forward to dinner. We had an excellent local Catalan restaurant recommendation from Farah for a spot called El Glop. Yes, you read that right – Glop. The place was cozy and traditional with several locals dining. We were there about 9 or 9:30pm, which is just about perfect timing to get in with the locals eating on a Monday night. We didn’t have a reservation but lucked out to get a table – I think reservations would likely be a good idea here in the future.
Ash was making quite a fuss about having our erotic shop purchases only separated from our fellow diners by a thin layer of carry bag. When we sat down at our, quite central, table in the main dining room and I made a show of putting the bag down beside me and ACCIDENTALLY fumbled with it just as a woman walked by and Ash’s item flew out onto the floor… “whoops”. She was mortified. I was filled with joy and laughter.
The most fascinating situation was unfolding at the table next to us – a group of three middle aged Catalan men were dining and clearly interested in us two foreign female clowns who had seated themselves next to them. I think they were shocked when they saw I knew my way around the plate that came with bread, a whole tomato and a full clove of raw garlic. Without missing a beat I crushed the garlic and removed the peel, rubbed it into the bread until it was all mashed in and then cut the tomato in half and did the same. Pan con tomate… so fresh and so good!
Next, they ordered some sort of dish we were unfamiliar with but it was like long and fat roasted spring onion with a reddy/brown sauce that they were dipped in. One of the men received a plastic bib and clear plastic gloves which he donned before digging into this. It is always an exciting sight when a grown man wears a food bib.
I naturally had to ask our waiter for a bib for myself – both because I genuinely need one the way I eat and because I wanted to further mortify Ash. Unfortunately, we didn’t know to order this traditional Catalan dish so I didn’t really need the bib – but it was still fun to wear.
Of course, Ash doesn’t like seafood so paella was out. Sadness. I ended up getting a traditional Catalan sausage and potato dish (essentially Spanish bangers and mash) and Ash got lamb. Amateur.
We wrapped up the evening with a dessert and then strolled the calm and quiet streets of Gracia toward the hostel. All that was left was to walk in the door and see the woman still being lectured by the American ‘intellectual’.
Lucky for her it seemed they had vacated the premises.
DOTD
Petting this guy down required us to conduct a thorough hand washing in a public water fountain after… worth it.
An Idiot Broad Abroad 