All beer and no coke makes Jez a sad boy

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Andre woke up crazy early to get to the airport. Jez and I walked him to the train station, ha ha yeah right. We grunted goodbyes and went straight back to sleep. We didn't wake again until the hostel staff were shaking our beds and telling us we had to change rooms. We begrudgingly did so, and because we were up we decided to head out. We were starving and decided on Burger King because it was close by. We were dying for a coke, so were devastated when they told us their machine was broken. I understood what the waitress said so just asked for a water, Jez had a translation breakdown and ended up ordering a beer by accident. I'm fairly sure he was crying on the inside. After some sulking and sharing my water, we walked down the famous La Ramblas it is an amazing place. So much colour and activity. Firstly we stopped to watch a guy dressed as Ronaldinho doing some crazy football tricks (he had the bad teeth and all). Then we watched a guy juggling 7 balls at once before checking out the human statues. Some of the costumes were fantastic and must takes hours to get ready each day. Either that or they walk round like demons all day. Other features were flower displays, a food market and stalls selling all sorts of weird and wacky pets. I wanted a penny turtle, they are tiny, probably the diameter of a golf ball. After La Ramblas we walked around the port area, there is so much to see in Barcelona! There are so many interesting buildings. I remember Jez and I being impressed by one and saying 'wow wonder what that building is?' it turned out to be just a building for a natural gas company. Pretty funny to think that if it was in NZ it would probably be our flashest building.

Later on we found the Olympic port and man-made beaches. It was pretty quiet as it was a tad cold for the locals, that didn't stop us though. We got pummeled in the ocean, the waves drive you into the ocean floor while the sand kicks up and when you come up for air your hair is caked with sand. Suppose it's better than being pummeled into a rocky seabed mind you. Once back on dry land we were offered massages or tattoos. Pretty random. After an expensive coke to quench the thirst we strolled aimlessly, an easy thing to do in a place like Barcelona where everything seems impressive.

With Busabout you can pre book events, the benefit of this is that you get discounts. We had booked a cooking class for that night. I think everyone on the bus booked it and it was a bargain at around 20 euros because you got to consume everything you made. We started with the most important aspect - how to make sangria. I can't remember all the quantities but ingredients were sugar, chopped fruit, rum (or brandy), red wine, orange fanta and lemon fanta. Next we learnt to make tomato bread tapas and finally we watched the instructor make paella in a giant pan before scoffing everything down. Some of the others from the class had to hurry off as they had booked a dancing class. Good news for us as we got most of the leftover sangria jug. While drinking it at the bar we got invited into a quiz team by an Englishman, Irishman and a Czech. No joke. We dominated for our team, probably because they were hammered, especially the Irishman, who by the end of the night was making no sense at all. He did however know the chef and get us free curries all round so that was a bonus. Once we had finished up we headed back to the hostel for a game of foosball against a guy from Hong Kong and an Argentinean. Pretty multi cultural day really.

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