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Barcelona and London - Second time round

What a way to end our round the world trip

After an exhausting 24 hour bus trip from Prague to Barcelona. Tim and I were looking forward to going back to his flat in Gracia (a suburb of Barcelona), with the luxury of air condition. But before we could enjoy the cool of the air-conditioning and a much needed rest, we had to carry our luggage to the 4th floor (which is actually the 5th floor because the ‘Principle’ floor isn’t marked) and it was no easy job, especially taxing for our already fatigued bodies. But the reward was worth the trek up the 91 steps; the flat his company rents for him, is a little bachelor pad which is tastefully decorated with a cute little view from his balcony. It is has everything one could want; from a wooden floor to a fully equipped kitchen (including a much appreciated espresso boiler) and a bathroom with a closet lookalike toilet.

We had timed our arrival to perfection, as Gracia was celebrating one of their many festivals. This one was the main one though, and the residents in certain streets band together and decorate their street. From Antarctic penguins to professional wrestler catholic saints, to a giant Buddha, we were flabbergasted to how creative they were and how enthusiastic the community was. What’s also useful is that there are many plazas or squares spread out around Gracia. Many of these had little stadiums set up and each had their own band playing. You can imagine how festive the mood was. Of course Tim and I hit the festival by first walking around and appreciating each decorated street and sipping our claras (which is beer with lemonade and it was delicious!) Then in the evening we joined the locals and danced at the one of the plazas where they have the local bands playing. We didn’t understand a word they were singing but the festive mood was contagious and so were the very merry locals. We even wore the Gracia festival t-shirt to show our support!

After a well-rested weekend for Tim, he was back to work in full force, while I did some touring on my own around Barcelona. But it took me awhile to detach myself from the comfort of the flat and head out to gallivant around this odd yet beautiful city.

Some of the memorable things we did in this last two weeks of my holiday in Barcelona:

L’aquarium De Barcelona

According to our sources on the Internet, this is one of the top ten must-do when you are in Bartha. Although a little pricy, we were generally impressed by the layout of the aquarium and as usual we compared to the one back home in CT, the verdict is that we think they on par. Although they don’t have the amusing dolphin show like the Seaworld in Hawaii, but they built a tunnel (like the one in Singapore) inside the aquarium, where all sorts of amazing, colourful fish, including sharks surround you. One felt as though you could almost reach out and tickle the shark’s belly when it swam overhead. One particular fish even shares Tim’s looong nose. (The picture is up on Facebook for those of you who are curious.)

Spanish cooking class - sangria and paella

This was a much looked forward to event, especially because I am a big fan of local cuisines. One of amusing activity for me during my stay was to visit the local supermarkets where I would buy all sorts of weird canned seafood (which of course Tim stayed far far away from, I of course was brought up by the saying that I have to try everything at least once before I can say I don’t like it - Daddy you proud?). Anyway, we joined a tour that promised to feed us real tapas and teach us how to make authentic sangria and paella.

We first made sangria with rum, red wine, fanta and some fresh fruit. The fun really started about half an hour later though because we’d taken some serious liberties with the rum, and well, we ended up suffering the consequences. But after that good start on sangria, we chatted to other fellow travelers, which we thoroughly enjoyed (even though 90%!o(MISSING)f them were aussies and earlier that day we’d been by them severely beaten in the rugby). It was rather nice to share our travel experiences with others and listening to their stories fed our travel bug even more (as if this trip was not extensive enough)! I think Tim and I almost planned our next trip - Egypt or boat trip around the Mediterranean?!

Later our Spanish version of Naked Chef, showed us how to make the traditional paella and like a lot of things in Spain, there is a romantic story behind this dish. He explained to us that Paella also means “to give her” in Catalan. I guess he suggests that it’s a romantic dish to make when a man tries to woo his lady friend by showing off his cooking skill. The ‘unromantic’ version is that Paella has to be made in a particular pan where the pan itself is called “paella”. I think I prefer the first story.

It took sometime before the paella was ready for consumption, but it was worth the wait. Even Tim, who is not a big fan of seafood, found it delicious and it was a perfect partner to the sangria. We are hoping that we can remember the cooking lesson well enough to make this year’s Christmas extra special by adding a touch of Espania to it.

A day in the Spanish wine farm - Penede and Torro

While Tim was slaving away at work, I took a day tour sampling all sorts of famous Spanish wines. I lost my loyalty to local SA wine and was lured into the easy drinking Spanish cultivar. One of the wine farms we visited - Jean Leon, actually served their Cab Sav 1975 at Reagan’s inauguration. It was a rather educational trip where they described the making of the wine from the planting of vineyards to actual bottling. What set the characters for the wines from this region is that they “stress” (by planting them closely together, so the plants can “fight” for nutrient”) the grapevines in order to create a more intense flavor by producing smaller sized grapes. It is also here where their flagship Chardonnay enchanted my taste buds, buttery yet light with touches of vanilla and an overall very well balanced white.

The second wine farm I visited was Torres, the biggest wine farm in Penedes. I was awestruck by the shear size of this farm; it is monstrous! Though it lacks the cozy feel of a small wine farm, it does have a high tech building with their own laboratory to cultivate the best vines. It is also here that I found a bottle of cab sav reserved for 1000 Euro!

The last bit of my Barcelona time was spent on walking aimlessly around town and doing some last minute gift shopping. One of the evenings we had a dinner date with one of Tim’s work colleague and his girlfriend. It was rather nice to be shown around by the locals, you somehow see the city from a different perspective. We started our evening listening to a string quartet at the Casa Mila, one of the Gaudi’s famous buildings, which is now part museum. During the summertime they have these short, half an hour concerts with various artist playing daily. We were more interested in the building than the music though!

Then we walked down to La Ramblas where we found a cute little Indian vegetarian restaurant that served some yummy naan and curry. Something Tim and myself might have found by ourselves in fact. One of the dishes came with a silver leaf, it was very strange - not too sure what the nutritional benefits of silver are, but the briyani was quite tasty.

The big trek to London

One of the many luxuries that I missed from home was my car, the freedom of driving yourself anywhere without having to take the public transport. I generally don’t mind it that much, but when I am dragging 20kg luggage around town things tend to be a little different. Tim and I really tried to plan the day as carefully as possible so he could rush off to work in the morning while meeting me at the bus station in the afternoon to catch our various flights to London.

Little did we know…
First it was dragging those bags down the four floors to Tim’s flat, quite a feat on its own! I had this constant fear that one little trip, combined with gravity and speed would set off an avalanche of me and the luggage down the stairs. Eventually I made it to the ground floor safely and even managed to drag everything to the metro station. Then the excitement of my day began, where somewhere from the metro station to the bus stop where I was to meet tim (3minutes walk) my bag was unzipped and my wallet was taken! (This is when I can hear Chrisdad saying “The GYPSIES”!!) Minutes later while in my panic state, Tim arrived where the man of the day took over the situation and cancelled all my credit cards before more damage was done. While I sulking on our way to the airport, we were also counting our blessings as the envelope with all my passports and most of the forex was not taken. They only managed to get my wallet with a minimal amount of cash in it.

The next stage of course was the airport. We arrived, still somewhat shaken and shocked, only to see the signboards announcing that my flight to London had been cancelled! Panic stage two! We were directed to another queue though, apparently they’d only changed the flight numbers, not actually cancelled anything. My relief was short lived though as the man at the desk, who spoke no English proceeded to try tell me that my flight was booked the wrong way, i.e. London to Barcelona. But between my fierce full look and my pleading tone, the check-in staff somehow corrected that problem. Shew…looking back now, I feel really lucky to not have missed my plane that day.

London

My first impression of London had not been a pleasant one, the people there seemed apathetic and cold. It seemed almost like a big grey concrete jungle with miserable species living in it. But of course this is all stereotyping and I was there for a mere two days.

The second time round, Tim and I stayed with a close mate of mine from school. It was however, rather far from town center and by the time we arrived at her flat, it was 9pm already (we left at 3pm). So instead of meeting up with our various friends, we decided to have a early night and recharge our battered bodies from the “exciting “ escape from Barcelona.

Next morning we woke up feeling refreshed and ready to embrace the day. Our first stop was to see Madam Toussaud’s wax museum. It must’ve been one of the most amusing museums we’ve visited on this trip, and the most expensive! It feels like you’ve entered a cocktail party with the rich and famous. It was rather fun posing with various characters, experiencing a moment of fame for ourselves. The horrible bit is that we decided to be brave and join the tunnel of HORROR, where live actors jump out of secluded tunnels or dark corners to scare the living daylights out of you. In front of us were 3 Muslim girls and Tim was the only immediate male in the vicinity. So whenever a live actor jumped out, Tim became the natural knight in shining armor. I think he enjoyed it and forced him to put on a brave smile too. The part I am a bit embarrassed to talk about is when we were at the last tunnel and a zombie lookalike “thing” was standing in the middle of the passage. He was forcing us to walk right next to him to exit the tunnel. Well, you would think one is old enough to realize that he is only an actor and nothing is real. For solid 5minutes, no matter how Tim tried drag me to walk pass him, I just could walk close up to him. Somehow in the middle of the turmoil we got separated and Mr. Zombie decided to make the most of this pathetic Asian girl and started cornering me. No matter how much I tried to avoid him, we just kept following me! Eventually, a kind-hearted middle age auntie behind me held me to her bosom and dragged the silly me out of there. My high pitch screaming must’ve drowned all other scary noises they were making.
The next stop was to meet up with couple of our friends who’d recently moved to London and join them for a pint or two. Tim decided to watch some rugby at a South Africa pub with all the vibe while the girls decided to cash in the opportunity and found somewhere quiet for a good catching up. It felt really good to hear and speak English with your mates again.

Later we walked around Covent Garden where there were loads of street performers. One of them was a silver gladiator man where we took a photo with him. He was a very good entertainer with a 1000 expressions, we must enlarge the photo for the family sometime ☺

Soon it was time to say goodbye to Tim as his flight was on a Sunday and mine only on the Monday. We took a bus to Luton Airport, which was rather far from London central and met up with his friend Andrew. In the hour before Tim had to board we chatted over drinks and I had fun hearing stories of the younger version Tim while the boys had a brief catch up.

On my way back to London from the airport, I was stuck in bad traffic because of the thunderstorm. I guess, it kind of described how I felt seeing Tim go.

So that’s the end of our fantastic 2 month voyage. For me it wasn’t simply a trip filled with exciting traveling and sight seeing. It was an eye opening experience and only once I’d arrived home in SA did I grasp the fullness of the whole experience. You realize just how different things are in SA and how much more is out there to explore. Bir-by-bit, I’m slowly beginning realise what a magnificent time we had and how many continents we crossed, the people we met on the trip and all the historical sights we visited. From going to Hawaii where we enjoyed the beach and the sun, survived the long hours of working to traveling through Italy to go back to the ancient times and finally back to Spain, where the beauty of culture and their passion for art (no matter how eccentric it may be) left an deep impression. It was a trip that will stay fondly in our memories for a long while.
Thank you to everyone for reading our blog and your sweet encouraging comments, it really encouraged us to record the fantastic experience we’ve enjoyed over the past two months. It will allow us to re-live some of these priceless memories in the future when we re-read the blog again. Sorry for the two month delay getting this last piece out, Tim was being a slacker!

Adios, till next time.
(A little prelude to whet the appetite, our next destination may be The Great Tour of Asia ☺)

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