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Published: September 16th 2009
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Jamon y camembert
My last tapa with the rosat in the background. Their selections were a bit different than most - more meats, cheeses and sandwiches. But delicious. I arrived in Barcelona this afternoon after an uneventful train ride from Madrid. After taking the metro to the stop, as directed by the hostel, I tried to get my bearings by looking at a map at the metro exit. I was then escorted by a homeless guy in his 20s to the hostel. I appreciated the effort to panhandle, rather than the lazy bums that sit there and shake cans of change all day, so I gave him a euro for his troubles.
The hostel is located on between Montjuic, a hill with a castle, some parks and the Olympic stadium from the 1992 Summer Olympics, and the main tourist areas such as Las Ramblas and the Barri Gotic.
When I got here the weather was overcast and a little cool. Not thinking, I headed out to explore the city without an umbrella - a mistake but not a huge one since I found a spot for lunch when it rained hard.
I took the metro up to Barcelona’s soccer stadium since I’ve heard it’s quite the sight. Well, it is a huge stadium but it didn’t seem any larger than our football stadiums at home.
Taperia
The crowd at Xampanyeria was incredible. We could hardly move but it was all part of the fun. When I got back to the hostel, it was a bit dead but there was a girl talking to the woman working the front desk about good taperias (places to get tapas). I cut in since I was planning to do the same thing.
It turns out the girl, Kristina, is traveling alone while she’s visiting from California so we went out together to find one of the bars. About all we had for directions was a number on a map put down by the woman at the front desk so we only knew the general area and the name (Xampanyeria).
We headed out to the general are that we thought this place was and ended up in a dead part of town with narrow alleyways. Then we heard a crowd. Head for the noise - the woman said this place gets packed.
When we found the place with the noise, there wasn’t a sign but there was a packed crowd in this small bar with numerous hams hanging from the ceiling and food and wine flowing everywhere. We didn’t know if we found the right place but this would do.
Making our way through the
Sangria
Me with my Sangria back at the hostel. crowd, which felt like trying to move around on a Saturday night in Times Square, we finally found a place somewhat near the bar to order. Now it’s been a while since I had Spanish and I was a bit rusty on some of the foods but many of the items on the menu were things I hadn’t heard of. Kristina mentioned that it’s not a typical tapas bar. She looked at one sandwich with “cebolla” in it and said “I think that’s some sort of head”. Just then, a guy in front of us turned around and told us it’s an onion.
The guy and his wife were visiting from New Mexico and had lived here for many years but had since returned home. They helped us out with suggestions throughout the evening.
Our first round of tapas consisted of two sandwiches with bacon, cheese, onion and peppers and two glasses of rosat, a sparkling pink wine which was delicious. And the wine cost €0.80 (a little more than $1.00) per glass.
For our next round, I ordered a botifarra blanca (sausage on a roll) and Kristina had croquettes. We switched to glasses of cava brut (like a white champagne). The food was good but the cava was so so.
For the next round, I went with a jamon y camembert (ham and cheese) and we each went back for another glass of the rosat. One more round of rosat followed and we took off.
When we got back to the hostel, a bunch of the guests had brewed up some sort of sangria that tasted like licorice. We joined in and ended up talking to a bunch of the others, especially a couple Aussies who were making an obscenely large omelet.
A few of the others took off but I had started to get tired and went to bed. Tomorrow is a busy day of touring.
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