Day 1

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So, we left London on the 11.15 from Heathrow, which was delayed for some reason which the pilot tried to explain in really bad English. We were unfortunately sat in the middle of a group of terribly middle class people who SO thought they were in an ITV drama - we dubbed them the Cold Feet crowd. Their kid, Lucas ("Lu-Lu") wouldn´t stop skriking the whole journey there which was lovely. The poor kid was about 2 years old and was obviously just bored and hot and tired, and they kept fussing over him and trying to explain things to him which he was clearly too tiny to understand.

Anyway, finally got into Barcelona airport and managed to lose them as we dashed off to the baggage carousels. Slight heart-stoppy moment as it took literally a geological eon before our cases arrived. Then we grabbed a taxi into the city.

On the way, we passed a huge Victorian Gothic cementery, which I now know was the Cementiri del Sud-Ouest. The cemetery covered a whole hill, and there was a mix of enormous family tombs and these sort of dead people tower blocks, with tombs placed one on top of the other. HL got interested in the different vegetation on the side of the road. He´s such a horticulturalist these days.

Got to the hostal. Very smiley and cute hotel porter took us to our room - small, basic but comfortable enough. No kettle though, so my decaf tea bags are sitting sadly in my rucksack. I´ll be gagging by the end of the week, I just know it. We hung round the hotel room for a bit, in that aimless, not-knowing-quite-what-to-do-next mood that I often find myself in when I´ve just arrived at a new place. We had a shower and watched a Spanish soap opera that had some very overheated dialogue and "interesting" acting. Making up what they were saying soon became boring though, as each scene seemed to last a week and involved the same woman playing the piano and having soft-focus flashbacks. So we ventured out into the Barri Gòtic for a look round.

Amazing. Tiny, windy-roundy streets, old old buildings and quaint quaint shops. Also, a fair amount of Soho-style skankiness and Neal Street dreadlocked skatery type stuff going on. Every now and then, you come across a little plaça bordered by loveliness.

Barcelonins don´t seem to eat until gone 9pm, so our search for a restaurant that would serve us a meal rather than just a few drinks was largely fruitless. So we ended up in a touristy place in La Rambla where I had the strangest interpretation of a pizza margherita - all cheese, no tomato. Not that nice, but fuel for the evening ahead.

We started off in Schilling, which was like a cheaper version of a Pitcher and Piano bar. Lots of poncey waiters and clientele where a voddy set me back 6.08€. We left and took a very loooooong walk looking for Punto BCN, Barcelona´s oldest gay pub. We got lost and had to back track so by the time we got there we were mucho footsore and spitting feathers. It was like CXR only cleaner, and I got to thinking how gay was the new international language of shite - shite music, shite venues and shitely dressed clientele. But it was friendly enough, adn we spent a couple of hours there getting slowly mashed on Estrella, which seems to be Barcelona´s version of Becks. On our way home, we stopped off at Dietrich (described in my guide book as ´careworn´and boy howdy were they right) then took a cab back to the Hostal. Slept like a log.

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