Spain, Chapter 5: The Gothic Quarter and Lots of Museums

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Note: All the events described in this entry occurred back in April 2007. For more updated trips and entries, please refer back to this blog at a later date. An updated trip or entry will NOT include a note like this. Thanks and enjoy!

The next day I wake up, eat breakfast and make my way to Barcelona's Gothic Quarter. I mostly wandered the streets, taking pictures, however I did visit the History of Barcelona Museum. This museum gives an overview of Barcelona's history, especially in the ancient world and the Middle Ages. One of the highlights for me while touring this museum was to see the actual Ancient Roman foundations of Barcelona, because I got to see where actual buildings used to be, as well as artifacts like wine jars located in their original location within the exhibit! I even remember seeing the red wine stains in the old wine merchant's building, and dye stains from another foundation.

After the museum, I decide to take a break by eating lunch at a local tapaseria. I order two tapas: the chicken skewers and stewed baby octopi in a tomato, black ink sauce. With it I drank a local white wine, which unfortunately I don't remember the name of it, however it was a dry, fruity and floral flavor. The chicken skewers were simply seasoned with parsley, salt, pepper, paprika and maybe some garlic and had been grilled. They were good, but not very distinctive. The baby octopi, however, were. the sauce was a dark, thick, brownish color and had a smooth yet assertive acidic flavor from the tomato and black ink. The octopi were very tender and sweet, which is rare to find when dining out for me because normally restaurants want to cook octopi or squid too long, which makes the meat tough.

I then decide to tour yet more museums. First, I visit the Picasso Museum, which I did enjoy because it focused strictly on Picasso, however I found it to be rather small. Second, I visit the Meso American Museum which had some nice pieces from all over Latin American, including Pre Columbian art, however once again it was very small. I remember that at the time I was quite bored because I was done visiting the Gothic Quarter and all three museums by 3 PM, which is unusual for my standards. Normally I spend three to four hours in one museum per day! Looking back now, they were good museums however the Picasso Museum and Meso American Museum were not among my top favorites.

I end my day by going back to my hostel's neighborhood in order to see La Perdrera and I eat a humble dinner of cod fritters, an open face sandwich with tomato and jamon serrano and patatas bravas at a local tapaseria. The museum for La Perdrera was very small, I got to see an original apartment from when it first opened back I think in 1910 or maybe even earlier than that. I learned about Gaudi's inspiration from nature for his architectural designs, but other than that it was once again very small and not memorable enough for me. Dinner on the other hand, was incredible. It was humble, but the cod fritters had a crispy exterior yet moist, tender and sweet in the interior. The patatas bravas were lovely boiled potatoes that were served with a spicy aioli sauce that had paprika in it. The open face sandwich was pretty much jamon serrano on a piece of toasted bread with tomato rubbed onto it. Apparently it is very common to see tomato rubbed onto bread for sandwiches like this. For me, I was just happy eating the jamon serrano. I then go back to the hostel and end up talking with several of my roommates. I meet one American who had been studying abroad in Spain and was ready to come back to the US. I also met two Americans, man and a woman who were not involved romantically with each other, who were studying abroad in the Netherlands. I got to hear at least the young woman, recount of what it was like living there and their travels together through Spain and other parts of Europe.

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