w/c 10.08.08

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Sunday 10 August 2008
G and Dean's last day in BCN, so Alex took Deano down to G's hotel with his gear and I ate Weetabix for brekkie. Exciting stuff.

Lunch had been booked at La Gavina again for 15:00 because G's mate's daughter Hannah is in town with her mate Yuka. So Alex and I made our way down - perfectly on time, but still after everyone else. I stuck with the seafood paella this time. Ate 4 rolls of bread and butter with it too. Could easily have had dessert after, but nobody else was having any so I decided to go for a tea instead. The waitress didn't understand when I ordered it in Spanish but she did in English. Interesting...

Said our goodbyes to everyone and made our way back to the flat, where we meant to watch something, but I was too tired and fell asleep. Woke up around 20:00 and chilled for a bit before heading out at 22:00 for some light dinner. Initially I wanted to go to the xocalateria for some churros con chocolate, but lo and behold, it was shut 😞 So we walked around to check out some tapas bars, but they weren't cheap and cheerful enough for our liking. We ended up in Placa del Sol, where we found a place that did some decent looking tapas and had bravas and calamares, along with 2 bottles of agua. Came to EUR 10.70, which we managed to stretch to before heading to the gelateria where we got 2 scoops of ice cream. Each. I got white chocolate and tried the nougat for the first time. It was ok, but still think white chocolate's the best! I have to remember next time though to try the horchata...

Monday 11 August 2008
The last yoghurt expires today so had some fruit with yoghurt. As we had absolutely no food in the flat, we decided to go to the supermarket. Couldn't be arsed to walk all the way to Mercadona, so we went to Craprabo after much deliberation about whether to check out Bonpreu for the first time, but it was closed until 17:00 and it was only 16:00. So we took it as a sign and went to Bonpreu. It started off well, they had a lot of variety and even had Weetabix, which is one of the main reasons we were trekking it to Mercadona!! But we soon realised that it was more like the Waitrose of BCN, and the prices were a bit out of our weekly shopping budget. We bought some crunchy nut cornflakes, own brand chocolate spread, own brand biscuits, and own brand chorizo. Then we went to Lidl to pick up some water, brie, and bread. They do a huge chunk of brie for EUR1, yum!

Cyntac and Lauren arrived at around 21:30 so Alex went to meet them at the airport, while I stayed in the flat and did some exercise for the first time in about a week. We planned to meet up for dinner later, but they ended up taking ages checking in, and Alex came home. We had sarnies using the day's earlier purchases and I was pretty happy coz we ended up saving some money, which is much needed at this moment. All this hosting and meeting people is expensive! Not that I mind, but I think it doesn't fare well on Alex's mind...

Tuesday 12 August 2008
Alex got a text at around 10:00 but we were both still sleeping so didn't get round to reading it til 11:45. Turned out it was Tasha saying she was going to Garraf, meeting at Passeig de Gracia station at 12:00. Didn't look likely to be able to meet her for then, but decided we'd join them later. So we chilled for a bit and got ready, and by the time we'd checked the times online and put the factor 50 suncream on, we had enough time to catch the 13:40 train from Sants. It ended up being the same train as Tasha and co were on, as they'd been slightly delayed...! Good thing we didn't rush out to meet them before really. Garraf was suprisingly busy when we arrived, and we managed to set up camp just behind a boat hire place. We were so hot by the time we got there, that Alex and I jumped straight into the sea. It was pretty choppy, and there was none for wearing sunglasses in the water, as I was. Took them off for subsequent dips in the water, and got knocked about pretty well at times. Good fun, although there was a surfer down at one end surfing a little too closely to swimmers for my liking. According to the train that we got back to BCN, it was 33 degrees, and by the time we got back to BCN, it was up to 35 degrees. We decided to switch the AC on as soon as we got back, but turned out not to need it, thank god! We had a little problem getting out of Sants station though, when our ticket wouldn't go through the machine - presumably because we didn't put it through the entry gate at the other end - so we had to speak to the man, who asked questions and Alex just pretended he didn't understand, and we got through.

Alex went to play footie while I exercised and Cyntac/Lauren ate paella at La Gavina on Alex's recommendation. Cyntac then made his way to Verdaguer for a catch up drink sans Lauren. We went to the Sol Equinox place we went to the other night, as they do tapas and drinks. Alex had a bikini on bread that didn't look toasted. Nice though.

Wednesday 13 August 2008
Alex has upset someone by making Welsh jokes! He needs to curb his mouth...

We weren't too sure what the plan was for the day, as Cyntac and Lauren haven't really specified anything in particular they want to do, so we waited til we got a text from Cyntac saying he was up for the beach. I wanted to go to San Pol de Mar, because it's a nice beach and not as crowded as the ones nearer the city, but Alex didn't want to go all that way and we ended up going to Montgat Nord instead. We caught the 14:48 train, which got us there in 20 minutes, and we set up in front of the chirringito. Cyntac got a beer and I went into the sea. Everyone else joined me after a while, and the water was actually quite nice. On our way out, Alex said he saw a white jellyfish with purple tentacles, but nobody else saw it, and nobody got stung by anything, so I reckon he made it up... We chilled on the beach for a while, and I had a last dip in the sea on my own. It seemed to get dirtier with rubbish, but at least there weren't condoms and sanitary towels floating around like in Barceloneta. After I got out, I went to get a glass of wine from the bar, but they only sold wine by the bottle so I got red wine with lemonade from the tap for EUR 2.00. On ice. We caught the train back to BCN, making sure we put our T-10 tickets through the entry gate at San Pol de Mar so we didn't have the same problem as yesterday. We left Cyntac and Lauren at Sants and arranged to meet up later for dinner.

Ended up trying to get a table at Sol Soler, but it was full and the waiter was a bit of a dick, so we went to Equinox yet again for some tapas and were joined by Tasha. We got a couple of bravas dishes, a couple of calamari dishes, a couple of tortillas, fuet and prawns for Cyntac, and potatoes with alioli for Lauren. With 6 drinks, all for the princely sum of EUR 54, which for 5 people I guess isn't that bad.

After dinner we headed to Las Palmeras, where there were only a group of fat men sitting in the corner, who Tasha later pointed out were taking turns to use the toilet to empty their bowels. Nice... We stayed there for one, and I tried to get the barman to take a group photo - the first one he didn't take properly because he didn't press the button for long enough, the second I'd accidentally left the timer on so I got up to fix it and got a photo of my hand, and third went well until I viewed it and found he'd cut out Tasha 😞

We then went to find some ice cream for Alex and ended up at the shwarma joint, where he got an Extreme, which is like a Cornetto, and the rest of us had a last drink. Conversation was based around men and women and their images. We concluded that men are idiots 😊

Thursday 14 August 2008
We had no food in the house, so we decided to walk all the way to Mercadona and stock up. Alex only had EUR 20 so we had to make sure we didn't splurge too much. We were well within budget though, at just over EUR 10. We bought another big slab of brie as well, yum!

Alex was meant to play footie, but he couldn't be arsed and then they called him to say it was cancelled anyway! So we watched The Three Amigos instead, because we couldn't get the subtitles for Taegukgi to work. We also ended up finishing the tangfastics and the mayonnaise flavoured crisps that my aunt sent me from Japan. Oh, and the popcorn. Not a good day for teeth...

Friday 15 August 2008
We both got woken up by a marching band singing “yo quiero bailar” (I want to dance) at 08:45. Yes, QUARTER TO NINE IN THE MORNING!! I know I know, those of you that work are up way before then, but we're not, so it was annoying. But it marks the start of the Gracia festival, so should be an interesting week ahead of us. Possibly lacking sleep - guess we'll find out if it's going to be a regular occurrence...

We chilled until the afternoon, when we ventured out onto the streets of Gracia to check out the street decorations. Every year the streets put up decorations with some sort of theme, and the best one wins a prize. Apparently Verdi win every year because they always have the most money. Guess it's a bit like football. The first street we saw was a minor one near us, and it didn't look very lively - was a bit disappointed really, as I was expecting big things. We walked further up and some old Catalan woman asked me to help her across the street. My skills were obviously not that good, as she dismissed me once she was down the step, walked across herself and got some man to help her up the other end. We went down Puigmarti, which again didn't have that much stuff up and I thought the rest of Gracia would be the same - bits of decorations hanging up. We went to Placa de la Revolucion and there was some marquee pitched up with chairs and a little stage. People were already queuing outside the gelateria for ice cream! We walked up Verdi, and couldn't see much - the decorations were all at the top end. By this point my expectations were pretty low. So when we got there, I was very pleasantly surprised - they had a wrestling them, which was awesome!! They clearly are a cut above the rest.... We walked to Providencia, where they had a South Pole theme (not actually sure what the theme was, but it had penguins and polar bears). Walked through various other squares and streets and end ended up walking back home as I had drunk a lot of water and needed to relieve myself by this point.

After making a super cheap yet tasty meal of Spaghetti for dinner, we headed out to see some more of the fiesta. This time we went down Llibertat, where they had some bug type theme, and they had a cool honeycomb bee hive sculpture at the end of the road. That was pretty cool. We bumped into Tasha and Drew, who had just run away from the fireworks at Rius i Taulet and decided to meet up there a bit later. Alex saw a t-shirt with an ant on it that he liked, but they only had it in large so he couldn't get it 😞 The woman on the stall seemed to really push the cheaper t-shirt onto him for some reason - guess he looks cheap. Maybe it's the mullet-esque hair... We walked up Tordera where they had a buddhist theme, and made our way to Rius i Taulet, where they had a smurf theme!! They were so cute - and I later found out they're called Los Putifos. We met up with Tasha and Drew again in the square and they were waiting for the fandango band to start on the Mozart stage, but the band on the square was doing a sound check that seemed to go on for ages, so Alex and I left them to have a wander. We walked down Mozart, which was SUPER busy, and checked out their Poseidon themed street. It was definitely starting to get busy, but Alex managed to survive the crowds! We ended up at Bruniquer, where they had some glacial theme with an ice Bender (from Futurama)! We stayed there for a while, because I was enjoying the music on this stage. Someone was smoking hash around us, so I kept getting whiffs of it and started to feel a bit ill, so we left. On the way back to Rius i Taulet, we passed some street playing heavy metal and there were loads of people moshing. Alex didn't like it, I thought it was amusing. We met up with Tasha and Drew, who by this point had been joined by Ruth and Cassie. We stayed there for the rest of the night, leaving whilst Rock Stock were playing - they started off with Let Me Entertain You and were singing Love Shack when we left. Cassie told me Gargamel was in one of the houses, which I'd missed so we went to have a look, but he'd gone to sleep so his house was all shut up 😞 Guess I'll have to catch him another time. We went through Placa de la Revolucio to check out the gelateria and xocolateria, but they were both closed.

Saturday 16 August 2008
Alex is out and about meeting Dan and Simon on 2 separate stag parties. Except he's not joining in the partying, but watching the footie. So I was left to enjoy the day without him. Started off walking to the xocolateria yet again to see if it was open, but what a surprise - the shutters were still down. It's possible they might be closed for the fiesta or the summer, but there's no sign up and I'm getting worried that I won't be able to go before I leave Barcelona...

Had another wander around the streets and made my way to Gargamel's house. I managed to see him today, so yay! :D Walking through some of the streets, I saw some damage to some of the displays, which was a shame. Although if this were London, I'm sure it'd be a lot worse. On my way back home, I passed the xocolateria again, just in case, but still disappointed.

Went to Rius i Taulet for 20:00 to check out the human towers, but my expectations were way too high, because it turned out to be 4 people stacked up on shoulders who walked around 1.5 sides of the square. Major let down 😞 I even lost my perfect spot because they started on the other side of the square and everyone started rushing over there. Gay.

Another cheapo dinner of spaghetti, but this time with sweetcorn! We decided that once dinner settled, we'd go to the fun fair bit at the bottom of Gran de Gracia and get some candy floss. We ended up conveniently sitting next to a tap while we ate the candy floss so we could wash our hands after (that wasn't actually why we sat there, it just happened to be a happy coincidence). We then decided to walk through Gracia to check out some of the fiesta and ended up at Placa del Sol, which is the folk music tent - Tasha told us not to go there, but I actually liked it 😊 Then we headed to Torrent de L'olla, where we tried to find the creperie that I told Alex about yesterday, and after walking nearly to the top of the road, we turned back to find out it was just above Travessera de Gracia - about a 10 minute walk back! We walked slowly down and found Jeremy, who was outside the squat garden, and we stayed there until 03:00. I met Fareed (not sure how his name is spelt), who's the guy who shat in Tasha's bath! He seemed nice. Swedish.

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Photos

homos
this made me laugh....such a child!

las palmeras
alex kinda overshadowed everyone else!

La Nena Xocolateria
This place is never open!!

Calle Verdi
Mexican wrestling theme - awesome!

Calle Providencia
South Pole theme

Calle Providencia
ice

Calle Llibertat
Insect theme

Calle Progres
Cool devil

Calle Tordera
Buddhism theme

Plaza Rius y Taulet
Smurfs!!!

Calle Mozart
Poseidon theme

Calle Fraternitat
Not sure what the theme was

Calle Bruniquer
Glacial theme - ice Bender!

Gran de Gracia
candy floss :)