w/c 24.08.08

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Sunday 24 August 2008
Due to our money saving programme, it's another cheapo day for us 😊 Managed to spend just EUR 2.00 the whole day on a bottle of water for Alex at the pub when he went to watch the footie. He did go alone though, as I am thoroughly committed to this programme, besides not actually liking football.... So instead I watched Sweeney Todd the musical with Jonny Depp and then Rambo - I think the 4th one. I was meant to have lunch after the first film, but it actually put me off, what with Mrs. Lovett's worst meat pies in London. Annoying thing is I was actually hungry before 😞 Rambo was entertaining though - lots of killing and mindless action.

Monday 25 August 2008
Woke up before 10:00 - the earliest I've been up for ages! My main motivation was to email my employer from 2 years ago about a pay discrepancy, which has probably been all forgotten about and buried deep in the abyss of the HR department somewhere. Probably won't get anywhere with it (a reply would be a miracle!), but it's worth a shot - every little counts with this travelling malarky...

A few minutes after sending the email, I was shocked to find I had an email waiting for me in my Yahoo inbox - could this be a response?? Lo' and behold it was from one of the people I'd emailed earlier, but alas - it was just an Out of Office Reply. Ah well, can't win em all...

We watched Kung Fu Panda, which turned out to be really funny - the first part where he's dreaming is really similar to the book Milky bought me ages ago, think it's called Real Ultimate Power, and it's about ninjas. Very amusing. I didn't know who were doing the voices, although Alex said Jack Black was the panda, and I recognised a few of the voices, but still didn't know for sure. I was surprised Jackie Chan was in it - but then he didn't have a very big speaking part...

Tuesday 26 August 2008
It was a pretty relaxing day, because there wasn't much to do, what with us trying to conserve our funds and all. We decided to watch The Running Man, which we'd both seen before but didn't really remember, so that was fun. Although the woman in it was pretty annoying. So many one-liners. Fantastic.

Wednesday 27 August 2008
The weather's nice today, so we finally made it to the beach - yay!!!! We walked to Opencor where we bought a baguette and dropped by Craprabo for some water, only to find they didn't have any so had to get some from Lidl instead. Tasha came round and we finished getting ready for the beach. Got the train to Montgat Nord, noticing along the way that it was quite busy. We ummed and aahed about going further up but ended up sticking to Montgat Nord and camped up in a spot not too far from the station. The water was really still and Tasha actually went into the water 😊 We had the baguettes and sweet chilli crisps, which were actually really nice and I couldn't stop eating them - they're much hotter than the ones in London. Packaging looks different too, guess they're marketing to demand. Although we haven't found much spicy food around, so that doesn't really make sense. Hmmm....

Tasha left early after winning the game of Transformers top trumps - incidentally, she'd dealt the cards out. What is it with the Defries' winning the game when they deal...suspicious, methinks! We stayed a little while longer, until Alex wanted to leave and I wanted to get a cheeseburger at Sants station, but Alex didn't seem to keen so I changed my mind, only for him to decide that he did actually want one. But I put my foot down and said no. Haha! Then he suggested getting a shwarma for dinner and I pointed out that it was only 18:00, so we didn't do that either! We did however, go home and chill for a bit before making spaghetti. I think we made too much, thus causing me to eat too much and therefore feel super full for the rest of the night. It didn't help that I ate half a packet of biscuits after... I felt seriously full though. It was a strange sensation.

Thursday 28 August 2008
I still feel full from last night! So much so that I didn't feel like brekkie, but Alex insisted we go out and eat at the bakery, as we didn't have any food in the house. So we walked down and I got a chocolate croissant with tea/milk and Alex got a cream pastry with OJ. I wasn't sure how they pronounced “croissant”, because it was spelled the same way on the menu, but obviously Spanish is phonetic, so when the guy came to take our order, I said it the French way first and he didn't understand, so I said it “kroy-sant”, and he said “ah, “kro-sant”, so now I know - I would've thought they'd understood the French way though, considering Catalan is similar.

After breakfast we went back to the flat and cleaned it for Amit's arrival tomorrow. Chillage for a bit, then decided it was time to eat lunch, so we went out again after spending quite a while deciding whether to have tapas at Placa del Sol, tapas that I found online, tapas at Cafe Costa del Sol, or a shwarma, only to decide we'd go to the shwarma joint but have a bikini instead. So we walked down, sat at the last free table outside, and ordered 2 bikinis, a glass of rose for me and a Fanta Limon for Alex. Nice light lunch, which was good as I was still a little full from last night(!). Everyone else at the place was eating the Menu de la Dia, which was only EUR 7.50 for starter, main, bread, drink, and dessert. The guys to my left were speaking in some Eastern European language, but when speaking to the waitress, the guy spoke English, so towards the end, I asked him how the food was, to which he replied “nice” and I said we should try it one day. Turned out they're Hungarian and the guy's been living in New York for 12 years. He asked what was up with the 03:00 closure of bars, and asked if there were any places to go that had lounge house music. He tried to give me examples, but I hadn't heard of anything he said, so I suggested he go to Samsara, which is actually a restaurant but turns into a bar/trendy hang out later and is open til 03:00, because he mentioned “buddha” and they had buddha statues in there! I don't know if it's any good, so I hope I don't bump into him again, just in case it's crap...

We went to Mercadona after, so we could get some bread, milk, and weetabix. We ended up getting some ensaimadas too - they're soooooo moreish, we just end up eating them all in 2/3 days (there's 9 in a pack). However, when we got home I still felt quite full, so I managed not to have any, while Alex had 2. Karin the estate agent called to ask if she could bring someone round to view the flat, so they arrived a bit later and he asked about the flat. Once they left, I tried to listen to some Spanish TV - it must be helping a little bit, but I'd still prefer to have some lessons. Shame I can't afford them.

Decided to watch a film before bedtime and ended up with Predator, as I hadn't seen it before and apparently it's a classic (I seem to have missed out on most of these so-called classics). At the end I said
“but it didn't explain what the predator was and why it was there and its motives for killing and skinning everyone”, to which Alex replied
“but it doesn't matter, it's mindless action”.
But they showed the spaceship at the beginning dropping him onto Earth, so surely there's a storyline there?? Maybe that's what they develop in Predator 2... I noticed it's very similar to the Rambo I watched earlier this week, what with army people, lots of fighting and everyone but the main hero and the girl surviving. Although I think 1 more guy survived in Rambo. Maybe. Anyway, the main point I came away with after the film was - Arnie's arms are HUGE!!!!!!!

Friday 29 August 2008
Amit's flight was scheduled to land at 19:50 so I had time to go for a walk in the afternoon. I ended up going to El Cortes Ingles to buy the small rucksack that I saw the other day to use as a day bag in Thailand. While I was there I checked out the big Deuter backpack that I liked, and decided that 35/36 litres is a good size. After I bought the small bag, I walked back to the exit via the rest of the floor to check stuff out and they sell guns in there!!!!!! I told Alex that in an SMS and he responded with a “they won't let you take that through customs dear”. I passed the fishing gear and made it back out without spending any more money!

After I got back to the flat, I was sweating and feeling rather hot, as the sun was out in full beam and I'd walked there and back. I chilled for a bit until it was time to leave for the airport. I checked his flight online and it turned out it was 41 minutes late, so I decided to get the next train, and had an extra half hour to kill. Not that I was complaining...

On my way to the airport, I got an SMS from Amit saying he just landed and he'd rush out (he had no checked in luggage), but I replied saying I was still on the train and there was no need to rush too much. I told him to walk towards Terminal A and find somewhere to sit if he got out before I arrived. I got a message saying he was by the divers bookshop, which I tried to find once I got there, but I couldn't. Terminal A is rather small, so he definitely wasn't there! We sent various messages back and forth, trying to get his location and I walked all the way to Terminal B twice to double check he wasn't there, only for me to realise that he was actually upstairs, and hadn't come out properly! Grrrrr. So I told him to come downstairs and finally managed to find him. I'd planned to get the 20:59 train back, but we'd missed that with all the faffing about, so we got the 21:29 train back instead.

Once he'd had the tour of the flat and we were all ready to head out, we walked to Sureny on Pl. de la Revolucion, recommended online but not by Tasha, who said they have a minimum of 3 dishes per person and so not to go there. We checked it out anyway, and it was a minimum of 2 dishes per person, which isn't too bad, but then Alex decided it was too expensive, so we walked to Pl. del Sol instead. I think we should check out Sureny at some point though, because it's always busy and they've had good reviews - maybe next time we're here and have some more money... We ended up going to Equinox for some tapas - Amit said he wanted to overload on tapas this weekend, so that'll be interesting. Tasha joined us for a bit towards the end, with Ruth a little later, but they both went to sit outside as there weren't enough seats, and we said we'd meet them later.

Once we finished our dinner, we met with Tasha et al at Pl. Rius i Taulet, where they were having drinks before going to Alfa, the small Spanish club on Gran de Gracia that Kyles and I didn't really enjoy. Tasha kept telling everyone it wasn't cool enough for me - no idea where that came from! I think it's one of those things where she's embarrassed to like it, so she projects that onto me and says that I don't think it's cool to cover her shame...but who knows! The others left for Alfa, while the 3 of us stayed to finish our drinks and decided to go to Las Palmeras after for a last one.

At Las Palmeras, Alex asked the barmaid for some maiz, but she didn't know what he was talking about, so he described and it when she brought us some, he asked what it was called. Turns out it's just “frutas sueco” - literally dried fruit, but used for nuts. We found out she's Cuban though, and she's rather nice 😊 After the jazz bar, we walked to the Xurreria but it was closed, so we went back to the flat for bed. Which was probably a good thing, as it's an early start tomorrow for some sightseeing.

Saturday 30 August 2008
Woke up a few minutes before 10:00, as the sun was beaming on my face. Amit was up too - he doesn't need much sleep, which is actually rather annoying as I like to have 8 hours a night. By the time we were both ready, it was about 10:30 and we walked to La Paneria, where we had brekkie. I got a chocolate croissant with milky tea and he got a tuna croissant with coffee. After that we popped into Condi for some water for 19 cents each on the way to Sagrada Familia. When we got there, it looked really busy, but we went in anyway, paying the EUR 10 entrance fee and not knowing what to expect. Took some photos of the outside before going in and seeing some really nice interior decorations. Stained glass and all that. It was actually rather impressive, and well worth the EUR 10, which they said on the receipt was used to help with the building works. One side was a complete building site, but the rest of it was fine and we waited about an hour in the queue for the lift to go to the top. We paid the EUR 2.50, which is probably used for the wages or their pockets somehow, and did the journey up the tower.

Once we got out of the lift, we had to climb up some stairs, across a pathway and down the stairs on the other side. All along the way, there were openings in the “walls” that you could look out of and see the city below, which was really cool. I ended up taking lots of photos and it was definitely worth the money. The last part of the stairs going down clockwise was a bit scary because there was no side on the right, so if you fell down, you'd probably hurt yourself a great deal if not die. We got out, had a quick bathroom stop, then checked out the souvenir stall across the road to see if there was anything Amit wanted to buy. But there wasn't. So we got the metro to Passeig de Gracia, where we found Txapela, and had some tapas for lunch. It was the same as last time - nice flavour but luke warm. It was ok. After lunch we walked down Las Ramblas for Amit to see and continued all the way to Port Vell. We walked across the pier and into the shopping centre at the end, where we had another pit stop. There wasn't much there of interest so we walked back and found the fairy bar - “bosque de las fadas”, which was quite cool. Had a cup of tea/coffee there, and moved on to Barceloneta on foot. Walked along the beach at the top to Ciutadella metro station, and came back to Verdaguer, where we buzzed up to Alex to come down for an ice cream at the Gelateria. Alex got a cup of mint choc chip, Amit a cup of cinnamon, and I got a small cup of horchata, which is a typical drink here that I've seen so many people drink. It was ok, but I wouldn't get it again. We sat there for a while just chatting, and decided we'd go to Samsara for dinner. So we went to Samsara at 20:00 to book a table for 21:30.

We had some time to kill so we went to the shwarma joint for a drink, before walking back up for dinner. When we got there, we sat at the door, where it wasn't set, which I thought was strange - maybe they do bookings differently here. We ordered bravas with pesto, xupa-xups, teriyaki tuna skewers, mini hamburgers, rocket salad with shiitake and goats cheese, humus, chicken wings, and another dish I can't remember, followed by white chocolate brownie with ice cream for dessert. The bravas was so nice we got another one, but the white chocolate brownie turned out not to be white chocolate or even a brownie, so that was a disappointment. AND tuned out the fruit salad had white chocolate cream on top, which is what I should've got and I was rather annoyed. But I was full, and Amit paid, and all was good 😊

After dinner we got the metro to Catalunya, and walked down Las Ramblas again so Amit could check it out. It wasn't too busy, but it was still lively. Alex called Tasha, but she wasn't out so we ended up having an expensive flat drink in Pl. Reial then walking through Raval and El Born trying to find a bar. Noone was being particularly helpful so I had to take charge and lead the way all night, which put me in a bit of a bad mood. I made a decision to walk back up to the top and find the bar that we went to with Nayra ages ago, only for Alex to say it was far and let's go down this road instead. So we followed him instead, and ended up in Jaume, where he handed the reins back over to me. Great. I took us down the road that Kyles' hostel was on and we managed to find a bar at the end of an alley, which turned out to be full of Spaniards instead of tourists. It stank of poo just outside, and it was smokey inside, and the toilet was rather horrible, but other than that it was okay...

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Photos

Stairwell, Sagrada Familia
it was quite scary because there's no side to stop you falling down the centre!

Vending Machine, Sagrada Familia
i thought it was quite funny (and clever) to sell cameras!

Window, Sagrada Familia
pretty stained glass windows...

Sagrada Familia
didn't realise how much nature inspired gaudi

Typo, Sagrada Familia
someone tried fixing it

Sagrada Familia
beautiful

View from the tower
well worth the EUR 12.50!

Bosque de las Fadas
the fairy bar

Fairy Bar
scary looking tree