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Published: September 24th 2008
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Vamos a la playa....the sun and sangria soaked Catalonia capital was waiting for us and we didn't want to disappoint. So to Heathrow at 04:30, Friday 12th September. When I associate B.A. and aerophobia, usually i'd think of the dungaree wearing Nam vet but in this case B.A. gave us a flight so arm rest grabbing and stomach churningly turbulent as to erase '80's action dramas from our conciousness. Oh for a glass of drugged milk. Anyway, after just under two hours 'estuvemos alli'!
Our home for the weekend was in serviced 'Apparatmentos Alladas' in El Born barrio, which was definitely phat enough for a birthday weekend.
Shopping in our hood was not the succession of successful purchases from unique boutiques but Nat made me both look and smell better with rounds one and two of my birthday treats. Ole!
Footsore and shopped out we headed for the beach to lounge on a terrace we'd been tipped off about but the moody lounger police at Carpe Diem Lounge Club meant the Shoko terrace was a better place to chill! A jug of cava sangria washed down with more cava precluded a short taxi ride to the Can Paixano
Xampaneria by Colon (Colombus's column)..
Here, just as I'd hoped, no dreamed, were sweet, pink bubbles served in antique glasses (at only 70 cents), accompanied by tasty plates of jamon y queso and a slab of lemony cheesecake. The foil for this jollity and consumption was provided by the elbow in Nathalie's back, attached to a drunken, mumbling and stumbling senora. It wasn't just her elbow causing trouble but her mouth too. Nat did well not to stick an empty cava bottle in her ass or a chorizo up her nose. Still, cheap cava and tasty morsels in a crowd of like minded greedy winos was just one of the scents of catalonia we'd come for.
Afterwards and suitably lubed we strolled Cuitat Vella and Barri Gotic enjoying being lost-ish! Placa Reial lacked the usual motley crew, which made a change, but was a good place for a few of beers and some 'erb if you're into that kind of thing! Just the kind of pastimes you can indulge in when not having to shelter from the rain or shield yourself from an icy summer wind the LDN.
As ever things got a little hazy right around
then but there was a bar involved and we ended up at a rolled up sandwich and pizza joint to soak up the day and night. Before that we did have a small problem. Namely Nathalie coming over all Xampaneria and accusing our waitress of swiping our drinks (which she didn't, we drank them without noticing), and then giving me the lair for disbelieving her. Er "Ole", punch-drunky. The look on her face when is dawned on her that our glasses were still on the table in front of us. Ole!! Venga mi anniversario!
Happy birthday to me. Blurry eyed but resplendent in the sunshine we got all Catalan in Barceloneta market with a stand up breakfast/lunch of fat tortilla espanol, (aka tortilla in Spain), washed down with the traditional Coke over ice. Then 'how you like me now' Barca-Watch time on Barceloneta beach. You can swim in the sea in the BCN! You can drink whole litres of beers to yourself and look at hotties in bikinis, all of whom were called Nathalie! It's ma birfday! After the sun soaking, we went Hiphopping at the CCCB and rocked the cheap beers, the hippy-hop Espanol. Then we jumped to
the Loop Troop Rockers from the Ooo Ess Ay and dodged some of the craziest mofos going buckwild in breakdancing throwdowns. People at the front were lucky to keep their teeth. It was fresh.
Onwards and upwards took us to the La Paradeta seafood market cum restaurant for almost all the sea creatures we could buy. Fucking 'A', eh? Miraculously, we weren't full to puking after the crevettes, salad prawns, razor clams, oysters, monkfish, octopus and squid that had been weighed by a overestimating eye. What next, digestives of course...that's brandys to anyone who's anyone. In conversation together we decided we were lovin' it so much we should move to Barcelona and in conversation with the Braziliana at the bar, that it was a really cheap place to live, which we understood was some kind of Portuguese-English language inversion. Still maybe there was hope as we were still talking about it the next day. We'll see.
Sunday and Monday were spent not having a hangover again, thanks to the beach, the sea and the sun and then indulging in some of that sightseeing business. The park was cool, interesting, but hilly, the church fancy and growing slowly and
Snr Batillo's housing gaudy like the artist.
Viva BCN, viva Nathalie, viva birthdays and viva the homies at home and abroad who helped celebrate ma birfday at the Mexican in Balham (and in the Irish bar in Cuzco) on Wednesday.
Hasta luego!
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