Where in the world are D2? Barcelona Pt 1

originally sent May 10/11
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HOLA Amigas/Amigos,

The winner of the Destination Contest #1 is Karen! Congratulations!
Expect a non-chachka prize when I return! Honourable mentions go to
Dave L& Tony P who also guessed correctly and cracked us up
too. The travel journals plus some photos will eventually be posted on
my travel journal blog (which includes all past travels):
http://a-wandering-sam-urai.blogspot.com

Barcelona, Spain is one of our destinations. We planned to be here
May 9th, May 13-17th. Tomorrow we are taking the train to the next
destination. We will be sending your picture hints as well.

Thanks everyone for your enthusiastic responses which included Madrid,
Johanessberg, Capri, Thailand and Malaysia. :) PLEASE ONLY REPLY to
mine & Jos' email as I’m sure everyone on the list does not want to be
bombarded with reply all emails.

ON TO THE ADVENTURES!

EN ROUTE

In all the time I have travelled, I have never done..DUN DUN
DUN…handswabbing. Yes, Jos & I were handswabbed…apparently to check
for chemicals..but the dude used the SAME swab! If there were
chemicals on my hands, they are now on Jos’ too!

We have WIFI… Went to the washroom & before you start saying TMI, I
just wanna tell you about the stalls. They had signs that say “We have
WIFI…EVEN IN HERE”. Should we all be thankful that we can sit on the
can and use the internet? Kinda gross, but ok?
KLM = GREAT AIRLINE

AMSTERDAM AIRPORT = COLDFRONT…We had a connecting flight in Amsterdam,
so we had to go through customs. Jos got in one line and I followed
another lady into another one. All of a sudden the customs officer
yells through the glass at the lady in front of me, “CAN’T YOU READ?!”
We look up at the sign and it says All Passports. The female customs
officer then changes the sign to closed and doesn’t even blink an eye
or apologize. The lady in front of me says, “They’re like that here.
Everyone is rude.” After that, Jos and I felt quite happy that we
weren’t sticking around. I’m sure Amsterdam is lovely, but the airport
staff wasn’t friendly that day. Flight was also delayed 2hrs, so we
sat in the plane on the tarmac without air conditioning…so hot!
Eventually, we got to Barcelona!

DRUNKARD’S WALK

Jos managed to get us to our accommodations with little trouble, minus
the small detour we took. We decided to just relax today. The
receptionist was extremely helpful and gave a number of great places
to check out. I must confess that I was supertired! After checking out
the room, we decided to get some food before coming back to take a
nap. The siestas here are not allotted timeframes and really depend on
when the business owners and workers take their lunch break.

The scenery is beautiful. Jos hit the pharmacy to get us mosquito
repellent. We wandered around and checked out two places that were
recommended to us. One is a restaurant that looks like a fish store,
where they are displayed on ice and once purchased can be cooked on
the spot. The other one called Arturo is a restaurant that serves
various plates of meat. Jos easily found the first place and we
decided to try the latter another time. Unfortunately, the fish
restaurant was closed, so we ended up at another restaurant: El Monde
de la Tapa.

We, of course, took photos of the food as you saw. We ate Migas con
Chorizo, Gambas a la plancha (big shrimp grilled in garlic), Chiprones
a la plancha (deep fried breaded fish) and Rabas a la Andaluza (deep
fried squid). [pls excuse my bad descriptions] While eating, I
remembered that it would be good if we went back to the B&B and we
needed a nap. We also ordered a pitcher of Sangria with Caba for 15
euros. Suffice to say, Jos and I got a bit drunk! Before heading home
we went back to the train station to buy a T10 ticket which is valid
for the both of us and covers 5 fares (for 2 people) on any
transportation around Barcelona. I was tire and tipsy, so I face
planted and didn’t wake up until 2 hours later. I didn’t sleep much on
the planes either, so I was pretty tired. Jos slept a bit longer than
I did.

BARCELONA: MAGIC FOUNTAIN & CATALUNYA NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ART

We had initially thought that we could visit the Catalunya National
Museum of Art, Muntanya de Montjuic (Palace) and Montjuic - the Magic
Fountain (which has a fountain light show). We left our place at
7:30pm and wandered around our area. Life is good when all I have to
do is follow Jos and not worry about having to navigate haha. Because
we are coming back five nights, we weren’t stressing about what we had
to see right away. The F1 is happening in Barcelona soon and we will
be missing it, which we are happy about because it will be crazy. The
course, it seems, runs right up to where the Magic Fountain is
located.

We had a lot of fun taking pictures of the scenery, but didn’t go into
the museum as we had arrived at a later time. We plan on coming back!
Anyway, a few things we saw while we were there were stray cats, lots
of joggers and the city view. We were lucky to catch the sunset and
took some nice photos of that. We planned to watch the light show,
which was supposed to run every half hour from 9pm – 11pm. We gave up
on the 9pm one and decided to come back later, so we could eat.

We walked around quite a bit, avoiding touristy eateries and sandwich
places. It was nice to walk around. In the end, we went back to the
fountain to see that it was still in a state of slumber! Another
tourist noticed a sign that indicated that the show did not run on
Mondays, so boooo…we’ll have to see it when we come back. We ended up
eating close to our location. We shared a meat and cheese spread,
baked brie salad and a bottle of red wine. My tipsy state returned and
we headed home. Tomorrow’s train is early so we need to get sleep!

Adios mi amigas/amigos! Until the next destination…

-Sam