Euros Ate My Dollars

After everything that had happened during their stay in Bacelona, when it finally came time for my family to head back home, I wasn’t sure if they were sorry to go, or simply relieved to be departing in one piece. Well, I can say with some certainty that my sister would have remained longer if possible, having fallen in love with 1. the metro system (she hates to drive), 2. Barcelona’s flirtatious waiters, and 3. a culture that encourages her to focus most of her day’s energies on a multi-hour meal. I think my mom may have even liked the excitement surrounding our misadventures, but I can say with confidence that my dad is happy to have his brood back out of the reach of un-instigated police brutality. (On a happier side note: two weeks have passed since my beating, and I’m almost able to walk again.)

We saw my family off in an airport-bound taxi, and then decided it was probably time to think about what we should do next. We had no place to stay, very little cash, and now, no debit card with which to withdraw more (see Brittany’s previous entry). With no alternative in sight, we spent all our cash on booze, slept in the street because we couldn’t afford a hostel, and got robbed killed abducted by gypsies. Or we WOULD have, if it weren’t for Couch Surfing coming to our rescue once more. Although, gypsy abduction/lifestyle indoctrination seems to happen a lot in my stories – maybe I have some strange fascination with them? I blame it on watching too much Follow That Bird as a child. The vagrants who stole Big Bird and painted him blue might not have been gypsies in the ethnic sense of the word, but they do have something in common with the scourge of Europe, which is that I want both to stay far away from me. So why am I about to head into southern Spain, the very heart of gypsy territory? And more importantly, what does this stream of consciousness have to do with Couch Surfing?

Back to the point. Through the Couch Surfing network, we were lucky enough to find a couple willing to host us for a few nights in the heart of Barcelona. Two musicians from Long Island, Jackie and Michael are in Barcelona to study Spanish and teach English. We arrived at their apartment to find that they were also hosting two more musicians from Minnesota. Which made us, officially, the un-cool kids. But despite our insufferable nerdiness, Jackie and Michael told us we could stay at their place as long as we needed. This was actually a huge windfall for us, since it gave us an address we could have our replacement debit card mailed, without having to spend our limited cash on hostel stays in the meantime. We ended up staying with Jackie and Michael for five nights or so, and during that time, met a parade of characters through Jackie and Michael’s revolving door of traveler hospitality.

James – hipster street musician from Minnesota
Ana – accompanying hipster street musician from Minnesota/Russia
Sven – gigantic viking, who specializes in IT, and lives in Germany. Also, he snores. Loudly.
Nisa – Indonesian girl who probably gets annoyed when people she meets fail to realize that her name isn’t “Lisa” until after she’s already gone back home. Sorry!
2 French Canadian snowboarders whose names I never did understand, but who gave us some of their camp soap, which I still use as shampoo. Thanks dudes!

We had originally planned on leaving Barcelona right after my parents, but since we now had time on our hands while we waited for our new debit card to arrive, we spent our days indulging in some Barcelona activities that we otherwise might not have had time for…

• Exploring Gaudi’s Parc Guell. Just as tripped out as Gaudi’s buildings throughout the city center. Maybe even more so, since this time, he had a whole public park to work with. A favorite for local families on Sunday afternoons, and giant, ceramically tiled lizards.
• Finding the best tapas in Barcelona. Jackie and Michael introduced us to a tapas restaurant near the harbor that’s packed with the in-the-know locals. Why? Easy: fried scallops, fried zucchini, fried eggplant, fried potatoes with spicy brava sauce. Oh, and it’s super cheap. I almost feel guilty not keeping this place a secret, but since my instructions for finding it are terrible, and nobody reads this blog anyway, what’s the harm? Its name is BAR JAJ-CA TAPES, and it’s in the neighborhood called Barceloneta. That’s all I know, but if you accept the quest for amazing tapas, your stomach will thank you.
• Witnessing the Magic Fountain. Said fountain, atop the hill known as Montjuic, truly deserves its given name. Verily, the fountain must be under some mystical enchantment, for ev’ry evening at sundown, it begins to spray water into the air, though it be under the influence of neither man nor beast. What unseen power compels it thusly? No mortal may say, but I bear witness to the fact that if one arrives on the night of the Jewish or Christian Sabbath, he shall see a display of sorcery that incorporates lights, colors, and music. Such magics my eye hath never ere beheld! Fountain operates daily, weekend showings throughout winter begin at 7:00PM.
• Visiting the Salvador Dali Museum. Dali’s personal museum isn’t even in Barcelona, but Jackie and Michael insisted that it’s worth the 2 hour train ride to the town of Figueres. It’s obvious upon your arrival in Figueres that the Dali Museum is just about all they’ve got going for themselves in this town. From the moment you exit the train station, signs posted every few steps lead you all the way to the museum’s front door. As part of his carefully coordinated lifelong effort to propagate his own fame, Dali designed the museum himself, and saw it completed in his own lifetime. Which explains why you find yourself passing through giant mouths between museum hallways, and why the roof of the building is covered with eggs. The museum proclaims itself to be the largest surrealist object in the world, and the journey through Dali’s art is a fantastically disorientating experience. Also, Dali may have been a little too obsessed with his own fame, which thankfully allows for additional patron entertainment. To get the most bang for your buck, be sure to stop and read the signs Dali placed throughout the museum, which convey such modest messages as, “My art is taught as a prophecy in the United States.”
• Eating the best ham sandwich IN THE WORLD. Or so proclaimed the New York Times, when they visited Barcelona’s Café Vienna in 2006. It’s certainly not the cheapest ham sandwich IN THE WORLD – after the dollar-euro conversion, a rather small sandwich set me back $9.00. But this is due to the ham being purely of the esteemed “Iberico” variety, which means that it comes from special pigs, notable for being raised somewhere in rural Spain on a diet of nothing but acorns. The sandwich is indeed a thing of wonder when compared the type of ham we get in the United States (and I’m from Virginia!), but when compared to the regular old non-acorn ham eaten across the rest of Europe on a daily basis, it’s really not that different. Crap, now I sound like one of those jerks who’s all like, “Well, when I was in Europe…” I take it all back! Fried chicken and apple pie forever!*
• Getting revenge. Dear d-bag who stole our debit card number: you think this is over? Maybe you think you’re slick with your fake name and address, but you picked on two people who like only one thing more than hoarding our money: sweet, sweet revenge. Your e-mails lie, but your IP address doesn’t, and when the investigators come knocking on your door, I’ll be paying them extra to bring along a couple of the super-sized mutant cops, outfitted with webcams so we can watch the whole thing live from Portugal. Oh yeah, and before I forget: no one do business with ALEXANDER NAVA, with the SOUTH STAR REALTY COMPANY, who is a GIANT THIEF and probably [censored by Brittany].

Eventually, our new debit card did arrive, which meant it was finally time to leave Barcelona. The only requirement for our next destination was that it needed to be westward, if we had any hope of ever making it to Portugal. During our time in Barcelona, we kept hearing from travelers that we needed to see Granada, and after consulting a map, it turns out that Granada is indeed west of Barcelona. That was enough for us, so the same day we got our debit card in the mail, we bought tickets on the overnight train to Granada. Onward to warmer weather and flamenco dancing! Oh yeah, and in terms of gypsy population concentration, the veritable heart of the beast. But who ever thinks about things like that?

*P.S. The bread on the best ham sandwich IN THE WORLD shreds the roof of your mouth. U.S.A.!

The unwelcome turn of events on New Year’s Eve was the first (and hopefully last) moment on this trip that I’ve genuinely feared for our safety. It was surreal: imagine riot footage you’ve seen on television, with protesters desperately scattering while being chased by cops wielding weapons. Not a scene I ever saw myself being a part of.

When we’d safely made it back to the apartment, our fear turned into bewilderment: why in the world would a cop attack an innocent, trapped tourist?

So we did what every person of our generation does when confronted with the unknown: we googled it. Turns out the Spanish police tend towards violence — a vestige of Franco’s time when the police were less like police and more like the personal security force of politically extremist factions. Since the Spanish political front has calmed, we assumed such violence was anomalous in contemporary Spain. But upon consulting the next day’s newspaper, we realized that no one considered the event newsworthy. Nor were any locals surprised when we explained the incident.

We decided to occupy our New Year’s Day with family-friendly and hopefully police-brutality-free activities. The Barcelona aquarium was noted in our guidebook as being one of the best in Europe. Of course, every tourist attraction touts itself as the best something. It seems that public relations reps simply fill in the following statement: “the best/most ____ in all of _____!” and have it printed on every brochure and in every guidebook. The best (worst) example of this was a museum on Crete that claimed it was the best naval museum in the eastern Mediterranean. What geographical region does that even encompass??

If the Barcelona aquarium is one of the best in Europe, that doesn’t say much for European aquariums. First, it was insanely expensive. Second, it was tiny. Verdict: skip it.

However, I did make a discovery at the Barcelona aquarium that may have justified the price for me. The aquarium had a tank full of clown anemone fish a la Finding Nemo. Maybe I’m an idiot for not knowing that Nemos actually exist – this could be just another tidbit of common knowledge that I’ve been completely oblivious to. I’ve decided that I will own clown anemone fish upon my return. They are the cutest, eensiest fish I’ve ever seen (in fact, the only fish I’ve ever seen that could be called “cute” at all), and I stood with my nose pressed against the glass cooing at them until I realized families behind me were staring.

It was kind of disturbing that we chose to eat another giant seafood menu del dia after visiting an aquarium, but this did not occur to us at the time. And it was really great calamari! What was less impressive about this menu was the dessert Abby and I chose to get, which turned out to be a plastic container of unflavored and unsweetened yogurt standing on a saucer. Oh, with the exotic side of packet of sugar.

After lunch, we took the funicular (isn’t that a great word?) up to Montjuic, a giant mountain on the edge of Barcelona proper that affords great views of the city. We visited an old castle atop the mountain and took pictures of the spectacular harbor view. Montjuic is a huge place that boasts many museums and attractions, but to visit them would have required a lot of walking, and that’s not really our style. So we decided to get hot chocolate instead.

Spanish hot chocolate is rich and thick, whipped up in giant pots by ancient Spanish women. Although as a general rule, the Spaniards don’t really do sweet stuff, so don’t be surprised when your dessert isn’t as sweet as your palette is accustomed to. In fact, most restaurants only offer a bowl of fruit as dessert. Flan if you’re lucky. And if you’re really lucky, the delicacy known as cup-of-plain-yogurt.

The next day had been declared shopping day by Janet (Ben’s mom), Abby and I. I was giddy – there are girls here! And I can go shopping with them! I might even get new things!

The day started out on a high note with Abby and I bargaining at a shop near a local market for two pairs of shoes for ten euros. As the day wore on, and we moved on the mall (yes, we found a mall!), we realized that our luck had ended: the crushing value of the euro made budget shopping with our measly dollars nearly impossible.

I was not going to let my day of shopping go wasted, though, and at our last stop I was easily convinced to splurge on a dress for the price of 17 euros. And this is when the fun began (because for some reason, no day in Barcelona could pass without something traumatic happening). It started when my debit card was denied at the shop. Strange, I thought, because I am certain Ben and I just deposited money into our European checking account. I chalked it up to faulty machines at the store and went to the ATM to get some cash. There, I was informed that I had zero dollars in my account. Interesting.

Upon returning home and checking our online statement, my worst fears were confirmed: Ben and I were victims of credit card fraud. There were charges on our statement that we physically could not have made, as they were made in Spain while we were in Prague. The thief had cleaned us out, taking nearly $2000 from our account (of course, that’s only like 15 euros).

Turns out that one of the apartment companies Ben and I had contacted in order to reserve a place in Barcelona (a place that turned out to be “double booked”), had decided to take all of our money instead. THANKS “ALEXANDER NAVA” of “SOUTH STAR COMPANIES.” You can blame it on an errant employee all you want but I KNOW THE TRUTH. His email address is southstarcompany@gmail.com. Please send him hate mail.

And now I will write an overwhelmingly positive review of our bank, HSBC. We opened an account with them because their ATMs are all over Europe, and all along we’ve been consistently impressed with their customer service. When I called them from Barcelona, nearly in tears, they could not have been kinder – they gave us all our money back, promised to investigate the bad guy, and overnight-ed us new debit cards. HSBC rocks my world!

Unfortunately, since our new debit cards had to be sent to America first, our current situation was not good: we had no cash and no means by which we could get cash. We put on our best we’re-starving-and-penniless faces and Ben’s dad bought us dinner. Thanks Craig! In fact, if Ben’s family hadn’t been visiting, the situation would’ve been immensely worse.

Not wanting to risk any more drama, we decided to stay in that night and play cards. I don’t even want to know what would’ve happened had we left the house – flood? famine? plague of locusts?

The plan was simple enough: spend the daytime hours of New Year’s Eve taking in the architectural accomplishments of Antonio Gaudi, and celebrate the ringing of midnight in Barcelona’s version of Times Square, Placa Catalunya. In the city that some call the best place in the world to celebrate New Year’s Eve, this was a can’t-miss recipe for holiday success. But by the end of the night, my family would be questioning if they ever should have boarded the plane from Virginia. How could this happen?

First things first, let’s not blame Gaudi. From apartment buildings to public parks to the Sagrada Familia Cathedral, his nature-inspired architecture is unbelievable, and like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Which reminds me: why haven’t I ever seen this stuff before? All of my days, I’ve been under the impression that architecture need conform to one of several chronological movements, all of which seemingly adhere to the guiding design principle that buildings should bore me. But Gaudi’s buildings aren’t just not boring; they’re mesmerizing, evocative, and most importantly, FUN. Why make a middle-class urban home look like a middle-class urban home, when it can look like a floral mystery cave?

And in the case of the still-unfinished Sagrada Familia, why make a cathedral look like a cathedral, when it can look like a redwood forest? My favorite detail here had to be the bases of some of the outdoor columns, which look not like the interchangeable column bases of any classical order, but like load-bearing turtles. Amazingly, the Sagrada Familia is still years from being completed, and construction was begun back in 1882! Current official estimates put the completion date at 2026, but our cathedral tour guide confided that many insiders believe there’s no way the project will be finished in the first half of this century. Gaudi’s final design plans look mighty impressive, but will we live to see them realized? Stay tuned, because I’ll be implementing a betting pool here in the very near future. And they said this blog would never make me a dime!

For my mother, the highlight of this day was probably losing my father to the merciless grip of the Barcelona metro system. I guess we took a little too long to get off the metro at one particular stop, because my dad, being the last one of us in line to disembark, ended up on the wrong side of the metro doors when they slid shut. Heroically, he gave Brittany a “save yourself!” type of push through the closing doors, and we all turned back to watch, through the metro window, as he wiggled his hands free from the closed doors just in time to give us a goodbye wave before the metro sped him off to its next stop. This, of course, induced riotous laughter in not only our party, but in every passenger who was around to notice what had happened. In a stroke of good fortune, Brittany and I had been telling my family that very morning about our long-standing plan for reunification if such an unlikely event were ever to separate us. The person who gets unwillingly carried away should simply get off at the next metro stop, and the other will board the next metro to meet them there. My dad must have been listening, because when the four of us arrived at the next metro stop several minutes later, we found him, all alone, patiently waiting on a nearby bench.

That night was going to be one of the highlights of our stay in Barcelona, and, in an uncharacteristic turn, we’d done enough research to be prepared for everything. We knew the place to be at midnight was Placa Catalunya, where everyone in town would be gathered for the midnight countdown. We knew the pre-midnight tradition of eating 12 grapes during the final 12 seconds of the old year in order to guarantee 12 months of good luck, and we knew the post-midnight tradition of toasting the new year with a proper bottle of cava (think Spanish champagne). What we didn’t know, was the evil that lurks in the hearts of men.

En route to Catalunya Square that night, we picked up a craftily overpriced bottle of cava from a market on Las Ramblas, and sought pre-party sustenance in the form of chocolate covered waffles. Good Luck Grapes were looking like the most difficult necessity to procure in the (literal) eleventh hour, especially after Brittany was screamed at for climbing on furniture in a nearby restaurant, in an effort to grab some grapes that lay tantalizingly out of reach. Turns out they were placed out of reach for a reason, being that they were reserved for the wait staff´s own midnight celebration. I could see the owner kicking himself for placing the grapes in sight of this climbing American tourist, and I tried to comfort him with my knowledge that even if he´d buried the things underground, Brittany would have sniffed them out. But I didn´t know how to say that in Spanish, so I just ushered her out the door, while explaining for her behavior by her pointing to her head and loudly whispering, “loco.”

Grapes seemed a lost cause until Brittany smelled an enterprising youth selling plastic cups of grapes on the street for two euros a pop. Any hope of negotiating the price down was lost when he heard her ear-piercing squeal of delight, but Brittany is never one to get any less than her money´s worth: she actually made the salesman pour the contents of one of the cups onto a plate, and count out proof that there were indeed twelve grapes inside. My pride runneth over.

As midnight approached, Placa Catalunya became a scene of free-flowing cava, amateur fireworks, and scattered tribes of young European men, segregated by nationality, competing to see who could sing their country’s beloved football songs with the most fervor. It´s hard to say for sure, but from where we stood, I think the Italians won.

I want to tell you what the last few moments of 2007 were like in a Barcelona, but in a curious twist, there was no countdown to midnight in Catalunya Square. There WAS a clock on one of the department buildings in the square, but it seemed to lack a second hand, which made the prospect of identifying the exact stroke of midnight a dubious one. Without a common concept of time, different sections of the crowd celebrated the new year at different moments, as determined by the first beeps you heard from someone´s nearby watch.

I suppose it is possible, but highly unlikely, that we ate our twelve grapes during the actual last twelve seconds of 2007. Come to think of it, I was the only one of our group to finish my grapes at all. Abby spewed the first one with the accompanying warning, “the grapes have seeds!” and if this wasn´t enough to deter my parents and Brittany from eating theirs, then the lack of a true crescendo to midnight killed off what remained of their spirit. Which was fine with me, because I had been feeling hungry anyway, and now I got to eat many more grapes than expected. While most people in Catalunya Square that night are now in line for 12 months of good luck, I am looking forward to 38 or so.

Shortly after the last stubborn holdouts in the crowd conceded that it was probably midnight, the amateur fireworks grew more frequent, and my confidence in our safety quickly flew. Across the square, we could see the glow from a fire that looked neither intentional nor contained, and the final straw fell when one poorly aimed firework ricocheted off a building, and its radiant core began to parachute down in a trajectory that looked to end at, disturbingly, our position in the street. Fireballs raining from the sky was an unforeseen development, and I´m not ashamed to say that I was leading the charge of shouting party-goers forced into mortal flight.

Out of the frying pan, and into the fire. We chose poorly when selecting our escape route, a fact that should have been evident when we noticed that some terrified looking Italians were running past us, coming from the very direction that we were headed. But all I could see ahead were police, and as all white people from America know, the police are our friends. So I marched confidently ahead, leading my family into whatever situation was developing down the street, because, hey, what could be worse than fireballs from the sky?

The answer, my friends, is the Spanish police. Now let me be clear: most Spanish police you see are the friendly variety, and can be easily distinguished by the same harmless neon vests that we Americans associate with the neighborhood crossing guard. But when the crap hits the fan, I´m sorry to be the one to tell you that there will be no smiling faces to hold your hand. Some sort of riot had erupted in the Barcelona streets that night, and the cuddly neon vests had run for the hills. In front of us, a vocal group of men with questionable intent surrounded a parked car in the street, and although we didn’t know exactly what they wanted, we knew we didn’t want any part of it. But by the time we got close enough to the action to figure this out, we had unwittingly become part of a crowd that was prevented from orderly dispersement by a series of temporary fences, presumably erected for purposes of crowd control. Surprisingly, angry mobs don´t like being fenced in against their will, and as the crowd surged against the fences, carrying us unwillingly along, I found myself unable to keep my thoughts off of the deaths by crowd stampede that seem to befall European soccer matches.

As the throbbing of the crowd grew more intense, we quickly found ourselves being pressed, with growing force, against the yellow fence gates. But then, suddenly, at the hand of some unseen benefactor, the fence gates were flung open! As the pressure was mercifully released from our pen, we were among the first to spill out of its confines. Was the horror over? Were our neon-vested friends here to save us? Naive hopes. Distracted by thoughts of how I hoped my obituary would read, I had failed to notice that during our period of confinement, the streets had been seized by Barcelona´s finest. And not the shiny, happy police we knew and loved, but a terrible new breed of Spanish cop. Genetically engineered to be taller, stronger, and crueler than any law enforcement specimen that has come before, these ultracops sport full black riot gear, battle batons, and a meticulously bred hatred of logic and reason.

The crowd continued to spill violently out of the fence gates, and the wave carried me, unknowingly, directly into one of the ubercops´s line of sight. When I noticed the black boots approaching me with aggressive speed, I quickly looked up to find the face of their owner. At first I could see only a tinted face shield, but as my predator moved closer, I squinted into the darkness of his visor, and saw the reason for the mask. His eyes, if you can call them eyes, did not possess the spark of humanity we all display, and that I urge you to never again take for granted. For when this spark is absent, there is in its stead a terrible void, which is not a thing that you gaze upon, but a place that you go. A place where I will always regret that I have now been, and can only describe to you as a black hole for hope, and the place that love goes to die. It was here that I spent the longest moment of my life.

When I snapped out of this evil trance, I immediately knew I should have taken my chances inside the pen of endless crushing. I tried to back-pedal, but with a crowd of thousands directly behind me, I found that there was nowhere to run. With his prey now trapped by a human fence, the villain pulled his riot stick from its sheath, and quickly advanced. I surrendered both hands into the air, with pleas of “Si! Si!”, in hope of conveying a promise of compliance in exchange for the ability to walk away from the encounter under my own volition. As the Italians who we´d originally seen running from this scene had known, such hope is grossly misplaced. The demon shoved me in the chest, and as I stumbled backward, delivered a crushing blow with his riot stick to my left leg.

Reeling in disbelief, I signaled to my family that they needed to RUN. But since they´d witnessed my encounter with Super Shredder with their own eyes, I think the message was redundant. As we struggled to push our way back through the mob, one unlucky fellow attempted to escape the massacre by ducking between me and my mother. Cowering on the ground must be an even worse crime than trying to reason or plead with these police, because the same cop that attempted to cripple me now grapped this guy by the hood of his sweatshirt, and, riot stick in hand, began raining down blow after blow on his back. I would have liked to intervene on his behalf, but I like my spinal column more, so I continued to push my family through the mob, and as far away as possible from the terrible consequences of irresponsible biogenetics.

Since you´re reading what is quite obviously a retrospective account of our Barcelona adventure, I find it impossible to infuse with any drama the announcement that we survived our New Year´s Eve. All things considered, I would still consider recommending Barcelona as a New Year´s Eve destination (now who´s loco?). But to ensure a successful evening, make sure you do as the Italians do: travel in herds, sing for your beloved sports team at the top of your lungs, and in the event that you become faced with the Spanish police, run like hell.

Barcelona! We had been including the city in our agenda since Day 1 of planning this trip, but my excitement about our visit had been growing over these past four months. It seems that every seasoned traveler we meet says the same thing: “You MUST see Barcelona.” And as if that weren’t enough, my parents and sister unexpectedly bought plane tickets to Spain, and would meet us in Barcelona to ring in the new year. After four months with hardly a familiar face but each other’s (undermining exception #1: The Mooneys, undermining exception #2: Mr. Ross), we were both eagerly awaiting this mini-reunion.

The oft-discussed plan was to meet my family in the Barcelona airport at the time of their afternoon arrival. But due to some faulty bus station information (thanks Lonely Planet!) we managed to arrive at the Barcelona airport about thirty minutes late. Back in the land of cell phones, this setback would be negligible after a quick phone call to update the parents on our status. But since neither we or my parents were carrying cell phones overseas, I could envision nothing but catastrophic consequences as we belatedly made our way to the airport. Without a way to call one another, how would my family know what had happened to us? Surely they would assume we were not coming to the airport after all, and attempt to find our rented apartment on their own. Without a knowledge of Spanish, they would be unable to locate the correct address, and become stranded somewhere between the airport and the city outskirts. They would have no means of withdrawing euros from an ATM, be unable to hire a taxi back to the airport, and, at dusk, be robbed by gypsies. With no remaining recourse but to adopt the mentality of their colorful tormentors, my strange and inevitable fate was to lose my family to the intoxicating gypsy lifestyle of inner Barcelona.

As it turns out, Fate had other plans. We arrived at the airport to find that my family’s plane had arrived a little late anyway, and we had no problem spotting my shouting, jumping mother in the arrivals terminal. But still: how did people DO things like coordinate travel before cell phones? If you were forced to carve out an adult existence in the pre-cell phone, pre-internet dystopia, I applaud your hard-knock life.

Since my family had just taken three back-to-back-to-back flights, and Brittany and I had just endured a 24-hour bus ride from Prague, our newly formed fivesome quickly made our way to our rented apartment in the neighborhood of Gracia, and took a sensible nap to prepare for a full evening of sightseeing. Haha! That would be a twisted reality. Since the only thing we all like more than sleep is food, we unanimously decided that the first thing we should do in Barcelona is eat. Which should be followed not by a sensible nap, but by sleeping through the night. We therefore prepared for hibernation by stuffing ourselves in a neighborhood restaurant. The main thing I remember about dinner is that Abby (my sister) ordered something in Spanish that turned out to basically be a french fry sandwich. Needless to say, gastronomical expectations for this city were quickly set high.

The next morning, we decided to spend our first full day in Barcelona strolling down that famous promenade, Las Ramblas, and exploring the adjacent Barri Gotic, or Gothic Neighborhood. We started our Ramblas walk in the city’s main square, Placa Catalunya, where we knew the next evening’s New Year’s Eve festivities would be centered. We made our way all the way down Las Ramblas to the harbor, and the most impressive sights on the journey were not pieces of the city’s famous architecture, or its lively markets. Without question, that distinction belongs to the living statues and street performers who define the length of the promenade. Their creativity knows no bounds, from the bicycling skeleton men to the most impressive Edward Scissorhands impersonator I could imagine, to Abby’s personal favorite, an elephant rider who aims to steal kisses from the ladies.

At the harbor end of Las Ramblas, a towering Christopher Columbus statue dominates all that dare surround it. Barcelona propaganda tells us that it was here that Columbus received his commission from Ferdinand and Isabella for the errant voyage that would wind up in America. With outstretched arm, the likeness of Columbus points directly out to sea, and, presumably, the New World. But due to the alignment of Barcelona’s harbor on the coast, it turns out that Columbus’ confident finger is actually pointing more closely to Libya. Oops! One supposes that those in charge of the project thought it would look silly for Columbus to be pointing overland to the west, and since no one’s actually nerdy enough to investigate whether the statue is aligned 100% accurately, Barcelona elected for the majestic orientation seen today. I find the entire fiasco amazingly appropriate, since if there’s one thing Columbus is not known for, it’s an accurate sense of direction.

It was also on this day that we discovered the almost-too-good-to-be-true Spanish dining phenomenon known as menu del dia, or menu of the day. Spaniards take a mid-afternoon lunch as their big meal of the day, and restaurants cater to this preference by offering a several-course menu del dia, for the palatable price of 7-10 euros a head. We found that the menu del dia typically includes a first course (salad, soup, or pasta), a second course (meat, fish, or pasta), a dessert, and an alcoholic beverage of your choice. The same menu selections at the same restaurants would cost you three times as much in the evening, so we didn’t need much convincing to quickly adapt to eating giant seafood meals at 2:00pm.

And while I’m on the subject of wining and dining, let me advise all who will come after me about that refreshing concoction known as clara. Clara = cerveza + lemon soda, and it’s sold in just about every bar and restaurant in Barcelona. We found that the key to making or breaking a clara is getting the cerveza:lemon soda ratio just right, so feel confident in the clara chemistry in those establishments where the bartender can clearly be seen guzzling clara on the job. It’s here that you are in the hands of the true masters.

Next time: a very merry New Year’s Eve! (OF DEATH)