Barcelona

Just got back from a long weekend in sunny Spain, spending four days in the ultra-cool city of Barcelona, which for some reason is lisp-ily pronounced "Bar-tha-lona" by the locals. (Something to do with them embracing their Catalonian heritage, I think.)

Barcelona is another great town in Europe which lived up to its billing. I heard nothing but positives about it prior to our trip and after going its easy to see what all the fuss is about. The weather is nice (really warm in our case), the city is beautiful, the food is good, and the people are friendly.

Unlike some of our other recent trips, this getaway featured a larger group. Besides Gwen and myself, there was Pete, Betsy, Betsy's work-friend Dimas (favorite over-used quote regarding him - "DIMAS high-school-football RULES!"), Margie (a PA whom Gwen knew from Iraq), Steve (Margie's Man), and my friend John Lesher, a buddy from medical school who also did (civilian) residency in Seattle (and who is perhaps most famously known for being Destro during our infamous Cobra Halloween in New Orleans.) It was a good group.

We flew out on Friday afternoon, another Ryan Air low-fare special, destined to return on Monday. Things started off well, because we learned we shared our departing plane with the German speed-metal band "Vendetta". Suspicions began to mount that a band (of some sort) was on board when we saw surly long-haired German guys checking in instruments at the ticket counter. Several of the guys including a manager-looking type had t-shirts on with a web address featuring the words 'vendetta' and 'band' on them. (A little searching reveals the band's myspace page...).

Once I got it in my head that there was some band on board the plane I couldn't stop making cracks about "how hard this flight was going to ROCK", or "dude, this is going to be SO AWESOME", etc. It was even funnier when we boarded and Gwen ended up sitting next to two of the guys. The ultimate moment came when we landed and as we were walking off the tarmac I caught a glimpse of the back of one of those t-shirts, which featured the all-too-truism "If you are married, you can divorce your wife. But if you're married to metal, you're married 4 life." I don't know why, but the gratuitous use of the NUMBER 4 on the shirt had me cracking up infinitely more than if I just seen the shirt with a written 'for'.




(A little research reveals that Vendetta is in the midst of a comeback tour of sorts after releasing only two albums, sometime in the 1980s or 1990s. They had a show in Barcelona over the weekend. The image of this poor band - relegated to flying Ryan Air - its a little sad. Despite my many "these guys effing ROCK" declarations, I can't help but think a more successful band wouldn't have to suffer a discount airline during their tour, checking their instruments, removing chains for security scanners, etc - the thought of this just cracks me up for some reason.)

Anyway, after rocking out (in my head) with Vendetta we arrived into one of the auxiliary Barcelona airports located a good distance outside the city, and we had to hop a bus to get into town. The first thing we noticed was how sunny it was, and we began stripping off jackets and sweatshirts (which are necessary for the German "Fall") on the way down. Spain, unlike Germany, was doing its best to hold onto at least a small piece of Summer.

Pete, a natural tour guide anyway (he has schooled us many times over by now from the various Ric Steve's books in many cities), had been to Barcelona before and took the reins when it came to leading us around. Gwen (after much toil I might add) found us a great apartment big enough for eight, which was located in a great spot right near the hub of Barcelona's activity.

When the five of us showed up (Gwen, Pete, Margie, Steve, and myself), the other three were already there. We dropped up of our stuff and then headed right down stairs where there were a couple of open air cafes and bars literally right below our apartment windows. The sun was out, and soon we began to have a few drinks and then we headed out into the city.

It was good to catch up with John in particular, who I hadn't seen since February 2006 (when he and Chris visited right before I went to Iraq), and we spent some time catching up. The rest of Friday night we sort of marched around Barcelona, stopping in for drinks here and tapas there. The food in Barcelona is quite solid, unique if not earth shattering. Its better than German food (not hard), probably not as good as French or Italian, but closer to the latter two in my opinion.

One weird thing about Spain is that everybody eats dinner late - like REALLY late - put it this way if you show up at a restaurant at 9:30 pm you are probably one of the first to be seated for "dinner" that evening. We adapted to this madness by having an early evening snack each night, which basically amounted to four meals a day and played a little havoc with people's digestive systems. (Eating dinner at 12:30 am is just weird. On the flip side, I was a big fan of the "siesta" mentality...)

After gallivanting about Friday night we all headed back to bed late. The next day most of got up around 9 am or so. Pete got up early and actually went running through the city for an hour, thus declaring himself insane. After he returned we found some coffee and a quick breakfast before signing on with a "Bike Tours of Barcelona" type of thing which turned out to be really cool. We had a good local guide who spent about 4 hours total with us on some rented mountain bikes and the weather was phenomenal. Bike touring, we're learning, is a great way to see a place and cover a lot more ground in less time and with less energy. We circled all over the place on those things from the inner city to the ports areas and beaches and back again. We were schooled in local and national history alike at points along the way and of course their was immature behavior on the bikes from time to time (read: every five minutes).

After the tour we got some more tapas and then some of us headed back for a nap (read: me) while others went out to a city park and explored some more. We met up again later and had dinner and some more drinks to round out Saturday evening.

Sunday Pete headed out early for a Picasso walking tour that no one else made it to (nobody, including Pete, made it to bed before 3 am the night before). This early go-getter, bright eyes and bushy tailed behavior, combined with the prior day's running all combined to suggest that Pete is not in fact human.

While Pete was doing his tour, several others of us took our time and then headed out on our own. Margie and Steve hiked off somewhere while Gwen, John, Dimas (high school football rules!) and I went to the Picasso museum and spent an hour or so there. (Between Van Gogh and Picasso, I take Van Gogh, having been to their two respective museums in consecutive weeks. Both are good - I just think Van Gogh is better. Write that down.)

Lunch was more tapas and beer (a recurring theme) and then we all met up back at the house to send off Betsy and Dimas-high-school-football-rules, who were flying out Sunday evening rather than Monday.

Following that, Gwen and I headed out on our own for a bit and walked for another hour or so checking out some more of the sights. We returned to the apartment again at about 5:30 pm on Sunday or so for a very important reason - it was almost time for NFL football. I had brought my laptop and we had internet service in the apartment so I was all set to watch football. (Yes, I'm obsessed. Yes, I spent at least four hours watching football on Sunday night on my laptop in an apartment while in Barcelona, a city I had never been to before. Any more questions?) Gwen stayed around to watch football with me. We were both happy because both the Steelers and the Giants won, and I even had some fantasy luck for once this season, always a plus.

While we were watching football, John and Pete headed out to try to go to a REAL "football" game featuring the Barcelona team at the stadium. Unfortunately the game was sold out, but they managed to head to a bar and watch the "match" like a couple of pure-bred Euros.

After the first set of NFL games was over, we headed out for another dinner, which turned out to be our best meal of the trip. We sat on some lush red carpet dais which seemed quite middle eastern, though the food was Spanish. It was an interesting set up, but we had a good meal and some good conversation (it was just Pete, Gwen, John, and I at this particular dinner) - a good way to wrap up our trip.

On Monday morning, we got back up early, cabbed to the bus station, bussed back to the airport, boarded our (delayed) plane, landed, and drove back home. Total travel time was about 8 hours to do all this. (Not sure what's up lately, but on my recent travels over the past 8 months I'd say at least 60 to 70% of my individual legs have had some sort of delay or problem. The industry is apparently in shambles.)

And that's our trip. I had a good time and again Barcelona is a great town - I could easily go back in the future at some point. That said, the travels, despite being a great opportunity, can get tiring (and not to mention expensive - the dollar is incredibly weak right now - ouch) when strung together consecutively and I'm looking forward to a few weekends of chilling out (and more importantly - focusing on watching football). We have another trip coming up to the States at the end of this month to see Gwen's mom and step-dad in Florida. After that we're happy to rest for a while, I think, and then host (my parents come out over the holidays) before possibly attacking the mountains again for another ski season.





More Photos:

Barcelona 2007