Barcelona suits Dave just fine.

I forgot to put two things in yesterday’s blog. One is our new Barcelona tradition of coming back to the hotel after dinner and having a quiet time of sitting in our sitting room and drinking tea together. The other is thinking about phylloxera, and how it is different over here. Even in California, it’s something that happened and was hard, but didn’t take out the livelihood of entire regions. In Macon, and in the Priorat, they talk about phylloxera the way Jews talk about the Holocaust: it is the time that everything changed. There is before, and there is after. It is longer ago – in the Priorat, it was in the late 1800s – but people still talk about it as if it happened to them, like the Holocaust, like the Exodus.

Also the differences between a red light and a green light, or a sidewalk and a street, are not as sharply defined as they are in some other places.

Both of us slept well despite splitting the bottle of Priorat. I got up first and came out to the sitting room to see what had happened in the US while I slept – the 9 hour time difference is interesting. We headed off to Juan in a Million for breakfast – it’s run by British expats and although they don’t have porridge they did have great big bowls of muesli with yogurt and honey and vintage blues on the stereo, and although we were the only ones in the restaurant and the service was very slow we completely loved it there and may go back tomorrow. It’s 4 or 5 blocks from here, and walking in Barcelona at 10 am is like walking through a ghost town. It’s quite nice, actually.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a Nepalese store that I’d seen on the way from the train station. Dave got two shirts and I got a pair of shiny pants and a shirt. We dropped them off at the hotel and continued on towards the Barcelona Catherdral, which is free in the mornings and for which I was now properly dressed. It was built in the 13-15^th centuries and is quite a place. What’s especially interesting about it, aside from its many dainty spires, are two things: First, it has many small alters dedicated to particular saints along the side walls. They all have electric candles in front of them – you put your euros in and one turns on. In the side building they have actual burning candles – I’ve never seen electric ones before. Also all the side alters are closed off by ornate iron gates, which gives a strange pirate prison cell kind of feel to the thing. Also, the crypt of St Eulalia is right in the middle, with stairs going down in to it, which is unusual. And finally, while we were there in the side room, which has a garden in it, a line of geese suddenly appeared, honking.

We then walked over to the area of the Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar and the Born marketplace, which is my favorite section of the city so far. The is a main street which is wide and has a pedestrian walkway with many narrow alleys coming off of it – much like La Rambla. Except this area is barely touristy at all, and has lots of restaurants and shops that are fun to look into. The Born marketplace used to be an actual marketplace, but now is the site of an archeological excavation of the marketplace and surroundings as they were in the 1700s. It’s especially interesting because they have a lot of written information from then as well, down to who lived where and what they had in their houses.

Then we headed back to the hotel again, but ended up walking past it to have lunch at the pizza place, where we had essentially the same lunch we had at the pizza place in Macon. The pizza wasn’t quite as good here but the crust was just as yummy. We also each had a glass of Estrella Damm, the local beer, which is a very easy drinking beer that both of us thought felt much higher alcohol than in really is (5.4%). After lunch we stopped in to make a reservation at Loria, the restaurant we ate at the first night we were here, because we love it there.

When we finally got back to the hotel there was a huge group checking in and they were cleaning our room, so we hung out in the “business center” (a computer and printer in the lobby) for a bit. I printed out some flyers for the cruise. When the congestion had cleared out Dave asked about our box – no luck. We went up to the room and hung out in our sitting room until it was time for things to open again. I also did a little ironing.

We headed out for shopping a little after 4. There are two main shipping areas, the Passeig de Gracia and the area between the Plaza Catalunya and the Barcelona Cathedral. The P de G is just two blocks over from our street, so we headed over there. The first store we went into was called Mango, and Dave hit the jackpot – 2 dress shirts, a suit, dress shoes, a tie, and a t-shirt. To make things even better, the European slim cut looks super on him – no tailoring needed. Fortunately we left a fair amount of room in our suitcases so everything should fit.

We went to a couple of places to look for things for me, and then decided Dave should head back to the hotel to put his treasures away while I kept shopping, and then we’d meet up later. As it turned out the house where we separated was one of the Gaudi houses, so we got to see one. I continued shopping without much success. Eventually I made it to the Zara store, and my phone said I had a text. I was looking for a shady place so I could read it when I heard Dave calling me. His text said he was at the Zara store. How unlikely is that?

Long story short, we walked and walked and looked and looked. Sadly, while European clothes fit Dave wonderfully, I am completely the wrong shape. We did find one place with dresses that were more or less what I was looking for, but they started at size 42 – I’m a 40 on a big day. I should have eaten more in Macon. Oh, wait – I did eat more in Macon. Eventually we were both exhausted. Dave was a trooper through all of this, and we both did very well at keeping our senses of humor. We were also tired of the loud American music they play in the shops that have clothes you can afford. So I will not have any special clothes for formal nights, but I do have 3 nice dresses with me so that will be fine.

Because here’s what. This is a bit of a challenge for me, because I won’t have the things I want to have, including my cute little purse for evening wear. But we get to take this fabulous cruise all the way from Barcelona to Florida (kind of like Columbus only not really), which is something super special. If I can’t enjoy myself because I am missing some things, then I have a problem that our suitcase arriving would not have fixed.

It doesn't get busy util 10 pm - too late for us!

Anyway, we got showered and headed off to Loria, where one of the waiters remembered us. I continued my search for a signature cocktail by ordering a negroni, which I didn’t like but Dave did, so I drank his Priorat rosat instead. The food wasn’t quite as good as last time, although that may also be a case of second time syndrome. The music, however, was disco all night which was totally excellent. We finished dinner with two of the shortest coffees ever – more like a syrup than a beverage – and headed back to our sitting room for tea and unwinding. I’m hooked on Barcelona and hope to be back one day.

This is the last blog post from land. I hope to be able to use the ship’s internet for blog posts as we journey down the Mediterranean coast of Spain, through the Straits of Gibralter, and across the Atlantic to Ft Lauderdale. If not – thanks for riding along and see you in November!