Day 12

Wednesday August 8


7:45am CET - Woke up early to take a shower and get an early start. It was great to run hot water on my feet LOL

8:30am CET - it was raining and we wanted breakfast so we went to the first place we found, a local chain of sandwich shops that had some pastries. I had a chocolate pastry thing that was quite tasty and filling. Then of course a few doors down we found a veritable bakery with an entire filled counter of stuff hahaha. We will go there tomorrow or Friday I guess because the stuff looked awesome.

9:00am CET - took the subway one stop to Placa Catalunya where we did a couple walking tours of the Barri Gotic - the Gothic area. It was raining but we saw the cathedral, which is huge and pretty unbelievable, and some of the other gothic buildings. When the rain got really bad we went into one of those sandwich shops where we were and sat for a while til the rain stopped. But the Gothic Quarter is pretty neat - it is kind of like Lisbon's Alfama - narrow pathways as streets, shops and restaurants just tucked in all over, etc. Pretty fun to just wander and see some of the churches and old Roman buildings. At one point we even found this little section of an unearthed Roman temple from the 1st Century. Pretty amazing. We just sat there and looked at it for a while because we were the only people there and it was really peaceful and stuff.

11:00am CET - Then we walked back to La Rambla and found this department store that is more than 9 levels. I kid you not. I bought a little hand-painted Gaudi magnet and a hand-painted little owl thing figurine, done in the style that the big Gaudi park is done. This place was amazing. Kind of reminded me a bit of Harrods in London.

1:00pm CET - Found this place for lunch called Lactuca or something like that on the Rambla de Catalunya near the Placa Catalunya (yes we have had 3 meals on this street now LOL) - we had seen ads for this place - for 8.50 you get all-you-can-eat salad, pasta, pizza, drinks, and dessert. Think Hometown buffet but classy LOL. So we had huge salads (with tons of olives, obviously), pasta, drinks, pizza, even coffee and soft serve ice cream and fruit. It wasn't the best food ever but it was a ton of food and really cheap.

2:30pm CET - came back to the hotel for a little rest, I was able to update my blog with the stuff from yesterday so that was nice. The rain seems to have stopped and the sun even appears to be out for pretty much the first time since we got here!

4:30pm - didn't really know what to do but since the weather had cleared out so nicely, we decided to check out a part of the city right outside the center called Poblenou. I'd heard it was nice. We took 2 subway lines then a special bus (b/c the subway stops out there were down for some reason) to get there and then walked down the pretty and quaint Rambla del Poblenou. It was cute and there were lots of cafes and such but I kind of missed why people recommended it as a nice way to spend an afternoon. Ah well, no big deal!

6:15pm - we found where to catch the special bus back to the subway stop and took the yellow line all the way from the olympic village to the Passeig de Gracia stop. We decided to eat at one of the tapas places we'd looked at earlier in the week, Taller de Tapas. Got there around 7pm and the woman who served us was, I swear, british. It made things a lot easier LOL. This place was a little more expensive than the others and we knew that going in, but it was by several euros my most expensive meal yet. One thing that was nice is that they were willing to serve sangria by the glass. So I tried it, and later found out it was 4.50 euros for the glass. Oh well LOL. It was pretty tasty. Didn't taste as much like alcohol because they mix it with something carbonated (some kind of lemon soda?) and put slices of lemon and orange. Anyway, Amanda and I split the famous pa am tomaquet which is crusty bread with olive oil and smeared with a little tomato something. It was tasty. We also tried the "artichoke chips" - yes I realize I don't like artichoke, but these were like fried shavings that essentially tasted like potato chips. Amanda got "little fried fish" which I think she wasn't too fond of, and I got marinated chicken skewers which came with a few fried potato wedges. The chicken was OK, whatever it was marinated in was a little spicy and had lots of herbs, but I think it was dark meat. I paid 18 euros for my part of the meal - not exactly highway robbery, but kind of expensive if you had seen what I ate.

8:30pm - across the street from Taller de Tapas was a Spanish chain of chocolate stores called Valor. After dinner we went in so that I could try the famous "chocolate con churros" - fried churros with a really thick cup of hot chocolate. This place sold it for about 4 euros which seems to be about the going rate give or take. I got 4 huge long churros with a cup of hot chocolate that was so dark and thick that it was like eating melted dark chocolate. Amanda tasted it but isn't a chocoholic like me so she wasn't so impressed. I however was in chocolate heaven and finished the churros (which you dip in the chocolate to eat b/c they don't have all that much taste on their own) even though I was completely stuffed at the end. Yum yum yum. See picture for the full effect ;)

9:30pm - came back to the room and chilled. All of a sudden, CNN international is working so at least we have something in english to watch. Then Amanda and I watched the first episode of weeds, which I had downloaded ages ago and never gotten around to watching. Pretty funny but totally weird. But at least it was a tv show in english! ;)