I arrived in Spain yesterday afternoon, around 2pm Spanish time. There were some delays but in general the flight was fine.
Our apartment is tiny but cute and pretty convenient. Barceloneta, the area where we’re staying for the month of October, is the area right near the beach. Our place is two blocks from the beach in one direction, and two blocks to a port with more sailboats than I’ve ever seen in one place in another direction. There are tons of seafood restaurants along the port, with overly eager and sometimes pushy waiters out front, trying to lure you inside with huge menus covered in delicious-looking seafood dishes. I can’t wait to eat some paella! (I’m generally a vegetarian but I’m going to eat a little seafood this month—otherwise it would be nearly impossible to eat much local food here in Spain.)
Matt’s father and his girlfriend Logan were supposed to meet us here today, but they were flying standby and their flight had no seats. When they eventually get here, we’re going to drive around Spain and sightsee. Hopefully they will make it here soon because it will be fun!
Yesterday after we got in and unpacked, we wandered around for a few hours. We met a 30 year old man named Morris (I think?) who was from West Africa. He has been living in Barcelona for a year or so, with some friends of his, and before that he lived in London. He showed us some of the clubs he goes to, some of which looked pretty awesome. I can only handle so many clubs, but we’ll definitely have to check out some of these places. There’s even one that’s entirely made out of ice! Apparently the place is kept at -8C and they give you a jacket and gloves while you sit there. Morris wants to start an Afro-Carribean restaurant. He’s going to come over and cook with us sometime soon, which I’m very excited about.
We ate dinner late last night (late for us, not for Spaniards, who often eat dinner after 11pm) at a tapas bar. We had to look for a while to find a place that wasn’t really expensive, and the one we went to turned out to be great. It was completely packed and the food was delicious. We ordered stuffed green olives, manchego cheese, grilled squid in lemony olive oil, and bombas, which means “bombs” and turned out to be fried balls of mashed potatoes with what may have been red pepper and mustard sauces on top.
Ordering food in Barcelona is complicated by the fact that many people speak Catalan rather than Castellano (“regular” Spanish). Catalan is an entirely different language and in Catalonia, the region of Spain that we are in, the menus are generally unintelligible to me. My Spanish-English dictionary doesn’t help, so I have to try to speak to the waiters to find out what anything is. It’s hard to explain to Spanish waiters that you are a vegetarian - “But you eat pork?” - and figuring out what to order is more difficult than it should be.
My plan for the day is to do some work from a cafe for the morning and then sightsee in the afternoon. More soon!
Boca Raton, FL
Barcelona is a cool city but it’s really quite touristy. On Sundays there are swarms of tourists: in some parts of town maybe a 15:1 ratio of tourists to residents! I’m sure if you live here there are plenty of non-touristy areas, but as someone who doesn’t know the city that well, it’s hard to know where to go where you will actually hear Spanish.