Barcelona Walkin

Barcelona, Spain

Brendan and I have spent the last two days walking around Barcelona. Sadly, the weather has been overcast with light rain on and off, but nothing that´s kept us indoors (though it has kept the photography to a minimum). On Monday morning, we headed out bright and early to wander around town. We first headed down towards the gothic part of Barcelona to visit the Cathedral of Santa Eulalia. The inside of the cathedral was pretty amazing, like most European churches. Surprisingly, they allowed flash photography inside, so I snapped a few pictures, no doubt the first of many pictures to come from the inside of a church or temple.

Inside Cathedral of Santa Eulalia

From the church, we continued walking through the gothic part of Barcelona and then towards the water front. By now it was around 11am so we decided to stop at a cafe along the waterfront for an early lunch. The Spanish eat lunch much later in the afternoon, closer to 2pm, so Brendan and I were pretty much the first people to sit down for food. That said, I decided that I would join the local tradition of having an espresso with just about any meal. After dumping a solid packet of sugar into it to mellow out the bitterness, I was finally able to finish it off.

Brendan and I enjoying our espressos.

After lunch, we headed up through the Olympic village, which was really just a bunch of apartment buildings and not much to see at all. I think the sporting venues are in another part of town. We passed the "Arco Del Triunfo", which looks an awful lot like the Arc de Triumph in Paris but is apparently not related at all. Supposedly the "Arco Del Triunfo" marks the zero kilometer post for measuring distances in and around Barcelona, even though the "Arco" isn´t anywhere close to the geographic center, go figure.

The "Arco Del Triumfo" and I.

Past the Arco, we checked out the "Parc de la Ciutadella", which had a pretty neat water fountain / waterfall thing, though the water wasn´t flowing or falling, but you could imagine it flowing and being pretty neat.

We then headed back to the main square to meet up with the girls for our real lunch and some drinks. Again, I decided to indulve in local customs and had some beer/lemonade combination drink. It actually wasn´t all that bad and I finished almost all of it (the glass was huge!).

We just spent the rest of the night wandering around "old" Barcelona before retiring back to Patricia´s for the night.

The only problem so far in Spain is that my Bank of America bank card does not work. Everytime I try and withdraw money, it says that the transaction is not authorized by my bank. This, after I specifically called B of A before leaving to tell them I would be abroad! (The card worked in London, and no, it´s not a network problem... /sigh)

More updates as to Tuesday´s activities, but now it´s out for the evening for a late dinner and some partying, since tomorrow is a holiday so everyone is apparently out tonight in full force. Time to see how Barcelona parties!

Kenny