Days 53 & 54 - The Rain in Spain is Brought by Strangers on a Plane

Saturday arrived and after two weeks of various fat loaded fry ups every day for breakfast I jumped at the chance when the healthy option of ‘Porridge’ was offered, with hindsight this was my first mistake. What I received was basically a bowl of salt, which to make edible I had to add 9 table spoons of sugar to! So much for the healthy start.

We made our way into Barcelona, and you know that expression, ‘No matter where you are in the world you’re never more than 6 foot away from a Yorkshireman’ well it turns out its true. While wandering the streets of the gothic quarter we bumped into a couple of strangers from back home. (Ok it might have been slightly more planned out than that, by why let details ruin a good story).

We found the nearest bar and went for a beer to share our travelling stories and catch up on the comings and goings from back home.  So, the original plan was to take in some of the sights of Barcelona and maybe hit the beach but unfortunately after having 2 months of near continual sunshine, it seemed our visitors had also brought the English weather with them. 

However like true English this hadn’t stopped them donning their finest shorts and flip-flops for their holiday!

But that’s ok, after all Barcelona is a city renowned for its art, music and literature so there’s plenty to do indoors too right?  And where would 4 cultured young adults make their way to; The Museu Picasso? The National Gallery Art de Catalunya? The Palau Reial?……..nope, the only logical choice was the Erotica Museum!

It seems for all people throughout history as soon as they developed a means of communication or expression, they then used it to share naked people!  I think this picture best sums the place up, although it does leave one particular question unanswered….why the hell is a dog (or whatever that is) getting involved?

As evening set in and the rain was still coming down, we decided to go on a Tapas crawl round some choice bars of the city. 

From classy establishments serving champagne cocktails, and traditional taverns offering up local wine and Spanish black pudding, through to a backstreet bar with beer and one euro self-service tapas, I think we just about covered the lot! There was only really one picture of this I could choose; I’m not sure Rory and Richard were aware they were sitting in the ’love corner’ under the glow of a heart shaped light, but in case there’s any doubt here’s the proof!

Glad to be out with some familiar faces we stayed until the last possible moment, but with the last train back to Sitges due at 23:51 and my watch reading quarter too, we dashed what should have been a 10 minute leisurely stroll to the station just in time to get aboard.

The next day we packed up our stuff, said our goodbyes to Val and Andrew and made our way back into Barcelona. We checked in at our hotel and got bit of a shock. You see when you book a room with a wardrobe, TV and double bed you expect to see those things, but probably not crammed in so tightly there isn’t actually room for anything else! A generous estimate puts the room at about 7ft by 8ft. So if there happen to be a pair of anorexic dwarves reading this, get yourself a cheap night right in the centre of Barcelona at the Hotel Barbara, for everyone else, stay well clear.

So we left our cell and went north to check out Guell Park. We wandered through twisting and turning paths, under stone arches and up lizard lined flights of stairs, before coming out on a large piazza, flanked on either side by parakeets flocking from one palm tree to another and in the centre a chorus of drag queens in military uniforms putting on a show (I don’t know if ‘a chorus’ is technically the correct collective noun for drag queens but it sounds right to me). 

 

To be honest there was much more to see there than we had time for; we could see people standing on top of a pyramid structure hidden in the hills on one side, and a path that snaked off into some woods on the other.  But there wasn’t time for those on this trip as we had to get back for a football match!

Well one of us did anyway, Becki opted out of a 40 minute trip on the tube to see two teams she doesn't care about, so it was left to me to meet up with Rory and Richard close by our hotel and head off to the edge of the city to watch Espanyol vs Athletico Madrid.

It was a good game, though perhaps not so much for the quality on the pitch as for the atmosphere. We were behind the Espanyol goal, and they had a bloke with a microphone who led the crowd in every song and chant you can imagine throughout the 90 minutes.  The home side were poor in the first half and Madrid had most of the possession and took a 1-0 lead into halftime. After what must have been a rousing team talk they came out much better in the second period and created a number of clear cut chances, unfortunately they couldn’t put any of them away. So 1-0 it finished and fortunately we were at the right end to catch all of the action in both halves.

It was too late to catch our connecting metro home so the three of us ambled back through the streets of Barcelona, stopping for a pint to refuel along the way. We were off early the next morning on our way further south, so I said our goodbyes and went back to the hotel to see how Becki had fared in her cell for the evening!.....which was not great to be honest!