The Rain in Spain

It´s the only bad thing about Barcelona. Last night the streets were practically flooding. The water soaked through our jeans and shoes and we spent the night partying in wet socks. But there have been many, many good and even more great things about this city.

Most exciting, for me, was celebrating my birthday here on Wednesday. When the date clicked over till the 17th we were still out at dinner. Alessia had used her connections to get us a table at a funky tapas bar, much to the annoyance of the other customers who´d been waiting in line for forty minutes to be seated. The food was amazing, made even better by copious amounts of wine, and at midnight everyone sang ´Happy Birthday´to me in their native language and the waiters brought our plate of desserts with candles in it as though it were a cake.

On my birthday proper we checked out the local flea market and had lunch at a little cafe where the hot chocolate was served in the traditional style (basically a lump of chocolate melted into a cup) and all the food is made in a local monistary. We spent the afternoon browsing in the shops in the Gothic Quarter and went on a Gaudi hunt, finding three of his buildings, including La Familla (not entirely sure how to spell it), his famous church that´s still under construction. That night Mirco cooked us all a fabulous chicken dish for dinner and the most delicious birthday cake I´ve ever tasted (not sure if I mentioned it in the last blog, but Mirco is a former master chef and has run two restaurants, so you can imagine how good his cooking is!) Two more Australians, Patrick and Amy, checked into the hostel, which was good because our friends Mikey and Anna were checking out the following day. And two Sweedish guys also checked in, one used to be a popstar and we had fun youtubing his clips before we all headed out for a night of live music, tequila, absinthe and sangria.

Surprisingly, we didn´t do much the next day. The hostel was like a graveyard until lunchtime, and the things that began emerging from ther rooms about this time certainly bore more resemblance to the undead than to the people they´d been the night before. I had some bad news that day, I went to reserve my tickets for my train trips and found that Lisbon took up too many days on my pass because of their stupid rule about overnight trips departing before 7pm counting as two days, so Lisbon´s out for both Mads and I. The silver lining? My six nights in Paris has been extened to eleven!

Yesterday we continued our Gaudi hunt and hiked up to Parc Guell. Note: If you´re ever in Barcelona and plan to visit (which we highly recommend you do), don´t walk. Take a bus, catch a cab, or pay someone to carry you, cause it´s up hill all the way. It was worth it in the end though: the views are spectaucular and the park itself is like something out of a fairy tale. It was originally designed to be a self-contained village, but the project flopped, so dotted along the cloistered pathways are mosaic benches and rotundas. At night we continued with the fairytale theme and went to a bar with Amy and Patrick designed to look like an enchanted forrest. One of the rooms was done up like a child´s bedroom and the rest was like something out of A Midsummer Night´s Dream, obviously meant to be what the child was imagining. There was even a mini waterfall! Hands down, coolest bar ever!!! Before that we went and watched some traditional Flamenco dancing, which was very intense and lots of fun!

Today we packed a picnic and journeyed with Partick and Amy up to Mt Tibidabo, which offers amazing views, the most ornate church I´ve ever seen and one of the oldest theme parks in Europe!

Now, after all that, I´m pretty exhausted! Tomorrow´s going to be another big one, as Mads and I say Adios to Barcelona and to each other. She´s off to sunny Valencia and I´m catching the overnight train to Paris!

Missing you all, and very sad to miss the Fringe opening!

Love,
Margs

xo xo xo