A failure of planning

So the plan was to have an easy day. We were going to get up late, have a leisurely breakfast and catch one of the tourist buses and let it take us around to a few places, but keep the walking to a minimum. We wanted to go to Santa Maria del Mar. Apparently it is next to a cute tea shop. Don't say a word. Really just don't !

We woke at five! Had breakfast. Tried to go back to bed. Got up again and had a second breakfast at a local bar at seven thirty! The buses started at nine so we thought we'd wander around the barrio gothic. Nice! Pretty streets, easy to get distracted. We ended up at the cathedral. Not the Sagrada Familia, the actual cathedral, in the old part of town. Beautiful, see the piccy below. We thought the geese in the cloister were a nice touch. Lit a candle for Opa. Well three candles for half a euro and they are led lights rather than candles. Ahhhhh the modern world.

After the cathedral we naturally navigated towards food. A converted monastery, Santa Caterina, with a modernist roof. Yummy stuff.....oh the pain of abstinence. We could not work out where to catch the bus or what bus to catch, so we started walking to Plaza Catalunya in the hope of getting some inspiration from St George. On the way we were distracted by the Palau de La Musica Catalana. 

We though it was a Gaudi building. We were wrong but it was wonderful a and well worth the distraction from our plans. We enjoyed it so much we actually did a tour, and booked tickets to a flamenco performance on Friday night. I loved the fact that the owner built himself an apartment above the stage, with a balcony he could look down on shows through. Apparently he'd throw things at the musos when they hit a bum note. Those mad catalanes!

So we were now near a Vodafone store so we dropped in and got a SIM card. An important point as it turns out.

After a brief stop for some sustenance, we noticed we were pretty close to the Casa Batllo. So this time it was Gaudi. Huge queue. Luckily the SIM card was working and whilst others queued we did the techno thing, got tickets online and sauntered in. We are such nerds. Whilst Lluis Domench I Montaner took modernist architecture to its limit at the Palau, Gaudi seemed to like going way beyond the limit. Casa Batllo is actually a wonderful homey and incredible place, but so weird

When we got out, one of those tourist buses drove off. Bastard! Oh well there was another Gaudi house nearby. Casa Mila...an even weirder roof.

Apparently there are still people living in this one. Must drive them mad having folk like us crawling around every day.

No buses visible when we got out. Bugger! So we walked to the Sagrada Familia. Amazing building. Almost as amazing as the look of disgust on Marjan's face as she looked at it. For those of you with a memory, imagine Oma after a risqué joke! We tried the online trick again to get around the hundred metre queue. Managed to stuff it up somehow, so we just walked around it. Thankfully Marjan's look of disgust did not disappear with the disappointment of not going inside. "Visually stunning! But not in a good way" was her verdict. It certainly has an element of insanity about it.

By then it was five and hardly worth buying a bus ticket. Caught a metro instead. Went back to the Mercat Boqueria where we had spotted some nice tuna and lovely looking ready made salads in the morning. That was the plan for dinner. Well the salad bars were all closed and the tuna was not sold in steaks, but rather as a huge slab. We did manage to get the fishmonger to slice it though and we found some less lovely salads at the supermarket. 

Not one of our plans came to fruition. Awesome day! Marjan liked it too.

And to close off, we just spotted a TV ad for the new hot spanish breakfast cereal. Chocolate AllBran. I kid you not. Some stuff is being homogenised by the global village. Cartier, Chanel, Timberland, Footlocker, McDonalds, Subway were all visible on the streets of Barcelona, but where else do you get chocolate Allbran or snakes and lizards decorating a catholic cathedral?

Oh yeah! Forgot to add. We bought a ticket for the bus for tomorrow! And apparently there is this wicked tea shop. We'll keep to plan this time. Ja..ja...ja...ja.

Marjan in spain

Well a pretty uneventful trip overall. 

Possibly one of the most frustrating parts of the trip was waiting at Tullamarine to get some GST back on a pre-trip purchase. With a line growing every minute and quite a few people with many items to process, they decided to do a shift change. When the change-over worked well it meant one of the three people out of action for about five minutes. Of course it only worked well once out of three leaving huge gaps and there were a lot of very impatient people wondering how the customs folk could get service so wrong. Still I was on an anticipatory high so just smiled away an extra few minutes in line.

Last we spoke we were in Dubai. Well it was interesting to start seeing Spanish queues at work. The Dubai to Barcelona plane obviously was full of spaniards and their queuing skills have lost nothing since I last observed them. They still rush everything in an imitation of a riot.

Had a chat with a lovely bloke on the plane called Yosef. He is an Arabic spaniard working a lot in Abu Dhabi. He was very worried about the current state of Spain with the economy still moribund, unemployment high and corruption being the main political output. Chatting with him helped while away some time. The Boeing was much more cramped than the big double decker airbus on the long leg, so we were quite 'cozy'.

Anyway arrived half an hour early with a tail wind, caught a bus into the centre of town and managed to walk to our apartment from memory. Not bad considering how little sleep I had had. The apartment is lovely and small. The lift is a scream. I could barely fit in it with the suitcase and back pack. I had to wriggle to let the door close. Have a shot of the view from our little balcony.

We managed to have a shower and head out. The only minor issue is we could not get the SIM card working at Vodafone. They are obviously sharing their expertise internationally. We went to the Boqueria market and Marjan bailed before I did. Wow. Anyway we got some bread,  chorizo, cheese and fruit and that was dinner. 

We are now staring at an appalling historical drama on TVE 2 . Acting this bad is having some strange effects on sleep-deprived minds. Almost better than magic mushrooms. It is 6pm and if we manage to stay awake till 8 I will be very surprised.

Over and out!

I hate planes

I really hate planes. They are not made for people my size, shape and temperment. Eight hours into the fourteen hour flight and I am sitting on the floor between the toilets and the flight deck to get some positional relief. Marjan has been dozing, so hopefully she will be rested.

It was interesting how nervous we both were before take-off. Missing the Thailand trip got us very jumpy.

An update...we are in Dubai drinking dubious coffee and enjoying a stretch. Big place, even the gold fish could feed a family. The photo is one little section of Dubai airport at 5am.