Today we got a semi late start but considering we didn’t even finish dinner until after midnight I’d say that noon was quite early. While Reuben got ready I ran around the neighborhood trying to get out cash only to find out that my bank had blocked my atm. Oh great. Our only source of cash gone and to top things off the Internet in the apartment stopped working. So I finally found an internet café owned by two Indian/Pakistani guys who were nice enough to let me use the internet for free, since I didn’t have any cash and all. All to find out that my bank only deals with issues like this during ‘normal US Eastern time’ business hours, excellent. Thankfully Reuben realized he brought his Wachovia card and I had my credit card so for the day we just sucked it up and took the international fees. Hopefully all this mess is sorted out by tomorrow.
We wandered around the neighborhood for about another half hour and then headed to beach kinda near us, Nov Mar Bel? First of all, if this beach is indicative of how beaches look in Barcelona, I’m blown away. It was absolutely gorgeous, the Mediterranean (I think) was sparkling and greenish blue and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Since this is less of a touristy area the beach wasn’t packed out but there were still a lot of people hanging out. The cool thing for me was that every hundred meters or so there was a beach bar with a huge patio. How convieniet! We looked at a few menus before finally settling on one that we though was reasonable (ish- you can’t really get too reasonable in Western Europe). In any case we got a great view and enjoyed flavor Mohitos and delicious lunches.
In the afternoon we went to another beach, walked around and just chilled out with a great bottle of wine. Did I mention how cheap alcohol is here? Maybe it’s just because I’m coming from Istanbul where the works cheap and alcohol used in a sentence very well might be illegal, but getting a great bottle of wine for 1.60 euro is just unheard of. Literally none of the wines in the grocery store were more than 6 euro!! What in the world?!?!?
After a full day of day drinking and sunbathing we were ready for showers and a quick nap. Little did I know after all that waking up from my nap would be painful to say the least. We wanted to go out and enjoy this city, even though both of us were exhausted the thought of staying in all night when we only had another full day left in Barcelona was just unheard of. So we woke up and headed out around 10:00pm. Since our internet was still down we just hopped on the subway and decided to get off at the Jaume I stop. It looked cool and had the Gothic quarter so we figured it couldn’t be too bad.
Once we got off the metro there was about a 70% chance that I was going to fall asleep standing up so we stopped at a Cappuccino café and caffeinated. It was actually a really cool café that had many different types of cappuccinos and desserts! I got a cappuccino and an espresso shot. I was determined not to let my sleepiness ruin the night!
Then we wandered down a random street that was bustling with people only to find a really cool area. It was centered around this really Gothic looking church, the whole street was beautiful and had a ton of restaurants. We finally settled on a place called, Cheese Me. It was so modern and cool inside I didn’t even care that my meal wasn’t too great. And truth be told I wasn’t even really that hungry. But the restaurant had a 15 euro menu so I got a warm goat cheese salad (this was delicious) , a beef burger patty with greens (not so good, it tasted like unseasoned ground beef), and a piece of cheesecake (too dry?). Reuben definitely won with his last two courses. He got a Caesar salad (it was ok too much anchovy dressing), duck confit with a side of greens (I don’t think I’ve ever had duck but it was really good!) and chocolate ice cream (another case where simplicity wins, it was really good ice cream!)
Afterwards we wandered around for a while finding more cool side streets filled with people then we headed to the infamous La Rambla. Now I’m sure that it is very exciting and awesome but coming from Istanbul, the biggest city in Europe, and being used to walking down Istiklal Street where no matter what time it is you are always in a sea of people La Rambla was kind of a let down. I mean it was cool and all but I couldn’t really spot any bars, I guess they were all down side streets but literally all you saw on the main street where prostitutes. Side note: I just came from Romania, Serbia, and Bulgaria pretty much the Disney Worlds of the sex trade but I have literally never seen anything like the prostitutes on La Rambla. First of all most of them are Spanish or African? Then they are all wearing normal clothes, barely any make up, and like slipper shoes. To top it all of they are (excuse my language) fucking aggressive. They rub themselves and smack their asses and like ugh I don’t know the kind of man that would pay for sex in the first place but the kind of men that would buy that kind of prostitute is a whole other category. Like when men walk by they maul them and I know that sounds harsh but if you’ve been there you know it’s pretty accurate. Reuben kept saying thank god you’re with me. I was like his little prostitute shield!
Then we decided to take a long walk. Our long nap earlier energized us and we were both not quite ready to go back so we walked along the waterfront from La Rambla to the Barceloneta metro stop. It was cool and we covered a lot of the southern part of the city. Today was a great relaxing day. I can’t wait to see the rest of the city tomorrow!
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