Day One & Two | Getting Acquainted

I arrived Wednesday afternoon after a smooth flight and was reminded that my two years of Spanish back in high school weren't going to be all that much help. Thankfully nods, smiles, pointing, and a odd mix of french, latin, Italian and Spanish seem to do the trick when communicating so far.

Becca had one night left before she took off early the next morning for Sri Lanka. We ate in the neighborhood and after a little wine, the eighteen hours of being awake caught up to me. She, in true Barca style went out with friends until midnight. God bless youth.

Becca bid farewell at 6 AM the next morning and after a little puttering around, I crept back between her wonderful linen sheets and comforter and nodded off until almost noon (6 AM east coast time).

I was told that the cadence of daily life begins around 9 AM, bakeries open at 10, lunch occurs between 12-2, then at least 75 % of stores shut down until 5 at the earliest. Dinner begins at 9 PM and people stroll the streets until 1 AM.

The first day was spent getting to know the apartment and the neighborhood; learning which drawer something was located in to browsing the local streets for food and few comfort items (aka wine). Becca had said she can live very comfortably finding everything she needs within 4 blocks of her apartment. She lives in the Gracia Neighborhood, above Avinguda Diagonal (a main avenue running from the wealthy area down to the sea). It's part of a bigger section of Barcelona called the Eixample (expansion). This area is known to have the greatest collection of art nouveau buildings in Europe.

Most of the streets in this section are one way, and for a reason, they can only fit one car on the street part itself. There are more motorbikes than cars in this section of Barcelona. But the broader neighborhood is filled with streets and streets of boutique shops filled with fresh vegetables, seafood, meets and cheeses, bakery items, wine, tiny shops filled with clothes, and florists.

I spent the afternoon wandering from shop to shop picking up what I needed, talking with store owners and learning about the area and things to do. The time zones caught up with me and I spent the evening cooking up some of that wonderfully fresh food, sampling my own tapas plate and enjoying some deep red wine, listening to music, reading and watching the parade of people stroll her street. 100% relaxation.

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DAY TWO

I can't tell if I am still confused and feeling the jet lag, or if I have realized I am truly on vacation, but I slept in until past 8 AM today. For the woman that has been known to rise at 4:30 on a regular basis, this was quite a treat. There is no television or radio, nor could I read a newspaper if one was delivered, so the 'noise' is absent. Almost all my technology had some weird set of seizures upon arrival that included passwords not working, all my 'error pop-ups' were in Spanish (not helpful when you can't understand the message and you are frustrated with something odd going on) but through patience and google translate, I have 90% of it all back up and running.

So today started off with a nice mug of tea, fresh fruit and 45 minutes of yoga-like exercises. A routine I was once religious at maintaining that fell by the wayside this past year. It felt wonderful.

I meandered through a Barcelona/Catalonian guide book and had a second cup of tea. I always have a period of a few days that feel odd when I am somewhere new - that sense of I don't know where the landmarks are; what's up and what's down. After my wanderings yesterday I felt like I had a pretty good sense of what's in my neighborhood. I decided to give myself a destination point each day to wander to and explore.

Today I picked Sagrada Familia, one of Gaudi's most famous modernista buildings. It was about 2.5 miles from the apartment and allowed me to wander more through the Eixample neighborhoods. The tiny one-way streets broadened into busy thoroughfares, the percent of tourists increased, and the unique little boutiques gave way to larger stores. But the neighborhoods were still filled with little parks, schools and little shops. I wandered around the neighborhoods and almost followed Avinguda Diagonal to the sea, but found my bearings were still off a bit so I wandered back through a different set of streets and neighborhoods to Gracia.

It reminded me of when I lived in London a few years back. In this section people seem to shop for a day or two at a time, there were lots of cafes where people were visiting mid-day, and I could feel a significant change in pace. I picked up a few more things for home as I wandered past some shops. My day was spent walking all around, getting turned around on a few occasions, stopping and talking with people, and having gracious shop owners try to figure out my bastardized Catalonian Spanish and I their english. It all ends in laughter and probably a good 8-9 miles on foot so far.

I stopped in a very small restaurant for Menu del Dia, a pre-set lunch menu at most restaurants (soup/salad, entree, glass of wine) for very little money. I pondered over my guide book once again, this time looking at future travel up the Coast of Brava, day train trips out from the city, and I will need to circle back with Becca about some of the most gorgeous countryside she said she has ever seen, vineyards up near the mountains.

Tomorrow it will either be a walk down to the sea, or exploration of the Montjuic section of Barcelona. It's filled with art galleries, museums and theaters.

I wandered out about 8PM to stroll 'the hood.' It was much much busier at 8PM than any other time during the day. The shops had reopened after siesta and families, friends and lovers were all wandering the streets. You could hear music and laughter and people talking over each other. I don't know of some of the lights are for the holidays or not, but some of the pictures show the local walkways lit up at night.

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