16 hours on buses from Lisbon. We found out that the bus we were on went through to barcelona via valencia and zaragoza but the bus company wouldn't let us go through from Madrid and we had to get transported to another bus station and catch another bus going via zaragoza which left about 10 minutes later. Hmmm. Give it a big tick for stupidity.
Have arrived at Barcelona and checked into our expensive and substandard room but at least we have internet access and no rodents are visible yet but it isn't dark yet.
To be continued....
Bit behind on the blog again so it is dot points for Barcelona. We had a great time in Barcelona and could have stayed longer. It is a city full of art and artists of various disciplines.
Interesting as the reception was in another building across the road. Hostel well located in the centre of Barcelona. Little room with skinny door and backed onto dorm with sliding door without lock.
Cooked hamburgers on terrible electrical stove but managed to make them taste good.
Quiet night in room in Hostel.
Day 1.
Breakfast talkative dutch traveller who wants to travel more with his girlfriend but she just wants to have a baby. Hmm and we only just met.
Raining. Went to
Late lunch at 4pm.
Shops closed so no goods for tea. Abandoned muesli from common kitchen and scrambled eggs for tea.
Noisy group of Europeans for Saturday night party and came back at early hour in the morning and made a lot of noise before settling down to a steady rhythm of snoring from the dorm next to our room.
Day 2.
Breakfast late as staff and cook did not set clocks for daylight savings.
Complained about noise and moved rooms to second floor and got discount. Double bed.
Followed the roman fortress walls while wandering around the barrio. Went to Arc d triumph. Spring festival with orange marigolds. Salsa dancing. Samba band using domestic goods as musical instruments.
Wandered to train station through park and then onto the harbour area where south americans musicians were playing something corny before moving onto the harbour.
Then walked back to hostel via el rambla and discovered a decent carefour supermarket.
Soup for tea with onion and pasta mixed into it.
Woken by the sound of a rapidly creaking bed on the next level directly above us and the ceiling feeling like it would fall in soon, lots of moaning and nearby windows slamming closed in a futile attempt to block out the unwelcome noise before the ’oh my god’ finale from an old lady only to be followed by load snoring from the same area.
Day 3.
Breakfast with german women who were just in Barcelona.
Walk along El Rambla. Plenty of living statue performance artists. We particularly liked a golden angel.
Walk out to the columbus monument and out along the harbour Olympic area.
Washed clothes. First machine wash since Ushuaia and it showed as the water was very brown. Watched dryer for old man who, despite the rules of the Laundromat, was drying his shoes in the tumble drier and the door kept on being forced open with his clothes falling out while he was out. The elderly owner arrived a little while later and started reading a 1912 edition of ‘the book of knowledge’ in english and had done so for the past three years to learn English.
Tried Sangria in cask. Very tasty indeed.
Went out to local area looking for genuine tapas bar and found it but decided that old men sitting around little bars drinking beer and eating sausages amongst other bar snacks was not for us. So we bought a bad of lollies and went back to the hostel but ran into one of the staff who had a two for one pass for dinner at a local buffet which had as much as you can eat and we ate as much as we could eat and then ate some more and felt sick.
Day 4.
Raining again.
Breakfast with german women learning Spanish again.
Wandered through park to the arcd’triumph and found old men intently playing bocce.
Vegetable Market with the intention of having lunch at seafood restaurant but too expensive. Buy 1kg strawberries 1euro, 1kg of mushrooms half euro and bunch of challots 1euro. Live seafood. Already bought 1kg of chicken breasts and some creme.
Found out what happened to the three little pigs. They are now in a butchers cabinet waiting to be sold.
Cooked up crème pasta with chicken and other ingredients but found that it needed more crème and flavour so out to supermarket for bacon and crème. Much better. Enough left to last for a couple of days.
Bye.
David and Vanessa
