July 29
So after not being allowed to lie on the couch of the hostel because the room doesn´t open till 8am (what the?) we head into the heart of barcelona and find a nice park bench to have a lay down on! haha...we waste about 3 hours there and head back to the hostel and there has been a change from the rude guy at reception to a lovely lady who lets us shower and get ourselves organised.
At 11am we set off down town again and take part in a walking tour around the gothic catalunya part of barcelona. Saw some amazing things and even were Pablo Picasso lost his virginity! Also was informed that barcelona has palm trees on ´loan´ from Hawaii, yes true!, apparenly they have 11 year leases! and that their beach is actually made of sand trucked in from the Sahara desert! crazy!
The tour took probably about 2 hours and afterwards we signed up to do a spanish cooking lesson were you learn how to make tapas, paelle and sangria...sounded like a good idea at the time...however this morning i´m kinda wishing we didn´t haha!
The night started well...we meet another two girls from our hostel that were doing the course as well so we arrived at the place about 7pm and was greeted with tapas already for us to begin eating...was cheese, bread, tomato, garlic, salami and some other kind of potato thing...very nice! then, we had a demostration on how to make sangria with fruit, sugar, brandy, red wine, fanta, lemon squash and ice...while we practiced making sangria ourself we were shown how to make a seafood paelle...this was very nice, however was a little confused because on master chef they said it was supposed to have a crust on the bottom, whereas our chef said to keep moving the rice so it didn´t stick to the bottom...weird, but tasted quite nice anyway...two bottles of brandy and about 9 bottles of red wine later (between 9 of us), we were all quite merry and moved next door where a pub trivia night was being run by the same mob...two hours, 1euro shots and two for 1 drinks later (as well as our sangria), we emerged as champions of the trivia!!!!!!!!! this entailed not only bragging rights, but also the first prize which was a 125euro drink voucher for the pub...a round of shots, and cocktails later everyone was well and truely smashed!
On the stumbling way home, one of the guys thinks he has been pick pocketed so takes off after the ´thief´, they run right past me so i take off as well and follow them and totally have them cornered in a cul de sac, and the random people standing beside me that took up the chase as well inform me that they have to come back past us to be able to get out...by this time the guy whose wallet was ´taken´ is no where to be found, so we have to give up chase and go back to find the group...upon arrival we are told that the guy actually still HAS his wallet, and that the ´thief´ wasn´t actually able to grab it...however not all is a lost cause because a girl and her boyfriend actually did have their back pack stolen by the thief and so the bf took off down the road to where i last saw the thief...what a night!
July 30
This morning started very late and in a very painful manner...sangria, tequila, sambuca, vodka and cocktails do NOT mix! haha
Have spent the day ´resting´ which is quite good anyway, because the heat today is scorching! will venture out later this afternoon and head to the markets - to hopefully see elephant man (stay tuned) - and a castle and gardens once it has cooled down.
Tomoz we off to Valencia with a new found friend Gemma.
