Barcelona

The flight to Spain was just over two hours. The hot sun of Barcelona was awaiting are arrival. We made it to our 'hostal' by 7:30pm and were struggling in broken espanol to order a meal at Pitel Lo 15 minutes later. I am very guarded when I travel and I felt especially cautious since I didn't have a grasp on the language and I couldn't expect as many English speakers in this country as I had in the UK or the Netherlands. However, I soon relaxed and realized that my broken Spanish was enough to get excellent service from all the friendly and beautiful Catalunya people.

Barcelona is the capital of Catalunya, Spain's largest and most northern state or region. They were their own sovereign nation for almost 500 years, so the ethnically different Catalunyans (French/Catalan/Spanish mix) definitely is separate from Spain, although a part of the Iberian nation.

We weren't sure where our first night would take us - but being in the gay friendly neighbor hood of Eixample, we decided to check out a few gay bars. Well - being in the vastly different Meditteranean culture - it was apparent that we were going to have to get used to the very late nights out or perhaps just miss out on some of the nightlife. The bars and discotecs didn't not typically open until 10 or 11:00pm and certainly weren't busy until after 12:00pm. But we were impressed when the bar filled up and we were able to enjoy with a loud group of handsome dark men a drag show. Despite the fact we did not understand most if any of the banter, I think we could sometimes take a guess about what they were talking about. It's amazing how tone of voice, body language and other non-lingual communication can communicate a message. The bar was called Crazy and that describe our first night - very fun.

During the week we really beached it a lot more that I think we had originally planned. It was just so alluring to us - the hot sun, the sounds of the ocean, the beautiful people and just the liveliness that a beach and the nearby bars conjured up kept our attention. The water was great - we split time between El Churiguitos and a spot in the sand during big chunks of 2 of the 3 days we were there. We probably walked between 12 and 15 miles over the 3 days - Park Guell (Guadi design) was very interesting and a wee bit of exercise to boot! One of the highlights of the trip had to be the bike tour - it took us to Placa de Reia, Sant Juame, the coronation place of Ferdinand and Isabel, Sagrada Familia (thee Guadi attraction to see and probably the biggest attraction of Barcelona) La Rambla - probably the best known and most historic neighborhood - down the beach and into Barceloneta.

Outside of the touristy things - the best part about our trip (as is usually the case) is finding and frequenting the cutest and best little coffee shops. The Outside Cafe and La Brocheta gave us many great memories, conversations and cups of java!!

Overall - we would back, and probably will be going back next spring. What a great city!!