Barcelona, Days 2 and 3

(6/25-6/26)

Today, Steven and I split up for different trips! He left at 8am for his Medieval Templar Knights tour in Lleida while I had my paella tour starting at 10am. I need to start getting more sleep—in the last 48 hours, I have gotten 6 hours of sleep. Not good! Anyway, let me start off with a recap of yesterday! (June 25)

Yesterday morning, Steve and I went to Montserrat (“serrated mountain”) about 45 minutes outside of Barcelona.  Driving up the mountain was incredibly gorgeous. The bus careened around the tight turns, and I could just see the headlines “SAS bus tumbles down mountainside” but it was all okay. We got box lunches and were on our way once we reached the top! Our guide gave us an overview of the chapel and monastery, and we were able to go inside the chapel. Everything is perched so perfectly in this mountain, I swear I took 300 pictures! Then we had an hour of free time in which we could go up or down the mountain on a funicular. Down the mountain was the holy grotto. We chose to go up the mountain to St. John’s cave. Unfortunately, it took 15 minutes to get onto the funicular and we only had enough time to look around at the top of the peak, we never had time to go to the cave, which was disappointing. Still, the view from the top was incredible, and hopefully I can go back there someday to see everything.

Once we got back to the ship, we headed out again to grab some lunch (the box lunches were nothing to write home about). We went to a mall area that was a short walk from the Colombus monument and got a pizza margherita to share. Delicioso! We had this bread before the pizza came out called pa amb tomaquet, which is literally “bread and tomato” in Catalan. It was so simple but quite tasty…excellent little appetizer. I’m pretty sure it was just toasted bread covered and soaked with crushed tomatoes and drizzled in olive oil. Yum! Will have to try to recreate that at home =) We still had some time, so we inquired about a dessert menu. Steven picked out a sundae consisting of a scoop of chocolate, a scoop of vanilla, and a scoop of praline ice cream for us to share. It was such a treat after spending the morning and early afternoon in the hot sun hiking on a mountain! After that, it was time for our Barcelona at Night tour. I guess I didn’t look at the time of the tour when we signed up for it—I thought it was going to be, you know, at night when it was dark out. Nope, it started at 6pm, and sunset wasn’t until after 9! Also, this tour was exactly the same as our orientation tour that we took on the first day. We even went back into the Pueblo Espanol. Since we had already done a guided tour, we were able to roam around on our own for 45 minutes. I bought a couple pieces of jewelry, a couple of prints, and lots of postcards to send and for the scrapbook! We also got free sangria samples!! Heheh….

After we toured around the city, we went to the base of Montjuic to see the Magic Fountains. This was the only part of the tour we hadn’t seen before, and it was amazing! The place was packed with people, I was amazed we didn’t get separated from the group! The show included music and the fountain had lights and different water formations. I took a video of part of the show, hopefully it turns out well! After we made a quick pitstop at the ship, we headed out on a quest for churros con chocolate. We walked up La Rambla, which was much more lively than the night before, and finally settled on a little restaurant after a server assured us that they had churros con chocolate. What a lie! The churros were freshly made, hot and delicious, no complaint there, but instead of the thick, creamy, syrupy chocolate that I was expecting, they just served us regular hot chocolate! So not the same! We returned to the ship for some much needed rest, although I decided to call home and write the blog post you see below this one.

So…today: the paella tour! (I know my sister is going to read this and salivate). It started at 10am with yes, yet another bus tour. I had the same British tour guide as with the tour on the first day (the really good, descriptive one) but near the end of the 3-hour tour, we just wanted our paella already! We were dropped off at La Boqueria, one of the best markets in the world! It was so crowded and Spanish people move soooo slowly that I almost immediately got separated from our group. I saw our tour guide’s hat, so I followed him, but he was apparently trying to help a student find a paella pan to buy. Since I saw no one else on our trip and I didn’t want to get lost, I followed them ALL around the area surrounding the market. We finally return to the market after 20 minutes of searching, and there is a stand right there in the market selling kitchen utensils and, of course, paella pans of every size. Great. Anyway, after the market we walk down some back alleys where there were a bunch of shops and restaurants. Finally, we started to walk down to the restaurant where we would be learning how to make paella. We actually went to the same restaurant that Steve and I ate at yesterday for lunch! We went upstairs and immediately downed glass upon glass of water, and then the tapas started. First, more pa amb tomaquet, then olives, ham, manchego cheese, and calamari. I had a sampling of everything, but I wanted to save room for the paella! We were then called back to watch the paella being made. In a back room there were three HUGE paella pans, each big enough to serve 15-20 people. We all gathered around a pan and watched as the chef first cooked the prawns and mussels, then took them out to cook the vegetables (onions, peppers, and peas). We learned that the sautéed vegetables was called “sofrito” and that you’re only supposed to put in vegetables that caramelize (mushrooms work well too). After the vegetables came what I thought was squid, but was actually cuttlefish (if Libby is reading this then she is probably horrified that I ate cuttlefish). So much better than squid! It doesn’t get rubbery at all and is much more tender than squid while still having the same texture and taste. Then the rice was added and toasted, and we were all given spoons and we took turns stirring the paella components. To that, they added a red “sopa de pescado” sauce was added to cook everything in. This cooked for about 10-15 minutes until all the water had boiled off. Then it was time to eat! This paella was SO much better than the one at the flamenco show, so much more flavor and the seafood was probably the best I’ve ever eaten (I did get jipped though, I got 2 mussels on my plate but only one had meat inside…bummer!) Mmmmm! The one downside of really good paella is that when you are opening up the prawns, the red sauce gets everywhere! Oh well, still good. So after tapas and a plate full of paella, we were stuffed, but there was dessert! Crema Catalan, a type of custard, in a little dish kind of like crème brulee except without the hard top. Very tasty. I also got some café con leche to enjoy with my crema Catalan, all in all a very good and satisfying Spanish meal!

So this is when the fun begins. My tour was supposed to be over at 3, it actually ended at 3:45pm. According to our list of trips, Steve’s trip was also supposed to end at 3, so we said we would wait for each other at the terminal before boarding the ship. I was worried that he was worried that I wasn’t back yet, but there was nothing I could do. I get to the terminal, he’s not there. I go inside and he’s not in his room, so I go back outside to wait and read some stuff for my classes. 4:30 rolls around and I decide to go inside and ask the Purser if he was on the ship (we have to swipe in and out). He was not, and neither was his trip leader, so I was assuming that a bus broke down or something. Finally, at 5pm, a tour bus rolls in (not his) and I go to ask the driver if he knew anything about a late bus. He said that tour wasn’t supposed to be over until 5pm, our sheet had a typo, and that they were delayed another hour, so 6pm. Soooo then I sat for another hour, waiting for the bus to get in. Poor Steven comes in at 6pm and apparently the trip was horrible. People were complaining the whole time because they apparently didn’t read in the trip description that it was a 2-hour bus ride there and back. I guess they went to the first place in Lleida and had a tour there, but then they were supposed to go to another place half an hour away from there. Apparently SAS didn’t account for siesta, and the place was closed from 12-4:30. If they had waited to go at 4:30, they wouldn’t have returned to the ship until 9, so they just decided to head back. Poor Steven! We had a whole night planned, but since he got back 3 hours late we had to drastically change. Originally we were going to tour La Sagrada Familia and then head up to Parc Guell, but both were closing in a couple of hours. I decided I wanted to run up to the market again since I didn’t really get to see it. So we walked up Las Ramblas to the market, where I bought a paraguayo for a euro and a watermelon wedge for a euro. Steve and I went outside and enjoyed the watermelon (it had been pre-sliced and they provided a fork). Yum!

After the market, we just wandered around the Gothic quarter for a long time. We shopped around, I found a really cool-looking coffee mug that is very Gaudi-esque. We then found a place with churros and chocolate….REAL churros con chocolate, and the chocolate was SO good. Yum! To work off our snack, we wandered around for a couple more hours. Everything was closing, so we decided to grab some dinner. We searched EVERYWHERE in the Gothic quarter but the only things open were ice cream shops! We finally found a restaurant where I had a veal brochette (which is like a kabob) and Steve had a pork, bacon, and sausage brochette. Very tasty!

At this point, it was around 11:20pm, and we decided we wanted to see La Sagrada Familia at night since it is lit up. So we get the metro to the cathedral (which was an ordeal in itself since we had to change trains). I took a couple of pictures and then we went across the street to get a better view. As I’m getting ready to take a picture, the clock strikes midnight and the lights shut off. Just like that. Oh well. Back to the ship!

Plan for tomorrow: wake up early to get in as early as possible to La Sagrada Familia, then take the metro to Parc Guell, then if we have time, we’ll go on a tour of La Pedrera. Hopefully we can fit it all in! Hope you enjoyed this extremely long post! Tomorrow is our last day in Barcelona =( but we get to Italy on Tuesday!!