Day 1 in Barcelona

I almost missed the plane in London, and got very little sleep last night, but I got to Barcelona safely and met my mom and dad at the airport. We took our time getting settled in at our apartment, which is really awesome. It is in the Eixample, which is the newer part of the city, and has a rooftop terrace with a view of the Sagrada Familia (one of the big sites in the city).

Person:

I actually managed to find myself in an English pub in the middle of Barcelona late in the evening. This was kind of silly, but the bartender was great. She was mixing mojitos when we got there, and I loved the care she was putting into it, muddling the mint and lime slowly, and shaving ice by hand. She also somehow knew to greet us in English (she greeted others in Spanish and German, just as fluently) and poured a pretty decent Belgian Tripel for me and a Guiness for my dad.Place:

We caught the Boqueria Mercado just before it closed at 8:00pm, and got to see just a little of it. This is a giant open air market on Las Ramblas that has booths jammed with chocolates, cured meats, candies, fruits, cheeses, seafood, flowers, and vegetables. They even had dragonfruit, which is what my Aunt and Uncle grow in Hawaii (it's also grown in Israel; I wonder if that's where the ones here came from) I can't wait to go back here with a grocery bag and wander around picking things up. You can't tell from the picture, but those avocados were the size of small cantelopes.

Food:

After the English pub we headed to the Taverna Basca Irati, a Basque tapas (which are actually called pintxos) place in the Barri Gotic. They had a huge selection of pintxos (peen-choz), most of which were a piece of toast with a topping. One example was cold tortilla espanola stuffed with crab mix and topped with cheese. These each cost €1,80, and they had glasses of cava (Spanish champagne) for €2,50. You stood at a bar (no seating) and just grabbed what you wanted. Every pintxo had a toothpick, and at the end they just counted your toothpicks to determine your bill. We gorged ourselves, naturally.