We were up this morning looking for an early breakfast. We found a wonderful restaurant/upscale deli (for those of you with New Orleans connections, it reminded me of Martin’s Wine Cellar in Metairie) which offered delicious pastries for breakfast, so we had chocolate croissants and another pastry and a cup of café con leche each. Afterward we selected some lunch delicacies - Roger got a ham sandwich and some short sections of sausage wrapped in pastry - sort of a mini-pig-in-the-blanket. We added a chocolate bar to that and took it all away in a lovely carry bag for the train.
We returned to the hotel, packed, paid our bill and walked out for the last time. We made our way through subway to the train station and kissed Madrid goodbye.
On the train we heard a couple of young guys behind us speaking English, so I leaned back and asked where they are from. They are from Canada but have been living in Tuscany within walking distance of the house where Frances Mayes, of Under the Tuscan Sun fame, lives.
We arrived in Barcelona and made our way to the Barceloneta subway stop and headed for the apartment Jamie rented for five of us. Alicia called while we were on the subway, just to check on our whereabouts. It took us ten or fifteen extra minutes to find the apartmnet once we got into the area, but we finally managed.
An odd thing happened on the way from the metro to the apartment – we were walking along and a guy behind us called out to us and pointed out that there was something spilled on my back and on the suitcase I was pulling. He offered a mouchoire and some water to help clean it off, but I pulled a tissue out of my own pocket and we indicated that we had water ourselves. It was too much to clean up in the street anyway, so we thanked him and moved on. I wondered if this was one of those tourist scams, where strangers move in to help us out, then lift my purse in the confusion of cleaning up. If it was, it didn’t succeed, as we declined all help and moved on. There did not seem to be anyone else around to help the guy out, so I don’t know for sure.
It turned out that someone had thrown some of the contents of a bottle of makeup onto me, sloshing it onto my sweater, my purse and the small rolling suitcase I was pulling. It cleaned out of the suitcase and the purse quite well. I will not wash the sweater until I return home. The more I think about it, the more I believe we were the target of a tourist scam. Why else would someone toss liquid makeup onto my back?
It was great seeing Alicia, Peter and Jamie. We relaxed a bit, then walked through lower Barcelona to a funicular which took us up trhe side of a mountain. It terminated at a gondola called Telefuerico Barcelona, but it closed about 15 minutes before we arrived, so we explored the area instead. Alicia checked on a geocache site and we located it. She logged it, then we enjoyed the view out over Barcelona, then returned to the funicular and back to the harbor area of the city.
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| A huge brass cat in the street |
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| Alicia, with Barcelona spread out behind her |
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| View of Barcelona from an olympic venue - note Sagrada Familia to the left in the back. |
We settled on a dinner location and took the subway to get there. It is Sunday evening, however, and the place was closed. We settled on a small nearby restaurant, which turned out to be better than we expected. Then it was back to the apartment and to bed.
We had a struggle getting our computers connected to the internet. Alicia and Peter brought my new computer, but we never got it connected. We did manage to get my small one connected, and Alicia got her cell phone to connect, but Jamie had a struggle with her cell phone, and Roger never did get his computer connected.
Impressions of Madrid:
Ice! They have ice and serve cold drinks. Pardon-moi - I earlier stated that there are no cold drinks in Europe. I was wrong - there are in Spain!!
Warm weather - beautiful weather. Even the rain did not spoil our trip, as we did not get wet from it, and our day’s excursions were already over by the time it hit.
Three or four Spanish languages, including Castillan, Catalonian, and a couple of others. Most signs were in two or three languages.
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