July '07 - Part 2 - Day One

After changing clothes in the main square due to the fact that our hotel room hadn't been prepared yet, we finally decided to dump our cases in the foyer & start taking in some of the scenery.

Much to our suprise, our hotel was situated in a plaza just off Barcelona's main street: Las Ramblas, home to half of Europe's buskers (or so it seemed to me...)

By this time, this had been going too well, so once me & my friend had sat down for a drink in a street cafe it hadn't occured to me that misfortune was soon to follow. "Oh look, churros!" I said.

Oh dear...

Churros are a popular Spanish snack, they're like french fries but made out of one part do-nut mixture & three parts sugar, with some more sugar on the top. I had previously eaten these in Cuba, & since my friend was a churro-virgin it seemed a shame to leave without ordering any.

"Do you want chocolate with that?" Said the waiter in English, after I had ordered our drinks & churros in flamboyant Spanish. Slightly annoyed at this I agreed without thinking. What I had envisioned was a typically British vague splat of chocolate sauce on the top; I had forgotten that in Spain, everything's a bit weird & distorted.

A cup of drinking chocolate arrived on our table shortly after our drinks: Not only had I ordered a litre of pepsi for us both, but we also had hot chocolate to contend with as well. "We're going to be fighting for the en-suite all night," joked my companion. I stared at the volume of liquid in speechless horror.

In a typically continental fashion, the churros arrived cold & in our long wait the accidental chocolate had cooled as well.

After paying the extortionate bill we left with an odd mixture of a sugar high & the somberness expected in someone who felt that they had been conned.

Giddy because of all of the sugar we had consumed, we trekked Barcelona's back streets for a while where we found a small church. This held a particular interest for me as the closer you got to it, the smell of sewage appeared & gradually got worse as you made your way to the door. We left giggling & wondering if there was deep philosophical meaning behind the stink.

Later, after a trek up what can only be described as a small mountain, we arrived at the Castell de Montjuic. The castle itself is a military museum full of pistols, swords & other cool stuff. But my friend, with the combined disadvantages of being on a sugar-burnout & girly, refused to enter. I amused myself by looking at the movement of the freight in the port below us.

Since the castle is situated on the top of this mini-mountain, it offers spectacular views of both the immense harbour & the expanse of the city. But, to stay true to my cynical title, the city just looks like a huge brown smurr from above & is therefore not very interesting. Plus the smell of sewage seemed to be following us...

I discovered the delights of green tuna lasagne for our evening meal (the pasta was green, not the tuna), which was suprisingly good despite my constant toilet jokes. Then, to finish off the night, me & my friend (who has so far remained anonymous) wondered up & down the same street for an hour looking for somewhere to sit down & have a drink. All of the street cafes had packed away by that time, but neither of us were keen to return thanks to the afternoon's experience. But now I must admit that Dunkin' Donuts has a special place in my heart, as those wooden stools were the comfiest things I have ever parked my bum on... Or so it seemed at the time.

So after our 20 hour day, we finally unpacked in the hotel & went to sleep... But not before complaining explicitly about the incontinence sheets on the bed.