I walked back through the park on my way to the Metro & headed to the Museu Egipci de Barcelona. Now is the time to discuss the maps they give the tourists. Yesterday when I walked from Sagrada Familia to Parc Guell it was quite a hike but was easy to do. Here's the issue when you get close to an area that has more than one attraction they typically leave the street names off the map & I don't just mean the streets in which they are on I mean the like 5 streets surrounding it. Anyway, the normal reaction would be ok look up & find the building that way. The problem with that is I'm either too short or the buildings are too close together so you can't see what you're looking for. Regardless the maps suck & everyone from the States that I have met agrees with that. And then to top it off the way the buildings are numbered doesn't make any sense. In the States if you are looking for building 284 & you see number 281 it is safe to assume that 284 is on the opposite side of the street from 281 give or take a few buildings, right? Right! Not so in Barcelona! Here 304 can be across the street from 281 with the 284 you are looking for on the previous block. Talk about frustrating! Anyway, this is what I dealt with on my way to go see my people at the Museu Egipci de Barcelona. The museum was just ok & dad that thing that we (Egypt) supposedly gave them either wasn't there or they were hiding it from me.
It was now time for a snack so I headed back to Passeig de Gracia for Churros & Hot Chocolate. The hot chocolate is really just for dipping the churros & it was good but it was more like dark chocolate & I'm more of a milk chocolate kind of girl. I know, I know dark is better for you but that doesn't make me like it more.
Time for another tangent...Barcelonians who by the way have been very nice thus far. I've noticed for the most part they are very pretty & of normal size meaning not too skinny but not thick either; just normal. I think the majority of the people I've seen that are overweight tend to be foreigners. Here's the thing they eat pretty healthy you know olive oil, fresh meats, fruit & veggies so no preservatives BUT they all smoke like it's their job. I would love to know the lung cancer rate & the life expectancy age because they can't live very long with as much as they smoke & every now & then you do get a faint smell of pot too. Then there's the hair issue...there's two things they obnoxiously love to do to their hair but not necessarily at the same time as that might be overkill. The first is dye it the fakest jewel-red you can find & the other is grow a mullet. I finally had to start taking photos of each so you'd believe me. And the last thing about them is that they LOVE their tatoos-not colorful ones only ones that are shades of gray. But regardless the language is beautiful!
Back to my walk...as I came to the end of Passeig de Gracia I came upon the Placa de Catalunya which is the far end of Las Ramblas. Las Ramblas has turned into a tourist trap with tacky souvenir shops & pick pockets but you still have to walk the mile that it makes up just so you can say that you did. One of the first stores I saw was Springfield, which apparently is a man & woman's clothing shop, so I just took a picture but didn't go in. I had read about their street performers but thought big deal we have the same thing. Um no, we don't & Chicago needs to catch up to this guy as he looks like something straight out of Men In Black...by the way is Will Smith still getting divorced? All I get over here is CNN International & BBC Worldwide...thank heavens no Fox News-sorry Dad!
The next thing I came across was La Boqueria Market. This is basically a ginormous farmers market with each vendor having a permanent booth - I would've been in heaven if I was actually able to shop here but since I'm just a tourist I had to keep myself in check. If you want it they probably have it here & I'm not even kidding. I've never seen such beautiful fruit & veggies other than Grandma Nelson's farm veggies of course. Nor have I seen the butchers do their butchering...not from the beginning mind you but even just breaking the meat down. There's a famous tapas place inside here that I wanted to try but with the smell of fresh seafood in the air (no matter how much I love it) it wasn't gonna happen. Leslie, I don't think you could've stepped foot inside there the smell was that strong.
I left La Boqueria Market (yes NCC girls with your olives) and headed down the remainder of Las Ramblas until I reached the Christopher Columbus Monument where my bags were starting to break (as they don't believe in double-bagging here) so I decided to protect my purchases & just take a quick cab ride back to the hotel...famous last words. So I got in the cab & said the name of my hotel along with a cross street & an extremely popular tourist site near by (just in case of any confusion). My instincts said his path was off but I being the tourist thought maybe there's a round-about way that's easier. When that wasn't sitting well with me I said in Spanish to the cabbie that this was not correct & that my hotel is in the city by the cathedral. He was not shy in showing me his disgust in me questioning him & please keep in mind this happened a couple of times. When we were finally exiting the HIGHWAY (because I couldn't before, again because he was on the HIGHWAY) I was able to point to the map of where I wanted to go where he then started to yell at me as if it was my fault & yelled at me for not asking him earlier about the direction we were headed. I mean what was I gonna do? You have me on the highway with a little bit of Spanish & now owing a not so nice lump sum for my journey to Montcada Pueblo not H10 Montcada Hotel & oh yeah I'm in a foreign country by myself. I'm going to take my lumps, pay the bill (so I don't end up in jail) & then go have a glass of wine while I curse you. I hope your grandchildren enjoy my contribution to their college fund jerk face! Moving forward I will not get in a cab outside of the States without showing the driver a map of where I am & where I want to go so this doesn't happen again...lesson learned. Again jerk face! Now I know what our Chicago tourists feel like!
Like usual I tend to be harder on myself than others so I was a bit grumpy for a bit but I pulled through & stopped being hard on myself...well eventually anyway as the glass of wine & the bowl of olives helped. I walked over to the Catedral de Barcelona (since it was closed the day before) & got a nice surprise as admission was free. The Catedral was breathtaking & I really can't say anything beyond that that would do it justice.
Then I went to check out the post office while stopping for a cafe con leche on the way. My plan has always been to ship the souvenirs home so I was trying to be proactive & figure it all out a day early. So after some Spanglish I was on my way back to my hotel with a big box, two things of bubble wrap & tape. On my way back to the hotel there was this young woman walking towards me just carrying her cat like it was no big deal so I had to take a photo because Gloria will barely let me hold her for five seconds let alone carry her down the street.
Before dinner I did some more wandering & ended up at Palau de la Generalitat. It was really pretty. There was a tourist site that I'd been looking for but couldn't find due to their crazy maps so I decided it was time to break down & ask for help. I started with a security guard at a retail store & he had no idea either so I didn't feel so bad considering he's a local. I then moved on to a real guard at a building I don't remember the name of & again it was right in front of me but you'd never know it.
I wandered back to the square in front of the cathedral for dinner. I had patatas bravas, fried calamari and some other thing with something I didn't know, peppers & goat cheese. The fried calamari is a bit different here because they only use the rings (and I actually like the fingery ones) & the fried part is more like a funnel cake fry than a fried calamari fry. It was all very good but too much food. After that it was time to pack up that big box of souvenirs & head to bed. Luckily it all fit with some room but not enough to downsize to the next size.
I can't believe tomorrow's my last real day in Barcelona!!
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