18th Sept. 2018
WT, Michelle and my mum had already spent the last 10 days on a coach tour of east European cities of Warsaw, Krakow, Prague, Salzburg, Vienna and Budapest (but they like to be called central Europe - east is like Russia, Ukraine, Romania etc). They will be flying from Budapest to Barcelona today.
Teik Cheong (TC) and I are flying directly to Barcelona to meet them. The Qatar female steward was impressed by my command of Spanish based on the two words I used, gracias and adios. I was going to use Arabic as well but could not tell the Arabs from the Spaniards.
We arrived in the morning to check into the Air BnB while the girls' party will be later in the evening around 10pm - which is the start of Catalan dinner time. I will be cooking because I think no one will want to eat out after a full day of touring in Hungary and then flying to Spain.
I have already fielded domestic questions such as "is there detergent at the Air BnB, and if not can you buy some". I am suspecting some people have 10 days of laundry to do.
The apartment is in the El Carmel district and our metro on L5 was El Carmel! I introduced myself to Antoinette, the building supervisor whose acquaintance may become useful.
First order of business was to buy provisions. It took us 2 attempts, buying dinner and forgetting about breakfast and going out again to buy breakfast provisions.
Unlike the Qatar steward, the shop assistants here ignored my Spanish and signed instead, like "do you want a bag or not", and "are you eating here?".
The girls got dropped off at the wrong street number, so I had yell at them from the balcony, to come to the right apartment. Dinner was tomato rice with prawns and salad. Now we can start our adventure!
19th September 2018
Knowing that WT was going to sleep in (due to hints dropped at dinner last night), I was up at 6 and went for a walk to Parc Guell. The Parc was 15 mins from the apartment, and I found out later that I saved 8.50 euros. At that hour the Spanish government was still asleep (comment deleted - sorry, private joke between me and WT - well I hope she thinks so too) and there were no officials to collect entry fees from me and all the local joggers. So I got to see all the Gaudi buildings, bridges and steps, and also great photo ops because there was no one around.
I was back by 8 am and had breakfast with mum. WT was not out of her bedroom till 10 am, by which time TC had decided to go for walk in the Parc. Directions were misinterpreted and he added a 15 mins uphill detour to his itinerary. The refreshing morning shower he had was completely wasted in the 26C morning heat.
After three breakfast sittings between the 5 of us, we were ready. TC was waiting for us by the Gaudi Museum. It took 30 mins to meet TC because I missed a turn of short cut steps, the tourists were out in force and Michelle and WT stopped to haggle with some of the vendors lining the paths.
By this time the Barcelona Tourist department was out in action, and barriers were set up to collect that 8.50 euro I saved earlier. Now that we know, WT said she will come earlier another time for the free entry. What could go wrong with that idea!
We walked 1.2km to the nearest metro Lesseps where I purchase 5 ten trip metro/bus passes for us. Mum was the last to go thru the gates, and she couldn't figure out where to stick in her ticket. We were yelling instructions from the other side of the ticket machine, while the queue built up behind her.
The metro took us to Placa Catalunya where I purchased the Hop On bus, Bus Turistic Barcelona and the Sagrada tickets from the tourist info centre at the Plaza. The others gave the shop there a thorough examination but acquired nothing. As it was 1 by this time, I asked for the bus tickets to be activated on the 20th, tomorrow, to take advantage of the full days usage.
Then we walked towards La Rambla. T-shirts were looked at Hard Rock but a request to stay for a beer was declined.
Marilyn Monroe is in the balcony window behind on La Rambla under the banner "Erotic". WT spotted this exotic pepper plant seed. Hmm might have to fill up with "yong tau foo" to stiffen it a bit.
It was well into lunch time and we acquired some tapas and meat rolls at the open mecardo.
Alien was at the end of the street, just before we entered Barceloneta.
We walked Rambla de la Mar towards the Maremagnum shopping mall for a place to eat our bought lunch and toilet stops.
And emerged feeling like the Right Stuff. I thought the 1MDB yacht Equanimity was moored here but it turned out to be something else.
After some bargaining and purchases.....
we got to Barceloneta beach. Plenty of bathers with skateboarders and bikes zooming past us on the boardwalk. There was even some nudity but my zoom is not long enough.
By this time 4pm, the stops to rest our feet were getting more frequent, and perceptions of distances were getting longer. Time to go home and buy some supplies for Michelle to cook us pork soup dinner. Yum.
For TC and I, this was day 2, but our bodies feel like it's been thru a lot more. Tomorrow will be a Hop On/Off bus day, so we will be exercising our butt cheeks instead.
WT, Michelle and my mum had already spent the last 10 days on a coach tour of east European cities of Warsaw, Krakow, Prague, Salzburg, Vienna and Budapest (but they like to be called central Europe - east is like Russia, Ukraine, Romania etc). They will be flying from Budapest to Barcelona today.
Teik Cheong (TC) and I are flying directly to Barcelona to meet them. The Qatar female steward was impressed by my command of Spanish based on the two words I used, gracias and adios. I was going to use Arabic as well but could not tell the Arabs from the Spaniards.
We arrived in the morning to check into the Air BnB while the girls' party will be later in the evening around 10pm - which is the start of Catalan dinner time. I will be cooking because I think no one will want to eat out after a full day of touring in Hungary and then flying to Spain.
I have already fielded domestic questions such as "is there detergent at the Air BnB, and if not can you buy some". I am suspecting some people have 10 days of laundry to do.
The apartment is in the El Carmel district and our metro on L5 was El Carmel! I introduced myself to Antoinette, the building supervisor whose acquaintance may become useful.
First order of business was to buy provisions. It took us 2 attempts, buying dinner and forgetting about breakfast and going out again to buy breakfast provisions.
Unlike the Qatar steward, the shop assistants here ignored my Spanish and signed instead, like "do you want a bag or not", and "are you eating here?".
The girls got dropped off at the wrong street number, so I had yell at them from the balcony, to come to the right apartment. Dinner was tomato rice with prawns and salad. Now we can start our adventure!
19th September 2018
Knowing that WT was going to sleep in (due to hints dropped at dinner last night), I was up at 6 and went for a walk to Parc Guell. The Parc was 15 mins from the apartment, and I found out later that I saved 8.50 euros. At that hour the Spanish government was still asleep (comment deleted - sorry, private joke between me and WT - well I hope she thinks so too) and there were no officials to collect entry fees from me and all the local joggers. So I got to see all the Gaudi buildings, bridges and steps, and also great photo ops because there was no one around.
After three breakfast sittings between the 5 of us, we were ready. TC was waiting for us by the Gaudi Museum. It took 30 mins to meet TC because I missed a turn of short cut steps, the tourists were out in force and Michelle and WT stopped to haggle with some of the vendors lining the paths.
By this time the Barcelona Tourist department was out in action, and barriers were set up to collect that 8.50 euro I saved earlier. Now that we know, WT said she will come earlier another time for the free entry. What could go wrong with that idea!
We walked 1.2km to the nearest metro Lesseps where I purchase 5 ten trip metro/bus passes for us. Mum was the last to go thru the gates, and she couldn't figure out where to stick in her ticket. We were yelling instructions from the other side of the ticket machine, while the queue built up behind her.
The metro took us to Placa Catalunya where I purchased the Hop On bus, Bus Turistic Barcelona and the Sagrada tickets from the tourist info centre at the Plaza. The others gave the shop there a thorough examination but acquired nothing. As it was 1 by this time, I asked for the bus tickets to be activated on the 20th, tomorrow, to take advantage of the full days usage.
Then we walked towards La Rambla. T-shirts were looked at Hard Rock but a request to stay for a beer was declined.
Marilyn Monroe is in the balcony window behind on La Rambla under the banner "Erotic". WT spotted this exotic pepper plant seed. Hmm might have to fill up with "yong tau foo" to stiffen it a bit.
It was well into lunch time and we acquired some tapas and meat rolls at the open mecardo.
Alien was at the end of the street, just before we entered Barceloneta.
We walked Rambla de la Mar towards the Maremagnum shopping mall for a place to eat our bought lunch and toilet stops.
And emerged feeling like the Right Stuff. I thought the 1MDB yacht Equanimity was moored here but it turned out to be something else.
After some bargaining and purchases.....
we got to Barceloneta beach. Plenty of bathers with skateboarders and bikes zooming past us on the boardwalk. There was even some nudity but my zoom is not long enough.
By this time 4pm, the stops to rest our feet were getting more frequent, and perceptions of distances were getting longer. Time to go home and buy some supplies for Michelle to cook us pork soup dinner. Yum.
For TC and I, this was day 2, but our bodies feel like it's been thru a lot more. Tomorrow will be a Hop On/Off bus day, so we will be exercising our butt cheeks instead.
Nice to see you guys and to follow you travelling around Barcelona. 😀
ReplyDeleteNice post! This is a very nice blog that I will definitively come back to more times this year! Thanks for informative post. live football
ReplyDelete