4/11/09 the deep blue sea

Up at 9:30 for crappy hostel breakfast, then back asleep till noon. Met the girls at MacDo for lunch and then put on some sunscreen before heading off to the beach. The weather was decent at first, but it started getting overcast and looking like rain by the time we walked down to the beach. On the way to the beach passing by the harbor were tons of street vendors selling a variety of tourist trap items.

From Barcelona Trip

It has been years since I've been to a beach, and walking barefoot with sand between my toes felt really good, even though there was a cool ocean breeze abound. The ocean view was absolutely spectacular. Attempting to frolic in the water was not very fun, since the water was still freezing cold.

From Barcelona Trip

From Barcelona Trip

After getting sandy on the beach we headed over to the Barcelona Aquarium to see some sea creatures. The aquarium was packed with people, mostly grade school age kids. The best part by far was walking through the underwater tunnel as sharks and fish swam above.

From Barcelona Trip

After a nap and shower at the hostel we once again set out for the sea shore, this time trying to catch ourselves a nice seafood dinner. The number of restaurants near the shore was staggering, and we were constantly being interrupted by workers trying to advertise and hustle us into their establishment. We eventually settled on a place and decided to order a 4 person meal of paella. I got to see sea creatures swimming around in the aquarium earlier and now I was going to eat them, how exciting!

Now I am really not much of a seafood fan, and was somewhat intimidated by the giant bowl filled with a plethora of mussels, shrimp, crayfish (scary looking), oysters, and even calamari mixed in between vegetables and rice doused in sauce. However, my fears were quickly abated after sinking my teeth into the first bite. I had never quite experienced these sensations before, as the complex combination of salty seafood set loose a cascade of flavors that danced along my taste buds. Of course I was completely stuffed by the time we were done.

It was time to follow up the salty dinner with a sweet desert, and we found a gelato place not far away where for only 2,70E we got a large gelato cup with two different flavors. I got strawberries and cream and it was glorious. Being a fat kid can be a lot of fun.

It was dark out so we headed to some random bars off of La Rambla for a few drinks. We ended up in some kind of touristy bar that had us sitting around a wooden barrel with two candles on it. At some point I got the brilliant idea to put out the candle by turning my empty pint glass upside down over it, thereby suffocating the oxygen supply to the candle. Despite my impeccable scientific proposition, I had left one variable unaccounted for, ie the couple drops of beer left in my glass.

Upon inverting the pint glass, the candle intstantly erupted into a huge sizzling fireball that reached halfway to the ceiling. I feared that I would have to help one of my friends stop, drop, and roll, but luckily no one was hurt. Well my feelings were hurt since the ENTIRE bar looked at our table to see what the hell had happened. Oops. I looked down at the now burnt out candle. Hey I was still right after all!