A large portion of today was taken up in the Easy Internet Café and then in the Policia Station. In the Police station we actually had to take a number and sit and wait to be called to a little room to make a report. Now, I'm not sure how this usually works, as I'm not in the habit of having to visit police stations, but this seems extremely organised....perhaps through necessity with 1 in 10 tourists having stuff nicked every day?
We were sandwiched between a grumpy/hungover looking lady with no shoes, dirty feet and massive scratches down her face to the right, and a rather cute spanish gentleman to the left. We took great pains not to make eye contact with the lady...she seemed slightly agitated. The guy eventually started chatting to us, and I think Nicki was quite shocked at how little english he spoke. I know, surprise surprise...we're in Spain, but I think a lot of English people would be the same, especially those who don't travel around very much. We're far too used to being understood! He went through the phrases he knew:
Hello
Goodbye
I love you (?)
Beautiful (seeing a pattern?)
One, two, three, four, five (number of girlfriends he has?)
My name is (Casanova?)
In all seriousness he seemed quite sweet, but thankfully just as the convo was getting a bit awkward...he was pointing at Nicki's rings and asking about husbands....his number was called up...phew.
I'd have taken some pictures, but I was concerned I'd be genuinely arrested for trying to steal governmental secrets...and spend the rest of my holiday in a different part of the police station.
Later that day we went for our first wander around the city, we investigated Barri Gotic (please forgive the lack of accent..I haven't figured it out on pootah) and the La Seu Cathedral. Some of you may know I don't hold with religion, and cathedrals in general only illustrate the grotesque wealth of Catholicism (surpassed only by good old Benedicts BLING BLING), but one cannot help but be impressed by the sheer scale of the place. The architecture is incredible.
Catholicism is certainly alive and kicking in Barcelona, as was evidenced by the priests hearing confession whilst we were there. We walked past one box where the guy had no current customers, and was sat under a reading light with his hands folded, reading a paper. Everything fibre of my being wanted to ask him if I could take a picture of him....but my polite nature took over and I decided it may be too disrespectful. DAMN!!
After Barri Gotic we wandered back towards home and into a bar just across the road called 'Cerversares Ski Bar' for 'dos cervesa'.
This is when we discovered it.....Estrella. Spanish....cheap....and YUMMY!! We fell in love there and then. Plonked there at the bar we drank our beers, ordered some tapas, and some more beers. Semi-cured spanish snozzage and patatas bravas was the order of the day. Must say I was a little disappointed with the patatas, it was essentially chopped-up chips with tommy sauce on! If that's what genuine patatas bravas is like then La Tasca has been spoiling us!
Nicki was perturbed by the indoor smoking, I was a little too. Amazing how quickly you get used to the status quo, it wasn't so long ago smoking was standard in most places in Britain.
That was the proper Spanish experience, sat at a smoky bar, drinking beer, eating tapas and passive smoking......oh yes. I loved it :)
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