Life of a gipsy, part one. Barcelona

And it was time to pack... not much time to relax after my afternoon duty, go home, prepare my lousy luggage and off at 3am to DUS airport on my way to beautiful, sunny Barcelona. I was told I had to follow an important meeting for 2 days, so I thought I would add one day upfront for my own pleasure, after all I love Barcelona and I would not waste this opportunity.
So here I am, after a shorter than expected Air Berlin flight... take a taxi to the hotel, have a 9am check in (not too bad, hotel Amister... modern, new, clean, free internet) and a nap till about 11:30am to recover from the early flight... then off I go to re-discover the city...

Barcelona is a city full of art... not only historical, like the Sagrada Familia and Gaudi's works of art , but also a lot of modern art put in recent years by the city council to give more value, attraction and cultural look to this otherwise already attractive city... walk to the center (it's a gross lie, I took a cab!), and down from Plaza Catalunya through the Ramblas till the harbour... stopping here and there, a quick look at the food market, at the pet market (if you can call snakes and iguanas pets...)...


Then finally, the sea... walk over the bridge to the aquarium, have something to drink, relaxing in the sunny 26 degrees... how lovely... watch the boats coming in and out... someone is OBVIOUSLY richer than others :)...

Then, off to the aquarium, for a visit... only inside, I realized I have been there already :)... I'm an aquarium freak anyway, everywhere I find one, I gotta visit it... I wonder, according to Oregon law makers, what is the plural of aquarium... anybody has any idea?? :)


Later continue my visit through the city, visiting the main attractive spots... have a quick look at Muji (I have never seen Muji in Europe before...) and off to a nice restaurant to get my sea food dinner with some sangria... life isn't that bad, after all... :)

The next day the meeting was long, yet interesting and fruitful, or so I like to hope... in the evening, guided by our Spanish colleague David, we found a bodega for some pre-dinner drinks and off to a Catalan restaurant... I will spare you the details, however I would like to spend a couple of words on David... he is an "aristocrat", or at least he behaves like one.... he took us to a certain part of the city because the right and nice people hang out there, he doesn't fly low cost carriers cos if they cost peanuts, it means monkeys fly them... and so on and on and on... all his words were full of distance from him, and el pueblo... well, although he really meant what he said, he came accross funny as he sounded so old fashion in his ideas... after all, I wasn't part of the pueblo in his eyes, so I was well off as to his colleagues he was a real nice chap...

Time flies, meeting is over, the nights out too... back to the airport, before check in, where I made 2 strange encounters... 2 funny animals, a fury one, and the other one a "human" being, according to most people's standards... the guy apparently was seated next to me on my flight in, and he had obviously recognized me... but the non-sense I heard from his mouth the following 30 min are beyond worth of mention...

So, as soon as I managed to check in, I ran to the duty free and away from him... only to meet one big disappointment... can anyone tell me WHY I can't find in any duty free the only 2 drinks I want, not even in the same country of production??? I wonder if I will ever be able to taste again the Sherry Oloroso and Captain Morgan Rum, the SPICED one... if you are lucky enough to find them, try them... TRUST ME :P

One last remark on my stay... the night I flew out of Barcelona, the 2nd worst storm I ever witnessed in my life engulfed the city... rain was pouring down so heavily, it was like I was standing under a waterfall with my eyes open... the wind was blowing so strong, water clouds were created everywhere around us... the tarmac was flooded, the flight was put on hold although we already had taxied to the holding point... but, what was so amazing, was the lightning storm... a real beauty, a wonder of nature... I never saw one before, if not on Discovery Channel... wow, simply amazing... 3 to 5 lightnings every second, and it lasted at least 90min... that makes more than 21.500 lightnings!!! in fact, once in flight, we had to circumnavigate quite a bit in order to stay well clear from that... but it was simply fantastic to see....I wish I could film it...

Off I am, finally airborne, on my way back to DUS, then hop on a flight to Sofia...