Day 3 - Barcelona - Feruary 15th

I woke up on Sunday the 15th to an overcast sky and set out on foot, headed towards the seaside neighborhood called Barceloneta. I passed by the maritime museum and a monument to Columbus, ending up at the most fabulous junk fair at the port. Some people call them "flea markets," I like junk fair. The collections of random, useless, junk stretched table after table, tent after tent. The atmosphere at these places is just great. People browsing, bartering, buying, balking, bellowing with laughter, you name it, somebody has it. This is the part of travel that I love. I had not planned this stop and I was not standing in a national museum, but I was being exposed to some great authentic European culture. People from all walks of life seemed to congregate here and pay hommage to the lord of junk!


Weekly Junk Fair-I was amused by finding an Eiffel Tower in Barcelona, having just come from Paris


So much junk


So much cool cool junk

It broke my heart to do such a thing, but I left the junk fair, walked through the port, along the harbor packed with masts and sails, and into the heart of Barceloneta, the old crumbly fisherman's quarters. It was dirty. It smelled like fish guts and wet garbage. I was there on an empty Sunday morning and no one was in the streets. Weekend laundry hung from every balcony. I wandered for ages. Poking around corners. Creeping down narrow alleyways. Finally I ducked into a small cafe/bar for a beer and sandwich just after noon. There was a group of what looked like freshly retired men. They were playing at a game of dice very loudly. They were very drunk.


Barceloneta, unreal atmosphere!


My favorite neighborhood of Barcelona


These people sure do laundry a lot


In their defense it was 1:05pm when I saw them taking shots. But then again, they were already severely intoxicated by 1:05pm.


First of many many chorizo sandwiches

After getting my fill of the dice game I met up with Tanya who gave me a very informative tour of the Picasso Museum. She had been there with her elementary students and remembered a lot of great info. I especially enjoyed this museum because they had pieces from when Picasso was still in art school all the way up to near the end of his life. It was great to watch his work grow and evolve in front of my face.


Tanya with her favorite mural in the old district of Barcelona


Seafood Paella.

Tanya and I sat for a very long time eating from a huge dish of Paella. We watched the boats floating in the port and talked about life abroad. We found that we share a lot of opinions. It takes a certain mentality to pick up and leave your home country and live out of a suitcase for a year. It was very nice to share my time with a like-minded individual. After dinner Tanya took me to her favorite park in Barcelona, the Parc de la Ciutadella. It was getting dark so pics didn't turn out so well, the empty church which we came across was a great refuge from the dark.


Quiet Church

We continued to walk around the city, no destination, just rambling on. Tanya took me to a bar which was actually more of a jungle. Complete with trees, hanging plants, vines, waterfalls, and lots of funny gnomes and nymph statues. Then we headed to over towards the university and got a late night bite to eat. The eggplant goat cheese pine nut wraps that I got will never leave my mind. It sounded like the weirdest combination of tastes but I just had to try it. And I am forever glad that I did!


Fantastic Food


Lovely Host Tanya