Yesterday was our last real day in Barcelona, it was also the 4th of July. I pondered what I should do to celebrate this worldwide holiday. Several ideas popped into mind. Hit up every Starbucks, Dunk’n Donuts, McDonalds, Burger King and every other AMERICAN establishment. Or, maybe light some fireworks off on the beach, with an ice cold Budweiser in my hand, slightly more entertaining. Well, after pounding our heads together Scott and I settled on drinking wine and eating local cuisine. The seafood Paella was pretty amazing. The rest of the night was spent wondering the street of downtown Barcelona, hitting up a few tapa and wine bars. The wine bar had some pretty cool music, the guy let me copy the names off his ipod, we’ll see if I can find a few. The street performers on La Rambala are pretty amazing.
The market in Barcelona is also amazing, full of wonderful goodness, I blew some serious Euros in here tasting everything.
We spent three days in Barcelona and every day I went to the beach for a few hours. The beach is pretty crowded but everyone is there to have a good time. The one thing that kept us entertained on the beach was the never ending bombardment of people trying to sell us things. It’s pretty funny how it works too. It seems that every ethnic group has full rights to sell certain things to the intermixed crowds of Tourist and locals. The middle eastern people are the go to guys for, and I quote “bier, cold beer, coke, fanta agua”. However this is how it comes out. “Biercoldbeer,cokefantaagua”. Now if you happen to be sore for one reason or another, don’t you worry, the Asian populous has you covered. Along with the consistent sounds of the ocean waves crashing, seagulls crackling and the biercoldbeercokefantaagua, the repetitive sounds of “massageee” can be heard just as often. All over, sun leathered asian ladies walk around massaging people. The whole massage on the beach doesn’t sound that bad. The thing that gives me the willies is that these ladies go around massaging everyone, everywhere and don’t wash their hands afterwards. Oh yea, those hands that you might think feel so good on your neck were just getting the toe wax out of the 500lb’ers toes down the beach…..uuuhhhgg. needless to say, I didn’t get one. Those are the most prominent sellers, however the large bohemian women sell clothes, more middle eastern folks will be happy to sell you beach tattoos and or sunglasses, or coconuts if you so desire. So to sum up the beach, the sand is nice, the ocean is the perfect temperature, the women are gorgeous and you can thoroughly enjoy yourself as long as you can tune out the sounds of what seems to be coming from a broken record on repeat.
Another little story was the other night, walking down a quasi quite street off La Rambala, I saw a girl get mugged. It happened so fast I didn’t really know what to do. The episode was pretty violent. The girl, after realizing what had happened broke down and started to cry on her friends shoulder. Scott and I made sure she was ok and offered to walk with them but the language barrier was a challenge. Several minutes after a few police showed up. Being one of the only ones to witness the incident and knowing exactly what the man looked like, I tried to offer my knowledge. The police officer claimed his English was no good, but it was obvious what I knew, yet he still blew me off. I understand that it happens often but I was a little disappointed that no effort was made on their part.
In that light, we made it to Valencia today. We are staying at a pretty swank hotel, in a pretty nice area. With parking at the hotel costing 17 Euro a day we decided to park a less than a block away for free. Not having enough hands to take our bags, food and bikes, we grabbed everything but our bikes and headed to our hotel room. Fifteen minutes later I was back at the car only to discover some SOB motha ......you get the idea, broke into the car and stole our bikes, wheels and extra bike parts. Seriously?
With all the nice beaches around, spending the afternoon filing police reports was not my idea of fun.
I'm pretty bummed about the bikes. I mean I had that old XTR seatpost on there, my new white SLR, my 700cc wheels, my extra spare parts, including an x.0 rear der. and x.0 shifters. Also spare Cannondale hangers and bearings, you know, stuff that takes time to accumulate. I'm suppressing my anger right now as it will only affect both those around me as well as myself. Getting mad won't do much so i guess the best thing i can do is move on and try to enjoy myself. We have to fix the car tomorrow, hopefully it doesn't take too much time. Only 3 more days left on this adventure, hopefully they go well.
