Spain - Barcelona (November 2013)

We take a weekend in Barcelona.

 We've heard many people like to go there and thought it seemed like a fun trip, have a good time, relax and look around :)

You can tell it's a little bigger city. We quickly learned that the mentality is a little more ”I dont care”. If I thought I understood the meaning of the word mañana, I had to do a big revaluation this trip.

We stayed in a hotel that had a small room but was very nice. The breakfast was in a small dining room, and we got the feeling that they did not want to offer too much breakfast, and seranon they were very careful with. You had to ask for a piece!

The first night we were looking for a restaurant where we could eat some tapas. After many restaurants and after reading many menus we realized that we did not find tapas in the  way we wanted, it was more or less impossible to find something like that. . But we finally chose a restaurant that was in a small alley, a bit like a tunnel, with a lot of small restaurants. It was nice, but the staff forgot about us all the time, so everything took a very long time.

Usually when we rent a room at hotels, we make sure to have a fridge. At this hotel there was one, but more like a bar containing refreshments and snacks. We are not really interested in the expensive content but want to be able to buy some own yogurt, water, etc. and took out lots of stuff and put in our own things and then before returning home to Sweden we put back the hotel's own products. Excellent ;)

We had some things on the trip that were a bit surprising and that we had some fun at the moment and afterward because it was so extremely strange.

The first time we would go shopping some food to the fridge, there were 30 minutes left until the supermarket would close. We walked into the store and were taking what we're supposed to have. When we get to the wall coolers, the guy who works there comes and in front of us, he pulls the shutters down in front of the fridge. No more shopping, he should go home. We probably looked pretty snoopy.

The next event was an evening when we had booked a package with buffet and flamenco show. It was a rainy evening, and we were very excited about eating well and watching the show. The place we booked would have 3 sittings and 3 shows. We had booked the 2nd sitting and the 2nd show respectively. The waiter showed us our table space, and we went over to the buffet, there were many things that it is empty of and several bowls that it is running out of. When we tried a second time to get some food, we realize it's not filling up. We went to one of the staff and asked if they should fill up soon? He asked what I want to have?  But it is hard to know when you do not know what they had from the beginning. Time is also running out when the show is about to begin. We are told by another tourist that the last sitting has been cancelled, and now they are not cooking any more food. We had to choose to shrug our shoulders and go and watch flamenco, which in itself was nice.

Now it started to feel a bit like the Swedish Stig Helmer movie :)

But it didn't end…

One evening we went to the city to watch a fountain show. It was a nice evening and the show was with colors, music and various water formations. Afterwards, we took a walk to look around the city. We found a place not too far from the fountain with an elevator that went high up, so you could take a look at the view. We thought it was a great thing, and there was a woman with a small table next to the elevator door that you had to pay to get to go up to the top. Furthermore, we paid and went up, it was a really nice view. It turned out to be bigger than we thought and there were several restaurants. We walked around and then there was an escalator you could use to go down, and suddenly we are inside a big shopping mal. Now we start giggling and realize how brutally ripped off we have been in a very creative way ;)

The food in Barcelona is hardly worth mentioning, it was boring and tasteless, we finally found a Vietnamese restaurant that had good food and which we could order in a lot of hors d'oeuvres at. The staff were very friendly and helpful.

I loved the trip because it was nice to have time off, and it was together with the person who means everything to me and who I have crazy fun with, but the probability that we go back to Barcelona is not so great!