Play with your food

No, I actually wasn't bored in Barcelona. I just felt like playing with my food, okay?

The cast & crew.


Huh? Why are you anthropomorphizing me?

HEY! I'M TALKIN' TO YOU!

Fine: we're gonna make a run for it!

Hey! Wait for us!

This is what happens when your food tries to run away.

And this is what happens when you let someone else play with your food for you (at the Sal Cafe.)

Spain's favorite pastimes

Top Three, of which I share none:

1) Smoking. Everywhere possible. I regularly came back to my room without having patronized a smoking bar or restaurant, and still smelled like I'd been bar-hopping in the mid 90s.

2) Ham. It's everywhere. On a rather silly wine show on the plane on the way back, Andrea Robinson mentioned in her Madrid visit that there are apparently over 400 varieities of ham in Spain. Yuck. Tapas in bars often seemed to be a slice of ham with some cheese on top of ham, garnished with ham.

2a) Footnote to my badmouthing Andrea Robinson: she *is* a Master Sommelier, and she was the first female master sommelier in the US. Oh, and her newly developed "you only need one wine glass" glasses, called "The One" , bear a very strong resemblance to the red wine glasses we have. From Costco. That cost $14 for eight, not $49.95 for four. But to continue my random digression, her show is amusing, except that it's really more about travel and eating and being lovey-dovey with her somewhat oafish husband John, and kind of not about wine. And she ooohhhs and aaahhhhs about every dish that is brought out to her, and loves every one, as well as every wine. Apparently she never gets even an average dish or bottle, or they just edit that crap out. In any case, she never really gives details about any of the wine she's drinking, beyond a couple adjectives, and some moaning.

3) Public nose-picking. Aggressive public nose picking. Like, not trying to just subtly clear up one that is really bothering you, but sticking your index finger way up your nostril and tunneling. Diggin' for gold. I'm not alone in this observation. Just google it, and check out quotes like this:

Though marvelously dressed, Spanish men often accompany their wardrobe with a finger in their nose. There is something about the climate or allergens in Spain that makes mucous glands run on overdrive. After about a week of being here, I understand the need for Madrileños to probe their nostrils in search of a green gooey reward. I take a more refined approach to my menacing mucus and blow my nose often, yet the snot never seems to stop. Even mucous glands cannot resist the vigor and vitality of Spain.

"The nose picking here is continuous," said 22-year-old Palo Alto student Cristina Mireles."I suppose the people here must have really dry boogers or enjoy it (nose picking) as a hobby."

Okay, now I really have to get some other stuff done, like send in my passport for renewal.

Back from Spain, and better living through pharmeceuticals

After an 11 hour* plane trip yesterday, got back and had delicious spicy peanut noodles with tofu, green onions and cilantro with J, and soon went to sleep. Well, after a week of being jet-lagged and generally sleeping poorly in Barcelona (which might also have had something to do with other guests in the hostal coming in from clubs through the wee hours of the morning) I took 2/3 of a melatonin before going to sleep, and got a good night's sleep for the first time since I left North America.

*11 hour plane trip? That sounds really long, right? Well, a bozo in business class (essentially first class since it was a two-class 767 ) decided as we began to taxi for takeoff that his tum-tum hurt. So the flight attendants called for doctors, and and Totally Inappropriately, announced the reason why they needed a doctor ("really bad stomach cramps.") Two guys, ostensibly doctors, wandered up from coach to business class, and after about ten minutes, the decision was made to go back to the gate. And get the idiot off. And then wait for his checked baggage to found and pulled off. And then wait for "1300 pounds" of fuel to top us off (which seems like an immense amount of fuel for taxi, but whatever.) (And here is what going down the google rabbithole can do: a cautionary tale about switching between the imperial and metric systems.)

So we finally got back into queue for takeoff about an hour late, and got up into the air. In the air:

* Four Christmases was surprisingly funny for much of it, until it turned into a stupid, formulaic romcom in the last 15 minutes.

* Four returning LDS missionaries were on the flight. First amusing thing was when one of the flights attendants (cue up Total Inappropriateness, Round 2!) just assumed that they were continuing on to Salt Lake City (they weren't, but the hyper-aggressive niceness of the LDS missionary caused them to be, well, really nice about it.) Then as Four Christmases cranked up, you could visibly see one of the two male missionaries get quite wide-eyed at the somewhat edgy pickup and sex scene in the very beginning, and the other look totally mystified.

* The plane was only about 1/3 full in coach, so people were playing musical seats most of the flight, which got surprisingly irritating. But I had a two-seat wide exit row to myself, so I can't really complain about the people who were stuffed into prison cells of Delta's 767 coach configuration needing to move. J and I flew to Belgium a couple years ago on a Delta 767 in coach, and I swore never again. I apparently forgot this when I booked the Barcelona trip, but the exit row made it totally tolerable.

More observations and some images to come: this post is already getting really long.

Barcelona

The city, in many parts, is teeming with people. Then it will feel oddly empty on some sidestreets.

Yesterday included putting my feet into the surprisingly pleasant Medeterranean, and lots of walking, and some mediocre tapas, and some decent wine.

Not sure what today's plan is. Still sleeping poorly, waking up every couple hours feeling wide awake, so I don´t have a ton of energy. Un cafe solo is definitely in my immediate future.

Taking a fair amount of pictures, but not sure how many are worthwhile. I´m starting to think about the literally hundreds of gigs of images I have on the computer at home that I mostly haven´t sorted.

Okay: time to do something not involving a computer!

How to get cheap green onions in Barcelona

1) Go to the market, and ask nicely for them.
2) Be mystified when the woman cuts off the top parts, but the green onions are enormous, so there is still plenty of stuff left.
3) Ignore the sign on top of them: it's wrong.
4) Don't speak or comprehend adequate Spanish, so when the woman rattles off the price too quickly and you give her forty euro cents too little, she is too frustrated with your crappy Spanish to bother, and just tells you it's okay.
5) Proceed to the ripe avocado table, and buy one for 27 euro cents.

A nice flight, lovely hostal: Hostal Campi, a nice three hour nap, some good walking around, an amazing museum: Museu d'Història de la Ciutat de Barcelona (MHCB). More of same for tomorrow (well, probably not another flight.)

Barcelona: Absurdly cheap wine. Amazing crowds. Lots of energy.

It's nice to be challenged to use my Spanish. I really wish I spoke more.

Okay: time for picnic dinner in the room.