The adventures of Kat n' Joe

(We’ll finish posting about Barcelona soon)

Yesterday we walked to Sant Sebastia / Barceloneta beach and spent a few hours laying in the sun.  Of course, we greased Joe up with SPF 1,785 before finding the sun.  We had to take our hotel towels with us to the beach, because we didn’t think to pack beach towels, but I don’t think that was a problem.  The beach was full of beach chairs and umbrellas but they required payment in order to use those, so we just spread out our towels on a small spot and did some people-watching.  Contrary to my previous thoughts, there were not nearly as many topless women as I thought there would be.  I was definitely not the prude American who wouldn’t take off her top!  There were SO many people on the beach for a Wednesday afternoon – could be that some came from the cruise ships, but most appeared to be locals.  We read somewhere that Spaniards get up to 20 (TWENTY!) paid holidays per year, so maybe this was one of those holidays.  Joe took a dip in the Mediteranean Sea, he said it was great, and I read my Nook; it was a fantastic few hours of relaxing in the sun.

We stopped at a restaurant called Pizza Marzano on our way to La SuperCopa for dinner, and had a delicious Bufalito pizza – very authentic neopolitan.  Almost like being in Italy!  The pizza had chunks of chopped tomato, buffalo mozzarella, and fresh basil leaves.  We’ll definitely try to make something similar when we get home.

We took the metro to Camp Nou to watch the game and arrived about an hour before gametime.  Our seats were AMAZING – 4 rows from the field in the corner by a goal.  We took some fantastic pictures and videos wearing our new Barҫa jerseys and cheered on the team to a great win.  FC Barcelona won 3-2 over Real Madrid: Iniesta scored the first goal for FCB, and Messi scored the second 2.  The crowd cheered and had tons of chants that (unfortunately) we couldn’t understand because they were in Catalan.  But we yelled with the best of them after each goal and during the presentation of the trophy!  We noticed that the fans seem to whistle instead of boo when they dislike something, which made things somewhat confusing at first because we thought good things were happening… We picked up on the difference after a while though, they seemed to whistle a lot whenever a Real Madrid player (especially Cristiano Ronaldo) was announced or had the ball.  The stadium sold only non-alcoholic beer, and surprisingly, there were a ton of people drinking it.  They also sold “authentic” hot dogs!  Pretty funny.

We decided that Spain needs to work on their anti-smoking campaign (Melissa – this could be a goldmine!), because the stadium had a TON of people smoking!  It was awful – our throats hurt so bad from the second-hand smoke, not the yelling, at the end of the game.  The stadium wasn’t quite sold out, though it was probably close, and the noise was deafening at times.  We took the metro back to the hotel again, and got to sleep around 3:30a.  The metro, and the area around the stadium, felt incredibly safe despite the late hour because there were police on every corner and at each metro station.  The lack of alcohol available at the stadium may have helped too.  It was such a cool experience, we would recommend this to anyone traveling in Europe!

FCB’s official song/chant (in the original Catalan):

Tot el camp
és un clam
som la gent blaugrana
Tant se val d’on venim
si del sud o del nord
ara estem d’acord, ara estem d’acord,
una bandera ens agermana.
Blaugrana al vent
un crit valent
tenim un nom el sap tothom:
Barça, Barça, Baaarça!

Jugadors, seguidors,
tots units fem força.
Son molt anys plens d’afanys,
son molts gols que hem cridat
i s’ha demostrat, i s’ha demostrat,
que mai ningu no ens podrà torcer.
Blaugrana al vent
un crit valent
tenim un nom el sap tothom:
Barça, Barça, Baaarça!

PS – more pictures have been uploaded, but none of the game yet.  We’re working on it 🙂

Sunday night we celebrated our 1 year anniversary at BarRaval, a nice bar/restaurant down the street from our hotel.  The waiters/waitresses were incredibly nice, even giving us free shots to celebrate!  We stayed out until almost 3a, and then went back to the hotel to sleep almost all day Monday.  Monday afternoon we walked around La Rambla looking for souvenirs and ate dinner at Pans & Company – Spain’s version of Subway – before having a drink on the rooftop of our hotel and heading to bed.

Today we ate a late breakfast at the bakery near our hotel and decided to explore Spain’s metro system.  We bought T-10 tickets, which allow for 10 rides each ticket, and made our way to Camp Nou – FC Barcelona’s stadium.  We paid 22 Euros for the Camp Nou Experience, which allowed us see 2 museums, the field, the press box, and a media room.  We ate lunch at Pans & Company; they have a location inside Camp Nou, and took the metro back to La Rambla by our hotel.  Joe and I found a souvenir shop on La Rambla selling jerseys for relatively cheap, so we each bought a FC Barcelona jersey to wear to the game tomorrow night.

We then returned to the hotel for a short siesta before leaving to attend a Flamenco performance.  We took the metro again, which is really quite easy to use, and walked to the Palacio del Flamenco for a short (40 min) flamenco performance.  The Palacio also provided dinner during the dancing, which included a vegetable paella, cream brule mousse, and sangria – it was all delicious – and the dancing was fantastic!  We took many pictures and a few videos that we’ll post.

Tomorrow we are planning on getting in some time on the beaches of Barcelona before attending the SuperCopa de España (Spanish Super Cup – FC Barcelona v. Real Madrid).  The game tomorrow night doesn’t begin until 11p here, so it will be a late night for sure!

Check them out here: SPAIN PICTURES

Or click the link on the right side of the site.  Enjoy!

Yesterday we arrived in Barcelona around 8am, and took a bus to the Plaza Cataluña and La Rambla, the most famous/touristy street in the city.  Our hotel, the Barceló Raval (www.barceloraval.com), is about a 10 minute walk down La Rambla.  We left our luggage at the hotel and took a hop on/off tourist bus around the city to get acquainted with our surroundings.  We saw the Barcelona Cathedral (built in 1298!), a seriously tall pillar with a statue of Columbus, the “World Trade Center” at the port of Barcelona, beautiful gardens on top the Montjuic hill overlooking the city, the Olympic Stadium from 1992, the MNAC (Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya – Cataluña National Art Museum), and Camp Nou – the home of FC Barcelona (Barcelona’s soccer team).  When we arrived back at our hotel at 3:30p, we checked in, opened a bottle of wine… and fell asleep!  With the time difference, we had both been up for over 24 hours.  Needless to say, we both woke up around 5a Barcalona time this morning.

After watching some TV, watching the sun rise, and dozing on/off for a few more hours, we left the hotel around 8:30a this morning to find some breakfast.  We found a tiny little bakery that sold donuts and croissants for very cheap not too far from our hotel.  We decided to try out the local Starbucks (there’s one on every corner – and its better than home!) and walk around the city with our coffee for a few hours.  We checked out a few souveniour stores to compare prices on a soccer jersey that I want to buy, walked down by Port Vell (Barcelona’s main port), through a mall, down by a park, and to the Barcelona Cathedral.  The Barcelona Cathedral was supposed to have dancers performing the national Catalan dance at noon, but the dancers never showed up.  LAME. ( This reminded Joe of the commercial for a cell phone carrier where one guy starts a dance in the middle of a mall by himself because he didn’t get a text that the flashmob was moved to a later time; pretty funny.)  Since the dancers never danced, we decided to check out the inside of the Cathedral.   Security denied me entrance, however, because I was wearing a tube top!  Apparently all women have to have their shoulders covered to enter, so Joe loaned me his polo shirt and he wore his undershirt.  The small setback was worth it though, because inside was gorgeous!  The whole place is being renovated, but this still did not take away from the amazing detail carved into every surface.  The Cathedral was built in 1298, and it’s incredible how the people of Barcelona managed to create such a gorgeous monument without the technology of today.  After leaving the Cathedral, we checked out a small bazaar that was taking place on the plaza outside and then ambled back to our hotel.

So far we’ve noticed that people do not seem to be overly concerned with cleanliness here in Barcelona.  Not to say that the city is dirty by any means, but there’s no hand sanitizer in every store (like major stores in the US), some streets smell funky, we’ve seen people walking around with their shoes in their hands, and domestic dogs (none homeless) are everywhere.  Speaking of dogs, this has to be one of the most dog-friendly places ever!  Bunches of people have dogs, on or off leash, and the dogs are allowed in most of the local shops.  We’ve noticed however, that a majority of the dogs are less than 25lbs.  Not very many Daisy-size dogs here – she would definitely be an alpha dog in Barcelona.  Also, the weather has been beautiful so far!  Low 80s and not a drop of rain or clouds.  Even though it is slightly humid, we would love for the weather to continue just the way it is so we can keep enjoying the city.

Thanks for taking the time to read our blog!  We are currently taking a siesta and planning where to go this afternoon/evening.  We will try to post our pictures as we go and provide a link for them on this site… hopefully we’ll get that accomplished today.  Adios!

🙂

Here’s some of the views from the roof deck on our hotel. It’s a beautiful day!

Hello friends and family!

Thanks for visiting our website.  Here we will be posting about our adventure to Spain:

Barcelona: August 13 – 19
Tenerife (Canary Islands): August 19 – 26
Madrid: August 26 – September 1

We are incredibly excited to catch a “football” game in Barcelona, ride a camel in the Canary Islands, and visit wonderful museums in Madrid.  Of course, we’re going to stop and taste the sangria along the way too.  We hope you enjoy reading about our experiences!

Love,
Kat & Joe

PS – If you need to reach us for any reason while we are traveling, please email us.  This will be the easiest way to stay in touch.
Kat: kat@katnjoe.com
Joe: joe@katnjoe.com
Both: us@katnjoe.com