We started today with a walking tour of Barcelona's Barri Gotic and El Born neighborhoods. These are the oldest parts of Barcelona, and resemble every other major European city (narrow windy streets hitting each other at random angles like somebody spilled a bowl of spaghetti and decided that this is what their city map should look like. Barri Gotic dates from the 1200s, when Barcelona was an independent territory ruled by a line of Frankish kings founded by one Wilfred the Hairy. We also learned about caganer Christmas figurines and tio caga, which... uhhh... yeah, Catalonia is a bit odd (Google these at your own peril). We also learned that there have been several times when the Castilian kings or rulers of Spain have tried to eradicate Catalan culture (once when Felipe V won the War of Spanish Succession in 1714, while Catalonia supported his opponent, and once under Franco from the 1930s to the 1970s). As a result, most Catalans do not want to be Spanish anymore, and they are trying their hardest to become their own state, which has virtually ground Spanish politics to a standstill. The election they held the day we arrived could not produce a viable government because one of the parties the largest party would need to have a majority would let Catalonia leave, and that's a non-starter.
The walking tour left us in a restaurant in Barceloneta, where we had fideua. This dish is Catalonia's spin on paella, with vermicelli in garlic sauce swapped for saffron rice. We then wandered through Barceloneta, which is a neighborhood of apartments along the Mediterranean coast, and then further along the coastline until we came to Las Ramblas.
Las Ramblas is the most famous street in Barcelona, and is now something of a tourist main drag. There's restaurants and souvenir shops (these are all shitty overpriced ripoffs), human statuary, street peddlers hawking their wares, pickpockets (Barcelona is ripe with them, and Adam's blog will probably feature a post on how to avoid being relieved of your wallet), and the occasional police officer. Las Ramblas ends at Plaza de Catalunya, which hosts a sustainable Christmas market organized by the current socialist mayor. It's got some locally made tchotchkes, but more importantly some locally made foodstuffs that customs can't confiscate on the way home. One of these is cheese, which we bought one of, and now need to buy another as a gift.
After a stop at the hostel to grab jackets, we went to a bar called BierCab. BierCab is a craft beer bar that specializes in extremely rare (and expensive) beers. Adam had a Belgian Quad frequently called the best beer in the world, and we split a sour from a brewery that Adam had made several labor intensive attempts to try over the past several months without success (Cantillon).
After single-handedly paying off the debts of all of Belgium (at least that's what it sorta felt like), we headed back towards the hostel, only to find another place that did tapas. After a meal of suckling pig and olives, we got back to the hostel after 28000 or so steps, and took a well deserved rest.
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