day 18 :

wednesday, 28 september

Barcelona is a hip city. Fashion is huge here - everyone seems to be fashion conscious, wearing colorful and flattering clothing. When we came back to the states, the contrast was even more noticeable than we thought it would be. For example, young professional men in Barcelona are wearing bright, wide, slightly-short silk ties with nice suits cut to accencuate the wide-tie style. For casual wear, men wear trendy button-down or tee shirts. For young women, layered constrasting tops were everywhere, along with form-fitting pants. No wonder everyone spends so much time sitting at the cafés, watching the beautiful people walk by.

While Eric slept in, Dawn wandered down early in the morning to La Boqueria, the famous market open six days a week in Barcelona. She was on a quest for incredible cream-filled pastries from Bar Pinotxo, another recommendation from Carolin. When she arrived, though, there were only croissants and another type of flat yeasty pastry. She had a seat anyway at the 12-seat bar with a few of the locals, and ordered a cafe con leche and one of the flat pastries. As she was sitting and watching the market wake up, Juan (the charismatic owner) made room on the counter for something, and Voilà!, the long-sought-after pastries appeared. She brought a couple back to the hotel room to try them with Eric - they were more than worth the wait.

Today was a big sightseeing day. We absoutely love the modernist architecture in Barcelona. We toured Casa Batlló, one of Antoni Gaudi's most famous creations and our absolute favorite place that we visited in Barcelona. It's must be quite an experience to have an apartment in this building. We were impressed by the amazing craftsmanship (just look at the curved wooden window frames), attention to details (every door handle is molded to perfectly fit your hand, and can be rotated in either direction to open the door), and bold use of color.

We were starving by this point, so we headed back to La Boqueria for lunch at El Quim, another great tapas bar. The caramelized foie gras and mushrooms was to die for, and we had a plate of perfect baby squid in an amazing sauce of their own ink with fried eggs.

After lunch, we walked around the Barri Gotic, and intended to see the Palau de la Musica on our way back to the hotel, but just missed being able to tour the inside. The outside, though, was covered in colorful mosaics, including the tiny ticket booth windows.

In the evening, we returned to Cerveseria La Catalana and had a good selection of Catalan dishes, although this time around a few of the green peppers were scorchingly hot! Gotta watch out for those irregular batches sometimes.