We arrived to a sunny day in Barcelona on March 23rd after a relaxed red-eye flight. After fighting a bit with the ATMs in the airport upon arrival, we found the Aerobus to take us into Barcelona. The Aerobus dropped us right in the Placa Catalunya, which was a short 2 minute walk from the apartment that we rented. Knowing that we would be tired, we decided to take a short walk down La Rambla to begin our week in the city. Since I really hadn’t planned anything for this trip or even bothered to read about Barcelona (thank God Tia did!) I didn’t even know they spoke another version of Spanish – Catalunyan. I figured this out when I got scolded by a shop owner for not speaking Catalunyan; after professing my my apologies, I think she realized that I wasn’t even Spanish and was willing to sell me one of the bracelets in her shop. An odd experience on our first day in a new city, but I was willing to believe that it was a fluke thing and this particular shop owner was simply strange. Thankfully, I was proved right and no one ever gave us a hard time about not knowing the language. 
We also stopped by Liceu, which is one of the two main performance centers. The Liceu is the older of the two, but since it was destroyed by two fires in the last 200 years, it’s been remodeled several times. One of the benefits of these remodelings is that it is now fully up-to-date with TV screens for those with bad seats or who need translations.
Next on our tour of La Rambla, we saw the first of the many Gaudi creations – Casa Mila, which was built for the Mila family, finished in 1910. My first reaction to the Gaudi “look” is that I feel a little like Hansel and Gretel and this is looking like a stone-colored gingerbread house! Gaudi’s creations are whimsical, colorful and a little cartoon-like. I think it’s the organic lines of the buildings that make them so attractive to the eye – I found myself often wondering, “how did he do that?” or “how long did that take to build?” While we didn’t pay to go to the roof, there was a free art exhibit and at least we got to tour the inside!
On our walk back to the apartment, we stopped to pick up some food from the Boqueria. This is one of Barcelona’s famous markets. There is a maze of fruit, meat and spice stands equivalent to a square block in NYC. We wasted no time and picked up some fresh goat cheese, Iberian ham, bread, and fruit to have for our breakfasts.
The meals on our first day were, of course, excellent. First, we stopped at Café Vienna for a flauta. We learned quickly that the small size is VERY small. We had the stereotypical Iberian ham flauta and a Damm beer. For dinner, we went to Tapas 24 where we had our first taste of Barcelona’s famous tomato bread. Tia and I both wondered why we had never made this before! It’s simply toasted bread, wiped with a ripe tomato, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt. So simple! We ordered some random tapas, including croquettes, chicken wings with an amazing kimchiri sauce, some sort of fish canape; we topped it off with Barcelona’s version of crème brulee – Crema Catalunya.
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