Friday: Day 4 (Paris to Barcelona)
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| Au revoir, France! |
We got on a European high speed trains for a 6.5 hour trip to Barcelona. Other than a few farms, cows, and sheep, the French countryside is just a beautiful, expansive, green and natural field of beauty.
Barcelona has a completely different feel. Paris had a certain charm about the city, (every window claimed a chandelier and colorful bouquets frequented many balconies), and people on the street cared how they presented themselves, so it wasn't rare to see girls in modest Louboutins or guys with dashing scarves around their necks. In comparison, Barcelona is much warmer, buildings are not so ornate, and there are overweight people who certainly don't dress to impress. It almost feels like we could be back in Florida.
Our driver drove us as far as he could, but our hotel is located in the heart of the Gothic Quarter, a pedestrian-only labyrinthine area in the old city. After a few wrong turns down a some cobblestone streets, we found a quaint and quiet little unassuming sign.
Hotel Neri is gorgeous and modern chic (totally Jason's style). Our travel agent Donnie hooked it up again with a bottle of cava (sparkling wine from Barcelona) and a room with a terrace upgrade! There are some cute little touches like incense, suede kimono robes, fuzzy slippers, and a handwritten note. We are so blown away by this place... it certainly does not surprise us to hear it used to be a castle.
The handwritten note reads:
Dear Mr and Mrs Dai,
Welcome to Hotel Neri Relais & Chateaux. We wish you have a memorable honeymoon with us.
The Neri Team.
How sweet is that personal touch?!
Our terrace overlooks a charming little courtyard. By day, it's a playground for the kindergarten school in the corner. We arrived to some boys trying to send a paper airplane onto our balcony. (It was probably a love note!) By night, it serves as a secluded square in which friends hang out, play guitar, serenade each other, and socialize.
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| Tree-lined pedestrian mall called La Rambla. It's pretty touristy with souvenir and flower kiosks, but the lights and trees lend a nice, romantic element. |
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| We ended up with 2 huge sangrias that didn't get finished! |
Our hotel was celebrating a 60th anniversary of some culinary thing, so we got in on their special eight course dinner, paired with 4 different wines!
Thank goodness everything came in small portions. Maybe small portions are what make it so fancy, since there are so many courses! It was all so delicious.
With love from Barcelona,
Anne (plus an already sleeping Jason)
Saturday: Day 5 (Barcelona)
[Aside:]
Hola señores y señoras! As of today, Jason and I have been married one whole week! Someone referred to Jason as my "husband" today, and I looked wide-eyed over at him and mouthed, "you're my husband!" It still sounds so foreign.
I've come to the conclusion that Barcelona is nothing like America. They have a much more relaxed and easy-going way of life. Someone said Europeans "work to live," while Americans "live to work"... and it's very clearly true - Barcelonians are big advocates of enjoying life! It's a nice reminder that we should always find meaning and satisfaction in the things we enjoy, along the way.
With that said, I really like food... so I appreciate that Barcelonians eat 5-6x a day!
* Breakfast (before 10am)
* Pre-lunch coffee and snack (11am - 12pm)
* Lunch, largest & most important meal, think three courses (2pm - 4pm)
* Light afternoon snack, like a pastry or small sandwich (5pm - 7pm)
* Dinner (9pm - 11pm)
* Post-dinner drinks (11pm - 2am)
Fun fact: There is a huge vote for the Catalonia region to claim independence from Spain tomorrow. Barcelona is technically in Spain, and though they are bilingual (Catalan and Spanish), they are very Catalan and less Spanish. It's kind of like the Taiwan-China situation where most people claim to be Taiwanese, while China's like "You belong to me!"
We were cooking today and heard people chanting in the square nearby for independence. Well, Chef Maria actually said they were chanting "murderers," but she thinks it's because Spain killed people in wars or something. Anyway, it sounded like a riot, but I assure you guys that we are perfectly safe! People here just feel strongly about this pending vote to claim independence for their Catalan area from Spain!
Today we had a cooking class that was the perfect introduction to Barcelona (i.e. the city is all about food)! We met up with Maria, an adorable Colombian chef who came here to study culinary school.
We headed over to La Boqueria (like a huge farmers market). The market is huge. It spans several blocks and is very organized and clean. The meat guys wear white collared button-downs, giving the impression that they're proud of what they sell - it's quality and high class. The seafood is ridiculously fresh and ALIVE (sorry Angela). Everything is so fresh, organic, and clean here.
Back at the cooking school, we tried some fresh olives from the market. Jason is an avid hater of dirty martinis and all olives in general, but even he claims he would convert if we were able to get fresh, non-preserved olives like these ones in the States. They were so good!
Then under Chef Maria's tutelage, we started prepping for a 3 course meal.
And Maria opened a bottle of cava (Catalan sparkling wine) in celebration of our honeymoon, which everyone got to partake in... so sweet of them!!
After that, we needed a siesta.
And then we woke up in time for dinner!
We definitely ate too much, especially considering Barcelonians eat a heavy lunch and a light dinner. Oops.
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| L'Antic Bocoi de Gotic (Old Gothic Cask) is known for their coques, a Catalan version of flatbread pizza. Yum! |
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| At a little cocktail bar named Ginger. |
Whew, eating so much is too tiring!
With love from Barcelona,
Anne (and of course Jason, the perpetual sleeper)
Sunday: Day 6 (Barcelona)
[Aside:]
Bona nit, dames i cavallers! (Catalan for "good evening, ladies and gentlemen.") I'm happy to report that we're still perfectly safe after today, and literally didn't experience anything dangerous, considering they were having demonstrations for the independence of Catalonia! By demonstrations, I mean they gathered in the plaza and wore flags on their backs. Hope I didn't scare anyone by saying that we heard they were chanting "murderers" yesterday, haha.
Today we had a Wine and Cava (Catalan sparkling wine) tour of the Pendés region.
Our first stop was Jean Leon Vineyards. He was an interesting guy who grew up in Spain, hitchhiked to Paris, smuggled himself on a boat to NYC, and then made his way to Hollywood where he became friends with James Dean, Frank Sinatra, and Joe Dimmagio. He came back to Spain and stole some grape varietals from other winemakers to start his own vineyard. These days, he's a reputable name and makes lots of red and white wines, lol.
In the last decade or so, Jean Leon Winery has chosen modern art pieces to be the focal point of their wine labels (rather than a classic wine label), which is really neat. I wonder if this one is actually the inspiration for the piece we bought from Ikea for our living room!
Second stop was Torres Vineyards, a huge wine name in Spain, since they own like ALL the vineyards, including Jean Leon's. They're organic, environmentally conscious, solar-friendly, and they put together a great wine/cheese pairing!
A long time ago, some king came to Freixenet and liked their cava so much that he allowed them to put the title "real" (pronounced like "royal") on a whole set. It got put to the side, for the king's consumption only. However, sparkling wine is good for about 1.5 years max, and the King never came back, so there's a whole cavern full of royal vinegar!
Back in Barcelona, people were gathered in one of the plazas near our place (where a Government of Catalonia building stands) wearing Catalonian flags on their back, waving other flags, but overall just chatting with friends. There were police officers present, but they seemed happy and were just chilling with their other cop friends on the side roads. The atmosphere seemed very friendly and supportive, and not like how I imagined a demonstration to be.
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| Churros con Xocolata |
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| In the atrium of Catedral de Barcelona live 13 geese. They made me think of our pets. Perhaps my nephew-dog Indy would like to chase/befriend/eat some of these geese?! |
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| Flamenco show. The intensity of their movements, emotions on their faces, and the fury with which they stomp their feet is so crazy. How many shoes do they go through, and how can their joints withstand so much stomping on a daily basis?! We literally saw blurring of the feet! |
Then at 10pm, we had dinner at a hole-in-the-wall place called Succulent, recommended by Chef Maria. Oh. My. God. The food here was so freaking delicious! THIS place made me understand what Maria meant when she said that she came to Barcelona for culinary school because it was the center of all good food. I know that Barcelona topped the list of Best Gastronomical Cities in the World in 2009... and with places like this, I totally get why!! Jason and I both decided here that Barcelona would simply be worth coming back to, just for the food.
We sat at a small rustic farm table inside a tiny place with decor reminiscent of a UK pub with a modern yet rustic twist and had: fried croquettes w/ melt-in-your-mouth pork/beef & mushrooms in the best sauce ever (top left), bone marrow w/ tuna tartar & fish roe on a bed of sea salt (top right), rabbit meat cooked in some melt-in-your-mouth way w/ salad leaves covered with delicious sauce (bottom right), coconut rice w/ mango - nothing like the Thai sticky rice with mango, but more sour and coconut-y and not as sweet (middle left), and the check came in an adorable little tin (bottom left).
Look, all I'm saying is, if a person moves across the Atlantic Ocean from Columbia to Barcelona to chase the best culinary arts education, and she offers a few of her favorite spots... you take notes and go to all of them!!
With love from Barcelona,
Anne (and my snoring but very pretty husband... because as Angela pointed out, "he must be gorgeous with all the beauty sleep he's getting!" haha)
Monday: Day 7 (Barcelona)
Today is our free day in Barcelona, so we did the Barcelona thing and slept in, waking up only in time to catch the last of the desayuno (breakfast) from the hotel.
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| Needless to say, delicious! |
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| The beach had crazy sand sculptures that have fire/smoke coming out of somewhere. This is one that seemed abandoned from another day, maybe a dragon with fire burning from the mouth? |
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| It was overcast and the water was cold, but I sucked it up and dipped my toes into the Mediterranean Sea! |
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| Jason watched from the comfort of his spot on the sand. |
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| La Boqueria for more Iberian ham that Chef Maria introduced us to. |
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| Picked up a pom-pom flower from one of the flower kiosks. Anyone know what this is called? |
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| Since La Rambla is so touristy, there was a lady (possibly a man) dressed up as Marilyn Monroe, who stepped out onto her hotel balcony and pretended to be waving at her admirers. It was pretty hilarious and I'm sad no one seemed to notice her... |
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| Lunch at 3:30pm consisted of a DELICIOUS pitcher of sangria and a seafood paella. |
Then because we had a proper heavy lunch like the Barcelonians do, we took a 1.5 hour siesta and just chilled in our modern chic room for a few hours. This was my favorite part of today... Jason watched a movie on his tablet and I read on my kindle and we enjoyed some tea they provided for us.
At 10:30pm, we decided we wanted to have one last dinner in Barcelona before leaving this amazing city of delicious food. We went to a trendy little restaurant called Bar Brutal (pronounced brut-all), where they're proud of their "natural" wines... meaning all organic, no chemicals, no foreign yeast, or added sulphites. It's also known as 100% natural or in this place, they call that "brutal." How cool!
We got some wine and tapas: carne salada, mussels in white wine parsley sauce, Sicilian olives, and swordfish in red peppercorn and honey sauce. Melted in our mouths... certainly did not disappoint!
Now we're back at the hotel and about to brush up on our Italian... we are super excited to be flying to Florence early tomorrow morning!!
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