Barcelona Day 6 - Getting Our Groove Back

First, I need to explain the concept of being "conquisted" (cone KEES tud). It's a new term coined by Jorge that basically means getting screwed in Spain.

Being conquisted was first recorded on our first full day here. We were at Playa Catalunya, trying to find some clothes for Jorge that weren't designer label. We decided to have lunch in the cafe on the top floor of this huge department store, El Corte Ingles. The service was really snooty...but the worst part was getting the bill and seeing we were charged 2.25 Euros for each piece of bread eaten from the bread basket that was voluntarily put on the table. Ally was particularly incensed: "you can't put bread in front of Barreras and not expect us to eat it!" So that became being "conquisted" or effed over by Spain.

The very first episode of conquisting was of course our stolen luggage. Others include more snooty servers, and the fact that people here just aren't friendly; you try to talk to them, and they just aren't interested.

Just today, we were dealt a couple more conquistas. We were going back to the Ramblas and then onto the Barri Gotic to look at more old buildings. We walked up to the metro station and found that our 5-day metro pass no longer worked. This is day 5, but since we purchased our pass around 9pm we assumed it would be good until 9pm tonight. Wrong! We were just conquisted again. 

So we bought the 3-day metro pass and joined a fairly large crowd of folks down below. Jorge noticed that instead of the schedule of upcoming trains, the readerboard had a message that said the metro was on a 24-hour strike. Crap! Don't know why all those people were still standing there; we waited for a while and there was no whiff of a train, so we left. Double conquista!

Heading out on foot

We decided that if we were going to go anywhere, we'd have to walk. So we did. We found that our apartment is a block away from Barca's large Central Park which was crowded with people because it was a holiday in Barca. They were celebrating Catalunyan independence from Spain, which is a bit premature since they have yet to become independent from Spain. Perhaps they are just practicing for when/if that ever happens.

Side street

We strolled down several of the side streets during our walk and checked out little shops with cool and less expensive souvenirs (okay, we checked out a couple of stores because they had air conditioning as it was quite warm) and eventually worked our way through the Barri Gotic to the Ramblas. Thank heaven Jorge had downloaded all of those IPhone apps that provided us with detailed street maps, so we were seldom lost.
 

Cathedral

We did stop and tour an old cathedral so Jorge could take some more pics of cool church architecture...teasing him that for someone who has no interest in religion, he sure likes to spend time taking photos inside churches. We weren't sure if the guard would let Ally in wearing her shortish shorts, as we'd seen him turn some people away in booty shorts. She made it in without problem.

Automatic candles

We did notice something cool and progressive inside the church; instead of having votive candles that you can light after giving a donation, there was a large bank of electric candles that automatically lit when you deposited a coin.

 

Burger King?

Every little square we passed seemed to be set up for a concert...all part of today's holiday. When we got to the Ramblas, the big parade was underway with lots of large figures dancing down the street...one even looked a bit like the Burger King. Incidentally, both BK and McDonald's had large presences in both Barca and London...and just like at home, you would often find a BK within a block or so of a McDonald's. Kentucky Fried Chicken was also a big player on the fast food side.


After a lot more walking around, we decided to try the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. I know what you're thinking - why would we go all the way to Spain just to eat at an American restaurant? Well, so far the food we've had in Spain has been less than inspiring...and really overpriced. I also thought that maybe the Hard Rock menu might have a salad or something that I could eat. Best. Decision. Ever. Not only did the menu have lots of good options, the food was actually very good. Jorge said it was the best meal he's had in Barca.

That good old American meal did more than satisfy our hunger...it seemed to give us our spunk back. From now on, we'd be the ones doing the conquisting! It didn't take us long; we went to the bus stop in hopes we could catch the #41 which runs right past our apartment. The stop was packed with people all with the same idea because the metro wasn't running. The buses here aren't huge, so it wasn't a given that we'd get on the bus and the next one would probably be another 30 minutes or longer. We were nowhere near the head of the line, but when the bus came it stopped, for some reason, right in front of us (the first stroke of good luck we've had in this city). An old couple pushed their way in front of us; he had a cane, but when that bus door opened, he practically used the cane as a pole vault to get past us and get in the door. We got our revenge, as the old people had to leave their seat to go back and run their ticket through the machine and we took their seats. Now before you go thinking that we were mean for taking seats from old people, you've gotta understand how screwed we've felt by this city. Turning the tables on some grumpy old people felt good - we had our groove back and were finally giving out conquista rather than getting conquisted in the rear end all the time.

Yeah, baby....we're back!