Barcelona Day 3 - Rebounding at Las Ramblas

So what do we do on our first excursion out after taking care of all the suitcase theft stuff? We head out to stroll Las Ramblas, one of Barcelona's well known areas for thieves and pickpockets. Those assholes weren't gonna beat us! We only took our bus passes, ID and money, and those were zipped in pockets in our shirts.

The Ramblas

The Ramblas is a mile-long pedestrian boulevard lined with bars, cafes and all kinds of artisan booths. Everything is in sections; you'll walk through a souvenir section, a jewelry section, a flower section, fruits and veggies section, even a pet bird section, then it all starts again.


It was an interesting stroll, with several side excursions down streets to look at the cool old architecture.

There was also a huge farmers market, rather like our Pike Place Market but bigger and, shall we say, more direct. For example, if you wanted to buy some ham, the vendor simply sliced it off the large leg of ham that was hanging in the stall.

We had lunch at an outdoor cafe, where Jorge and Ally tried the local paella. Me? It was another plate of grilled vegetables. They'd been waiting to try paella, but were disappointed in this one...thought it tasted like an instant dish made for tourists (which it likely was).

After we'd finished the Ramblas, we took the metro out to Camp Nou, home of FC Barcelona. We exchanged our receipt for our game tickets, visited the team megastore, and Jorge observed a training session at the FCB soccer school with their younger players.

Tickets!

The exterior of the stadium was nothing special, certainly not as stunning as the Chelsea field in London. Just a large beige stadium. We got the tickets, which saved us having to stand in the will call line the night of the game. Big smiles all around when the tickets were in hand!

Hello, Xavi!

The team store was two floors of everything FCB. As you walk in, you're greeted by mannequins wearing the uniforms of the FCB starters. Ally took a moment to get to know her favorite, Xavi (#6). We had fun looking at all the stuff. Jorge even bought an FCB shoulder bag to replace his suitcase.

The Messi "shitter"

The big surprise was finding a display of ceramic figurines of the FCB players...with their pants down taking a crap (and with a sizable pile of poo to prove the point). Who could resist? Jorge asked the clerk about the figurines, and she explained they are called "shitters" and are (believe it or not) part of the Catalan nativity scene! We later looked this up on Wikipedia, and found these "shitters" (Catalan name "caganers") represent the common man in the nativity scene, and it's even a game for the kids to find the shitter hidden in the scene. It is considered a high honor to have a shitter in your image, and the local company that makes them has a whole slew of world leaders, sports figures and even cartoon characters to choose from (read more at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-120599690).

Then we wandered out to the FCB Escola, the training center for the youngest players, and watched all these little boys in their FCB uniforms doing their training. So cute...and some were so tiny. First thing Jorge noticed was a player doing a cartwheel; he was happy to see that even the FCB school deals with short attention spans.  We watched them train, while unknowingly the mosquitos were attacking Ally and I.

Barcelona Day 2 - "Not Nice, Barca!"

We're skipping over Day 1 in Barcelona (aka "Barca") because it sucked. 

Thieves stole two of our suitcases - Jorge's and our carry on - at the metro station after we'd just arrived in downtown Barca. Jorge lost everything - all of his clothes, toiletries, his Kindle, the nice Bose headphones, and sadly his Seattle Sounders jersey and his classic FC Barcelona jersey; Ally lost her laptop, and I lost all of my medicines. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky, as other people we saw at the police precinct were assaulted during thefts; we just had the suitcases grabbed while we were buying train tickets.

We had been so careful and watchful of our stuff throughout the trip, but it just took a couple seconds for them to grab the suitcases. We were fortunate that they didn't get our credit cards, passports, phones, which we carried on us. And thanks to a last second decision as our plane was landing, Jorge's iPad went into my backpack instead of back into the carry on, so we still had it. But we lost all of our chargers and voltage adaptors.

Once we got situated at our apartment, we started the process of changing passwords, shutting down accounts, and notifying our insurance agent. 

The neighborhood pharmacist felt sorry for us, and refilled my prescriptions without requiring any paperwork from my doctor, which would have taken a couple days to get while dealing with the time difference. 

Jorge got another pair of pants and a shirt, some socks and underwear. This wasn't an easy as you might think, as the big department store was very high-end and only carried name brands - even in underwear! We were having no luck finding any waist sizes under 42, and wondered if we had stumbled into a big and tall section...but then we figured out the sizes were in centimeters and not inches...so we'd been looking at the right sizes all along.

There was a humongous Apple store in the downtown area, so we were able to get a charger and a photo uploader for the iPad so we could keep blogging.

We weren't feeling great about Barca, but were determined to make the best of it. We also swore that if we saw someone wearing a Seattle Sounders jersey, we'd take the bastard down.

London Day 5 - A Very Busy Day

We had several things left on our London to-do list, and got most of them accomplished today.

Sounders at Stamford Bridge

First, we went out to Chelsea’s home field at Stamford Bridge. Unlike US stadiums, this one is tucked into the middle of a neighborhood. You get off the tube, walk less than a block and turn down a driveway…and there it is. It is a lovely-looking facility…and we brought along a Sounders scarf for some photos.

Oh, hello!

Ally was yelling “Fernando!” as we walked in.  We didn’t see the real Fernando, but he was a big presence in the Chelsea megastore and she took the opportunity to make his acquaintance. There was some disappointment that the Torres! Torres! Torres! T-shirts didn’t come in size small, but she did buy a pair of socks with his face on them. The store sold just about everything you could think of…with the Chelsea logo – toothpaste, candy (Chelsea Chews) and even bath loofahs.  I do have a photo of Ally giving the bird to a John Terry poster, but we’ll save that for private viewing.

Tower Bridge

Next, we put together a picnic lunch with sandwiches, salads and fruit and rode the tube to Westminster where we took at 30 minute boat cruise on the Thames.  We had just emerged from the tube station when a short rain shower hit, and everyone (us included) scurried back inside the station like rats when the light comes on.  It was over just as quick, and we went onto the boat.

The cruise was enjoyable, and we had a deck hand doing funny commentary and pointing out the landmarks. We got to float by that giant photo of the royals from a couple days ago.  The ride ended at the Tower Bridge, where the boat did one of those Queen’s Jubilee circle spins so we could all get a good photo view of the Tower Bridge.  Jorge was reppin’ the Sounders jersey all over London today.

Turd on a stick

It was a little cool and breezy on the boat, so nothing sounded better than a hot cup of tea.  And of course there was a Starbucks located right by the dock.  This Starbucks was huge, easily 5-6 times the size of the stores we know in the states.  We got quite a kick out of some of the items in the bakery case, including porridge and something called a marshmallow twizzle, which actually looked like a turd on a stick.

 

The friendly barista managed to get Ally and Jorge’s name correct on their cups, but somehow I became “Garl”.   Of course when our order was ready, they called for “Yor-gay” so I guess we’re even.

 Tower of London

Following our tea break, we wandered around the Tower of London, which to my surprise isn’t just a tower but a huge castle complex.  Ally had been there before, and neither Jorge nor I had any interest in going in, so we just looked from the outside.

Cashier's line at Primark

From there, we journeyed to Primark, the clothing store that Ally favored when she lived in London.  This place had to be Jorge’s worst nightmare – not just a store, but a humungous store.  Imagine the biggest Forever 21 store you’ve ever been in times three or four, packed with people shopping in a Nordstrom anniversary sale frenzy…and that’s every day.  Yep, that’s Primark.  But you can’t beat the sheer volume of clothes and the reasonable prices. 

Primark shopping

Ally wanted to look for a coat, and Jorge wanted to look for rugby shirts. Men’s stuff was on the second floor, coats on the first…so we made a plan that if we couldn’t find each other (a very likely possibility) we would rendezvous at the front door.  No sooner did Jorge leave us than I turned away to look at something and turned back and Ally was gone.  No sign of her anywhere in the crowd.  A moment of panic, and I decided to just yell her name.  She did hear me and backtracked.  After that, we stuck together. She found two coats, then we went up the escalator to try and find Jorge.  Luckily he was done and had decided to wait at the top of the escalator for us. Then we just had to wait while Ally stood in the world’s longest checkout line.  There were easily a dozen cash registers going, and a Disneyland-like queue to get to them.  We finally made it back outside, purchases in hand.

Krishnas in hoodies

There was an odd site outside of Primark, Hari Krishnas.  When was the last time you saw Hari Krishnas?  As usual, you hear them first and you think "Seriously? Hari Krishnas?" But these weren't your father's Hari Krishnas...they were wearing hoodies and the leader had a headset mic to help boom out the "Hari Hari Krishna Krishna chants.

Up top the doubledecker bus

Next, we cross another item off our list – a doubledecker bus ride. We’d been wanting to do this since we got to London, but could never figure out which busses went where.  The tube was just easier to understand. But we found a bus near Primark that said “Earl’s Court” so we thought “why not?” We got seats on the top deck and thoroughly enjoyed the ride.  It went through Ally’s old neighborhood of South Kensington, and it was cool to see everything from the bus. When you’re walking, your busy figuring out where you’re going and remembering to look right and left at crossings, so you miss things. Here we could just sit back and enjoy looking at everything.

The bus dropped us off at a stop right by the apartment (now we know where all of those busses go).

Futbol at the pub!

We dropped off our bags, picked up the laptop and headed down the street to the Blackbird pub to cross another item off the list – watching soccer at a pub.  They were showing the Real Madrid v Manchester City game, which gave Ally a chance to root against Ronaldo.  We had a nice pub meal and I got to write today’s blog entry while Ally and Jorge were engrossed in the game.

We had been trying to think of something cool to do on our last night in London, but I think we did so much cool stuff today that we won’t need to.

London Day 4 - Theatre Night

After our rest, we put on our nicer clothes and went back to Piccadilly Circus for Chariots of Fire.  This is one of the city’s theater districts, and when you looked down the street all you saw was marquee after marquee for all of the shows.  It was a great atmosphere with all of the people out, on their way to shows.

Inside the theatre

Our theater was on the small side, and in the round for Chariots. This is the only photo I could get before the usher descended on us with a warning about no photos.  So you’ll just need to use your imagination. The round stage was also a turntable, which was quite helpful when staging the many slo-motion running segments. Admit it now…you’re starting to hum the Chariots of Fire theme, aren’t you?  The play was quite good, and it was fun to watch the scenery changes since there really wasn’t much you could go when working in the round but they were quite clever about it.

After the show

Afterward, the street was filled with folks coming from their plays and it was quite a festive atmosphere and a lovely evening to boot.  Of course that meant the tube ride home was packed with the theater crowd, but it was worth it.

Now we’re trying to figure out something neat to do tomorrow night, on our final night in London.  We’re planning on a daytime cruise on the Thames, probably with a picnic lunch.  We still need to see the Tower Bridge, visit the Chelsea megastore at Stamford Bridge, and Ally wants to do some shopping at her favorite London store Primark.

London Day 4 - Olympic Park Fail

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Our neighborhood S-bucks

It’s become our morning routine in London. Get up, have breakfast at the apartment and then pack up our laptop, iPad and cellphones and head down the block to Starbucks for some coffee and free wireless.

Today was no different.  Jorge takes out the iPad to check on his fantasy football team. Ally takes out the laptop to post the blog and photos from the day before. Gail takes out her iPhone to download all the Twitter tweets she’s missed.  Since she’s trying to limit her data roaming, she doesn’t get to look beyond the 140 character tweet…so today she was trying to piece together the Seahawks game story in short bits.

Tickets!

We were also researching possible shows to see tonight.  We’d talked about going to a play while in London, and we needed to see what the discount ticket place was offering for tonight. Les Miserables was our first choice, but there didn’t seem to be any tickets available.  Wicked was an option, along with several others.

We took the tube to the TKTS booth in Leicester Square, and decided on Chariots of Fire because we were intrigued to see how they’d handle all of the running on a stage. They did have 3 tickets available together, so we’ll be heading back later for the show.

Traditional Mexican favorites

Tickets in hand, we decided to have lunch at Chiquitos, the lone Mexican restaurant we’ve seen in London. They had an interesting take on Mexican food. One signature dish was the “Chilli Chicken and Chorizo Dog” which was your basic American hot dog made with skewered chicken and chorizo in a hot dog bun. We had the spicy chicken burrito, which wasn’t “hot spicy” but rather chicken that had some spices on it.  It was still good. The hot sauce that came with the chips was more like diced tomatoes from a can, but once mixed with a few liberal shakes of Tabasco sauce it was quite fine.

One other food note.  When you ask for mustard, they give you yellow English mustard…which we know better as hot Chinese mustard. A little goes a loooong way.

Meditating before the Tube directory

"Uh...duh.  It's closed, nimrods!"

After lunch, we were off to tour Olympic Park, after figuring out the many tube changes it would take to get there.  We arrived only to find out the park wasn’t open to tourists, and wouldn’t be until November.  Major fail, Rick Steves, who’s guidebook mentioned nothing about the park not being open…and major fail, City of London, for having all those directional signs in the tube stations to Olympic Park, yet not one sign saying “oh by the way, don’t waste your time…it’s closed.”  From the tube station, we were able to see the Olympic Stadium and the Aquatic Center…but Ally was not impressed.

"Not impressed."

So it was back on the train to central London, where we went to see St. Paul's Cathedral and then walked down to the Thames.  And what greeted us but a giant photo of the royal fam that stretched across the entire back of a building.  It was obviously taken many, many years ago by looking at the Queen and Prince Chuck.  Probably posted for the Golden Jubilee this past summer.

"Oh, hell-oooooooo"

St. Paul's

Decided to end our exploration and head back to the apartment for a little rest before tonight’s play.  Chilled out watching some TV, and got hooked on the Japanese game show “Ninja Warrior” (Ally says best gameshow ever).  It’s basically an obstacle course with strange and unique obstacles, like the “rolling escargot”. Most of the contestants were former gymnasts, so now we know what happens to all those gymnasts who don’t make the cut for the Olympics.  Why Ninja Warrior is not an Olympic sport, I do not know.

London Day 3 - Westminster Walk

Busy day today…beginning at (of course) our neighborhood Starbucks for some coffee and free wi-fi so we could update the blog. Say what you want about the Starbucks monopoly, but it sure is nice to know that when you find a Starbucks you know exactly what you’re getting (especially the free wi-fi).  And they seem particularly fond to market the “Pike Place Blend” coffee… “roasted in Kent, Washington!”

Big Ben

Then we set off to take the “Westminster walking tour” laid out in our Rick Steves’ London book.  Got off the tube at the Westminster station, walked out the door, and it was one of those “ah-hah” moments: there was Big Ben and the parliament building literally across the street.  It was like walking out into history.  The street was packed with people doing the same thing we were, too.

Outside of Parliament

As directed by Rick, we walked out to the middle of the Westminster Bridge so we could get a sweeping view of the parliament building and Grande Ben.  Made for some nice pics, to be sure.

Mandela Statue

We kept walking the route that took us to Westminster Abbey, via Parliament Square…a small parked ringed in statues of famous Brits and a few famous other people. Thank heavens they put “Nelson Mandela” on the foot of his statue, or we might have thought it was Morgan Freeman. Legend has it that the Winston Churchill statue has a small electric current running through it because he didn’t want the birds pooping on his head.  Looks like Mandela wasn’t as lucky.  Biggest loser of the bunch was Abe Lincoln, whose statue was placed across the street from the park.

Not nice, birds!

After more walking, we went underground to tour the Churchill War Rooms and Museum.  This is where Winnie ran the WW2 war effort, and you saw the rooms looking just as they had during the war. When we bought our tickets, we encountered a true English gentleman, who said things like "Thank you, good sir."  Typical.  

The War Rooms were pretty insightful, but about half way through the tour, we started getting hungry and hurried through the last of the rooms (which were all bedrooms and such so who cares).  It was sure nice to get back out into the fresh air.

Her "My Name is Earl" pose

After a stop for a rather late lunch, we continued our trek to Trafalgar Square, where they had even more statues, and even more people looking at the statues.  On one side of the square was the National Gallery museum, which of course attracted Ally and Jorge.  I didn’t mind, since it was just 40 minutes to closing so I knew the agony wouldn’t last long. All museums not run by the Queen are free, so it’s no big deal to pop in for short while.

We got to see a bunch of priceless artwork from the likes of Renoir, Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Rembrant, Reubens...and others.  At 6:00pm on the dot we were herded out of the museum by the attendants.  Thankfully on the way out we walked through the Renaissance rooms, which meant we got to see a bunch more exquisite pieces. (BTW, Ally wrote this paragraph. Gail would not be this much into the art.) 

Messi

Next stop was Leicester Square, known as London’s theater (excuse me, theatre) district. Ally said this is where the movies hold their big London premieres. The area was ringed by just about any kind of restaurant you could want. Couldn’t resist snapping a photo of the Messi caricature drawn by a street artist. (See you soon, Messi!)

From Leicester it was onward to Piccadilly Circus, even more stores, more restaurants  and more people wandering around. You’re probably getting the idea that we did a lot of walking today…and you would be right.  But we weren’t done yet.

"Hellooooo" Chilling outside Buck House

Our final stop of the day was Buckingham Palace, affectionately known here as Buck House. We walked around to the familiar front of the palace, and you could almost hear the “clip clop, clip clop” of the horse hooves as some royal would meander by in a carriage. 

Buck House gardens

We saw the famous balcony where the royals come out and yell “Helloooooo” to the masses below.  It was now dusk, but we had to get a photo of the royal flower beds for Gramme.

We ended our day of touring with a walk through St. James Park to catch the tube back to Earl’s Court for a dinner of yogurt and leftovers.  It’s not quite 10pm, and Ally is falling asleep on the couch.  Think we’ll call it a day and start over again tomorrow.

Oh yes…the new season of Downton Abbey debuted tonight over here, but the cable in our apartment doesn’t get that channel.  So we’ll have to wait until next January, llke everyone else, so catch the new season.  We’d hoped to visit Highclere Castle, where the series is flimed, but it closed the day we arrived for five months to film the next season’s episodes. As they would say here, “bollocks!”

And last but not least…Happy 17^th Birthday Emily!!!

London Day 2 - Trip Back to South Kens

Tube station

After an afternoon nap (that felt oh so good), we traveled two tube stops east to South Kensington, the tony neighborhood where Ally lived when she studied in London.   

South Kens pedestrian mall

The first big surprise was when we left the tube station…what had been a busy street had been converted into a lovely pedestrian mall surrounded by small restaurants offering just about every type of food you could imagine. The center of the area had tables and chairs for outdoor dining.  It was quite nice.

Tourist photo!

London house

We walked from the tube station up past the Victoria & Albert Museum to 56 Princes Gate – the Pepperdine house.  It was still looking stately, and Ally said the light was on in her room.  The students would just be starting fall semester…ah, the memories!  We continued our walk into Hyde Park, looking at even more memorials erected by Queen Victoria to her dead hubby Albert.   

Outside Royal Albert Hall

At the edge of the park was Royal Albert Hall, another tribute to – you guessed it – the dead Prince Albert. Ally’s like “Geez, Victoria…he’s dead. Get over it already.”

We ended up dining at one of Ally’s favorite London restaurants – the Beirut Express. It was Lebanese food, and it was delicious. I had chicken skewers with a paste-like garlic sauce that was to die for. Ally had okra stew, and Jorge had lentil soup with a salad.  Of course we started out with hummus!  A very nice meal and it definitely lived up to Ally's "we HAVE to eat there" pleas.

On our way home, we stopped outside of the now-closed Starbucks to see if the wireless internet was still working and if it spilled outside of the store.  It did!  So we downloaded Twitter and other stuff before heading back to the apartment. This would become a nightly ritual on our way home from our daily travels.