FC Barcelona Footie Fans

went to the beach. it's a 15 min bike ride from my house. there were lots of ladies going topless. most were young beauties and very few were old grandmas. That was a super pleasant surprise. Its may so the water is still cold. its tolerable for swimming for about 10 minutes.



selection of spanish beers, most of these are strong, like above 6%. they all were good.



Tapas feature time. this is from Catalonia, its Pan con tomato (bread with tomato) and is super common. they rub some garlic on there, some olive oil and smash some tomato in there and its awesome. this is a bad example of it though. nicer ones use better bread and have more tomato action.



Patatas Bravas (fierce/brave potatoes). the sauce is slightly spicy (like japanese spicy, which means not spicy at all. Spanish people don't eat spicy stuff). Another super common tapas.



a plate of small fried whole fish. you eat the whole thing just like in Japan. they're good just like in Japan.



at Cafe Royale they had a live music thing featuring a "new" instrument. its this table with sensors on it where you place blocks/objects on it and it just controls how the computer generates sound. its more like a "new" interface for making music on a computer than a new instrument. I don't know anything but what i saw so maybe i'm wrong. the guy doing the music was a douche so i didn't get a very good first impression of this thing. seems like a gimic. Cafe royale is really nice place with a lounge in the back. its near plaza reial.



in plaza reial is this place that probably no one knows about cuz its kind of hidden. NAME OF PLACE WITHHELD. you press the buzzer to be let into this apartment building up to the 2nd floor i think. it has 10 foot or higher ceilings, 1930s-40s decor and is like being in some fancy pipe smoking society townhouse in the 40's or something. it's so cool. there was tango dancing going on when we went there, i guess it changes day to day. Please don't tell anyone about this place because i don't want it to turn into disneyland/times square like the rest of barcelona.



below these stones is that 2000 yr old roman street and museum. this dance happens every friday night in the summer. a band plays some kind of traditional music, although no one really knew where it was from and maybe not even spain. about every other song would be an organized dance song either with a partner or like a huge circle dance. once you buck up and just dance like a fool like everyone else its pretty fun actually.



Spain, like the rest of europe and the world is soccer crazy. Barcelona's team called FC Barcelona won the Spanish league title so everyone was going nuts in the streets and gathered in plaza catalunya and la rambla to celebrate. an organized celebration was going on at plaza catalunya. but i looked down the street and it looked like a more authentic celebration that wasn't organized was going on at la Rambla.









this woman really wanted me to take her picture, and then again and again and again. shes doing a thubs down sign. is there some rivalry thing that i missing here because i dont care about futbol and am not spanish? jokes on you old crazy spanish footie fan, I don't know sh!t about futbol.





I learned a new word in english and spanish by an eerie coincidence. I saw Woody Allen's new movie (midnight in paris). Carla Bruni calls a character in the movie "pedantic" I didn't know what that meant. the very next day i started spanish class and we learned the word "pedante" and then i finally learned that it means pedantic (pretentious). this guy looks pretty pedante. take those hands out of your pockets, smash your glasses and go nuts like everyone else guy, if you really love futbol. *UPDATE* comment from reader "Rob" aka my brother: "Not to be pedantic Bro, but that is not what pedantic means. It means that you are detail orientated. Pedantic people are people that point out little mistakes that people make. They worry about little details and often pedantic people point out the little mistakes to make someone feel dumb, or to make themselves feel superior. See like I did right here." My response to "Rob": ok so i used this online dictionary which is supposed to be really good to get the definition of "pedante" in class the teacher said the word "snob".
http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/pedante
i don't have time to double dictionary words so i just took what it said which was "pretentious" so my pedantic brother is correct. that's just swell.





tons of cars beeping the cheer that you do that you usually clap out at a baseball game went on through the night. they won on a wednesday or something so everyone had to work so the celebration couldn't get too drunken and crazy. so that's why the real celebration was planned for that friday night.





If i knew about soccer i would have been partying in the streets with everyone, but i'm american so i ate bacon and went home. This street bacon bocadillo sandwich has been calling me everyday since i got here. i finally tried it. 1 second after i snapped this shot of the menu the guy put his hands up to block my shot and said i can't take pics of it. stupid, there's the same pic in the window. but i guess i am a chino who will steal the blueprint for this bacon sandwich and manufacture billions of them in China so he was right to stop me from taking a photo.



what can i say. its a lot of bacon and cheese so it was decent. Pans and company is a chain so their bocadillos aren't the best. bocadillos come in many shapes and sizes and are everywhere and are for everyone. You would think you would be super full after eating one but for me i'm not, because, yes, the bread is big but the volume of meat they put on there is the same as a standard wonderbread sized sandwich you might make, its just spread out. i mean eating one of these is ok because you should'nt pig out, but if you were expecting an american sized portion of crap stuffed into a huge baguette making a spanish hoagie, thats not what happens. They never have sauce or mayo or mustard or something on them, which i feel would be good, so have a drink of mayonnaise nearby to sooth your dry throat. Anyway, bocadillos are awesome, and are an awesome invention. if you didn't walk down the street eating one of these then you didn't really go to spain.