Jet Lag!

Although we had tickets to an FC Barcelona football match in the afternoon, jet lag got the best of us both last night and we almost slept too late to catch the bus in time.  Strangely, we both were wide awake at 1:30 or so, but then we slept well past Noon. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

It also rained for most of the morning, so we broke out the rain jackets. Luckily the seats were in the covered part of the stadium, so we stayed dry for the match itself.

In case you think this travel stuff is all glamorous, we took the bus to the match, and it was very crowded (the subway was worse coming back after the match).

Barcelona Football

The seats were awesome!

We enjoyed a good match: FC Barcelona vs. Valencia. It started off kind of slow, but after the first goal, it started getting very chippy out on the pitch. Unfortunately I was still in line when Barcelona scored the second goal at 51′. Then it a whole lot more heated between the two teams. The crowd *really* got into the match in the second period. Every time someone kicked him the ball near the goal, you’d hear everyone around us say, “Messi…”.

I really don’t know much about the game other than watching occasionally during the World Cup, but the Barcelona team was really fluid with their passes. A couple times Messi and one of the other players would take off on a break away (?) and the crowd went absolutely wild. Messi missed what would have been a beautiful shot on one of these runs.

Overall it was an experience I wouldn’t have wanted to miss. If we make it to another city that’s having a match, we’ll have to consider another one. Barcelona knows its football and can put on a good show.

An Evening in Born

After the Barcelona football the subway dropped us off at Las Ramblas, one of the tourist destinations in Barcelona. It was super crowded on Saturday night, and as we were tired and hungry, we decided to come back another day.

We spent the evening walking around Born and trying some pintxos tapas at a couple of the local bars. Apparently there’s a difference between the pintxos–little dishes that you just get from the bar–and tapas that are like small appetizers. We had both, and they were both worth trying to get to taste lots of different foods.

Our first stop was for some pintxos and sangria at IRATI Taverna Basca. This was one of the places where they give you a plate and you just grab what you want; every once in a while they would walk by with a plate of hot pintxos from the kitchen. When you finish, they count the skewers on your plate and charge a fixed price for each one. Some were very good and others were a bit strange; the worst part was not knowing what each was before eating it. Nonetheless it was a fun experience we will try again.

Basílica de Santa Maria del Pi

While looking for another place to eat, we stopped to look inside Basílica de Santa Maria del Pi. This is a 16th century cathedral that was built at the likely site of a Roman altar from 413 A.D. Compared to the many cathedrals we have visited, this one just felt very old inside. There was a start difference between some of the altars and the rest of the church.

Ok, this was both funny and slightly embarrassing. As you can see above, there were iron gates in front of each altar. When I leaned in to take the photo below, the gate, which was unlocked, swung inwards with me holding onto it. After I pulled it back shut, the other side swung in. The hinges definitely needed some oil, and the creak echoed through the cathedral.

More Pintxos and Tapas

Our second planned stop for pintxos was the place where I saw the aging beef last night. As it turns out, it is part of the same chain of restaurants as the first place, and it was serving the exact same pintxos. We skipped it and went on to have both some tapas and pintxos at a place that isn’t on the map (I’ll check the name next time we walk by and update it here). It was a relaxing stop and a nice ending to the day after the Barcelona football match in the afternoon.