Life’s an ocean with too much commotion

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a message on my blog I know, but it’s been an extremely busy period for me. This week (and next week, but I’m only here for a week), my girlfriend is participating a summer school in Barcelona. Every occasion for visiting Barcelona is fine for me, so this one comes in handy, especially after this hectic period.

We arrived at noon. Of course we were very tired, took a taxi to our hotel and fell down in our bed. After a short sleep we left the hotel and headed for La Rambla. La Rambla on itself is nothing special. You’ll see some special acts (the game with the ball hiding beneath a cup, some living statues, etc…), terraces and restaurants but it’s pretty fake. It’s the perfect place for being robbed if you’re not careful. My opinion is only to go to La Ramble for crossing it, not walk on it. In this case, we went to La Rambla because the linguistic department of the university is located there.

Our hotel, Silken Hotel, is located on the Avinguda Del Paral-lel. Between this road and La Rambla you have El Raval. It’s a region where poor people and lots of immigrants used to live. The government cleaned it out some times, but at night it’s still a place to avoid. We walked there to find a shortcut between the Parallel and La Rambla and crossed some people injecting heroine on the street. At day, it’s a place where you can find shops of second hand stuff (vinyls, clothing, …). Close to La Rambla, still in El Raval, you have Palau Guell.

In the evening, we went to Port Vell to examine the fish restaurants. We wanted to eat some fish or paella. I went to Barcelona four years ago for the first time. Then, the budget for eating a meal was about 10, max 15 euros. Now these restaurants start at 20-25 euros for a fish meal. Still worth the price, the fish is fresh and service is well. If you want to eat Paella, 7 Portes is a nice restaurant (located in Passeig Isabel II, near Port Vell). People usually have dinner around 9PM. Before 9PM most of the restaurants are empty. Starting from 9PM, it’s common that you’re queued and have to wait before going to dinner. We ate at El Caf9. It was rather expensive but the tapas are great.

We also visited the Mare Magnum that day, a shopping center with restaurants, pubs, places to go out, etc.. It’s entirely built on a platform on the water. Starting from there, you can walk to Port Vell, go to the beach and head for Port Olympic. This picture has been taken between the beach and Port Olimpic, and holds a partially reflection of the Gold Fish by Frank O. Ghery.

In a local shop we bought a bottle of Torres (we paid 3.89 euros here in a local shop, you pay double in Belgium!) and went back to our hotel.