La Rambla

1.Woke up at noon.

2.Left the apartment at 3:30.

3.Walked to La Rambla, a popular street among both tourists and locals alike.

Our jaunt to La Rambla was especially interesting. We saw street performers such as actors and musicians, a parade of Hindu converts, stands selling animals from the Canary Islands – oh yeah, and a riot of naked people. I couldn’t understand what their commotion was about because they chose Catalán as their language of rebellion. All I know is that there were about fifty or more men and women (mostly men) riding bikes in their birthday suits through Las Ramblas, and the more attention they grabbed the better. Thankfully there were police cars and motorcycles following close behind them. No, wait – the police were helping them! The police force of Barcelona was going out of its way to escort fifty naked people through an area heavily populated with tourists from around the world. Forget about public indecency! (I took pictures, but I don’t think they would be appropriate for this blog.) We had been on our way to dinner but we lost our appetites, so we walked around for a while until we settled down. My family is very indecisive and sat down at three restaurants before deciding. For the first restaurant, the hostess took too long to seat us (apparently it was a seat-yourself restaurant but we didn’t know that), the second restaurant’s menu had hamburgers that were too expensive, and we almost left the third because there was no soap in the bathroom and that meant the chefs had not washed their hands, but we had been walking for about six miles and didn’t have the energy to get up. The dinner was quite enjoyable! I finally tried the famous seafood paella of Spain and it was delicious. We learned some new words in Spanish too!

After dinner was more of a challenge. Working our way through the immense crowds in the streets, we really had no idea where we were going. However we did see some really cool exotic musicians, three fabulous opera tenors, a dog trained to limp for money, and some professional bubble-blowers along our path to nowhere. Finally we stopped to inquire about directions, and I asked an officer (in Spanish!) how to get to Paseo de Grácia from there, and we were on our way. Less than halfway back, we got too tired and yelled for a cab – I don’t know the locals do it!

Anyways, the whole point of this trip to La Rambla was to purchase some bus tickets for tomorrow – we are going to Montserrat, a beautiful town in the Pyrenees Mountains that is home to several famous grand castles, one of which was Walt Dinsey’s inspiration for the setting of the classic Sleeping Beauty. We have a long bus ride ahead of us in the morning – ¡hasta mañana!