BARTHELONA

For ages, BK and I have heard about “this one amazing churros con chocolate place in the Gotico”. It’s called the Granja la Pallaresa and we’ve been trying to go there for the last year. We first tried to visit this place when my cousin, his wife & my sister were in town because they’re such major dessert lovers — but every time we’ve set out on the quest, we’ve found the granja to be closed. Failure after failure has led us to another granja on the same street which we love, so the quests have generally turned out alright in the end, but we were delighted to discover that La Pallaresa was finally open during our last walk into the Gotico!

This is no tourist joint. That is, some tourists make their way in there (it’s in the heart of the Barrio Gotico, afterall), but 90% of the patrons were Catalan. It was super noisy with a very cafeteria-esque atmosphere, save for the waiters with short-sleeved white shirts & bow-ties.

We arrived at about 5.30p and had to wait a few minutes to get in, but by the time we left around 6.30 or 7p there was a huge line at the door that snaked down the block. That’s what our problem had been - timing! We had assumed that this would be a morning and/or a late night place, but apparently Catalans come to a place like this for their “merienda” — the meal or snack between lunch and dinner, not unlike afternoon tea in England or the “goute” in France. In Spain, like everything else, the afternoon snack is just skewed about 2-3 hours later than the rest of Europe. Afternoon snack happens at about the same time as American dinner — and the snack is what you see above! Yippeeeee!

A little barrio street art to get you through the day.

It’s not unusual here in Barcelona to hear drums from inside one’s apartment or a shop on what seems like a normal day. As soon as I hear the drums though, I realize that there is yet another fiesta happening that I was unaware of because people are at work and it doesn’t appear to be a city-wide holiday. These fiestas can be huge, or they can be a small celebration that only one particular generation of one particular segment of one particular neighborhood is privy to…but whenever I hear random drums or explosions, I poke my head out to see if anything interesting is happening in the street.

So it was that when I happened to hear drums from inside a stationary shop located down in the Barrio Gotico that I stopped what I was doing and headed for the doorway to see if there was anything to see. I was in time to catch the beginning of a small parade comprised of young children, their parents, some young drummers and a smattering of banners and mini-gegants. I have no idea what was being celebrated this evening, but it made me happy to know that I live in a city where even though times are REALLY hard for so many (youth unemployment of 55%!), people still take the time and make the effort to focus on celebrating the good things in life.

From BK:  The 2nd annual Barcelona Beer Festival.  Good beer variety is pretty high on the list of things that I miss living in Barcelona. The craft brewing culture is slowly catching on here though. The city’s first home brew supply shop opened in December (a few doors down from our apartment), and the Barcelona Beer Festival tripled its capacity since the first installment last year.  They made a nice upgrade in venues this year, setting up in the domed convention space at the top of the re-purposed former bull fighting stadium. With 50 taps rotating through 303 beers from around Europe and North America, there was always something tasty to try.