Hello everyone! Last night for dinner, we went to this dive called Cat Bar in the El Raval/Sant Pere neighborhood (a stone's throw northeast of the Barri Gotic, where our apartment is located). Cat bar features all vegan food and beer, and as one might expect, they serve greasy bar fare. It was all right -- cheap, filling, and a ton of food. Will I go back? Probably not. The thing that really turned me off was the chair perched right outside the front door (on the stoop, really) with a huge portable ashtray next to it, which rendered the "NO FUMAR" sign inside virtually worthless.
But I know the vegans want to see my food, and all you other people need to see all the different kinds of amazing food vegans can eat while traveling through Europe. So I took some photos of my food that you can see among my other Barcelona photos.
(Sorry guys, I would add a ton of photos here, but Blogger is being crappy with my browser and not letting me. I might come back later and add photos to this post, but in the meantime, check out the link to my Barcelona album on Picasa.)
Today, after having breakfast on our terrace (in the shade with a cool breeze!), I walked around the Barri Gotic and went into the Barcelona Cathedral. The Barri Gotic is amazing because it's one of the few [largely] intact, surviving medieval town structures in a large European city. It was built on a truly human scale and is thus completely pedestrian-oriented -- it's just wide enough for a few people to walk side-by-side. I can only assume that much of Paris, for instance, especially near the Seine and Isle de la Cite, was also structured like this but was torn down in the 18th and 19th centuries to widen the streets and make it the beautiful, planned city that it is today.
But back to Barcelona: There are a few things I find shocking, in a good way, about the Barri Gotic. Once you get over the fact that the streets are kind of dark and only about six feet wide, you notice first how utterly quiet it is. Of course you can hear people talking, children laughing, and dogs barking from the apartments whose wrought-iron balconies you could literally reach your arm out and touch -- but there is absolutely zero traffic noise. It's uncanny. It's actually... quiet. This is what cities used to sound like before there were cars. I've never been in such a densely packed urban area that doesn't feature a background soundtrack of beeping car horns, wailing sirens, and chugging gas engines.
The second thing that I find shocking is just how quickly you can get from one place to the next in the Barri Gotic. The map makes it look as if it will take me a full, oh, 10 minutes to walk from my apartment to the Barcelona Cathedral. But no: I can get there, walking at a normal pace, in about three minutes. I can get to Plaza de Sant Jaume in about 90 seconds. The streets are so narrow, it's like having only sidewalks between the buildings. In the US, these would never "count" as full-on streets. And I love that about Barcelona. The Barri Gotic is a human city.
This afternoon, I found an Italian gelato shop that sells vegan gelato and sorbet! I can't even tell you how excited I am about this. I'm going to go back there every single day we're in Barcelona. They have avocado sorbet! AVOCADO! But today I got a waffle cone with cherry-vanilla cream and chocolate gelato, both made with rice milk. We'll see what I get tomorrow. ;)
After gelato, I walked north along La Rambla (aka Tourists-R-Us, heaven for pickpockets, and a place where you can always find at least one other American at any hour of any day). Sadly, the huge Boqueria market in the middle of La Rambla was closed (it is Sunday, after all; boo), so I'll have to go back tomorrow to check things out and get some fresh veggies. I kept walking north through Plaza Catalunya and into Eixample (pronounced like "ay-shom-play") along Passeig de Gracia to see Casa Batllo and Casa Mila/La Pedrera, arguably Gaudi's two most important residential works. I really wanted to see them the last time I was in Barcelona but wasn't able to, so it was very fulfilling to be able to see them now. Casa Batllo is definitely my favorite because the roof looks like a dragon's back and the front is covered in mosaic tiles. I love its social implications too, because as you stand there and take it in, positioned between two very normal-looking buildings, you can practically hear Gaudi shouting "screw you!" at conventional thought of the times.
Afterwards, I took a brief siesta, and then we went to dinner at Juicy Jones, a tiny, hidden gem of a restaurant near La Rambla that has a juice bar (set up just like a sushi bar) in the front of the house and a cellar-turned-dining room at the back of the house. We each ordered the menu del dia for 8.50 euros, which came with an appetizer (I had no choice but to get the gazpacho), an entree (I got the veggie burger, which was more like two thin veggie latkes), and a dessert (I got the hazenut halvah). Everything was delicious! Such a welcome and happy change from last night's greasy-spoon bar fare. Oh, I also got a green smoothie with spinach, avocado, celery, apple, and lemon -- and holy mother of maude, it was amazing! I would never think to put lemon or celery in my green smoothies, but they totally worked, and I'm going to try it when I get back to the States.
After dinner, we walked along La Rambla again just to take in all the sights and sounds. It was a great day!
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