Barcelona!

Spain, Barcelona

My train sped along thru bland dessert looking country side, onto more typical Spanish rural countryside, I passed through Zaragoza - a place I'm only familiar with through watching European Football. It always makes me wonder if I'll visit a place like this, that I know nothing about other than it's football team.

Eventually I arrived in Barcelona. A city I've long wanted to visit, and for this pleasure, I had to pay absolutely nothing. However I would have to work here also.

The city was much cooler than Madrid, and somehow, my hotel much more luxurious. I checked in and went about going for a city walk. Wearing my trusty blue Haviana's I was stunned when about 1.2kms into my walk, one of them snapped. So bare-foot and ashamed in one of Europes style capitals... I found some cheap replacements and headed back to my room (I wasn't about to try and wear new thongs/flip flops in on a city walk). It was getting late, so I settled for a beer and burger before chilling out. All evening I checked out the architecture inbetween finding my way around some lovely bars.

The following day after work, I made hay, and got myself down to the beach, a true city beach whereby you could potentially go from office to sand in less than 5minutes walk.  Heaven!?

I took advantage of my companies evening meal allowance and took a seafood paella on the marina's edge. Always awkward eating by yourself in a very public place but I wouldn't have avoided that for the world.