24 Hours with Jerry and Rhonda

Our good friends Jerry and Rhonda arrived in Barcelona yesterday morning—their children are singing in their high school choir, which is touring Italy, and so they came to spend some time with us in Barcelona before moving on to meet up with Isis and Rowan.  We had traded messages about the dates of their visit months ago, which I thought I had transferred to the paper calendar we keep just to keep track of our travel and the visits of friends and family.  But somehow, something went wrong.  Our faithful calendar told me they were coming April 11 – 15, but when they sent us their flight information stating what time they would be arriving on April 16, my stomach did a flip.   We, in the meantime, had purchased tickets to fly to Berlin on April 17, and we had arranged a home exchange with a family there (or, as it happens, here—I am writing this from Berlin).  So not only would we not be in Barcelona for most of our friends’ visit, they could not even stay in our apartment! I honestly don’t know how I got it wrong, but I did.  So much for the paper calendar—I think I need to invest in some sophisticated hotel booking software to keep this from happening again.  If you call to check on availability and get a recorded line, know that I’ll get back to you soon with room options and special deals at our sister property in Asbury Park, NJ.

So, it turned out that we had barely 24 hours to spend with our friends.  We did as much packing as we could on Friday.  I made my now customary welcome meal of tortilla, a salad, and some cheeses, and we booked a baby sitter for the evening.  After pumping everyone up with coffee and catching up around the dining room table, Alec went with Jerry and C.C. to check out the market and walk around Gracia while Rhonda and I drove to Sant Cugat to pick Milo up from a birthday party.  Then we all met up and walked from Gracia to Plaza Catalunya, stopping at Cerverceria Catalana for some sustenance on the way.  As we walked down Rambla Catalunya after our late lunch, we discovered that the rambla had become an Easter market in anticipation of semana santa.  Stall after stall sold beautiful, long palms wrapped in ribbons or twisted into intricate sculptures.  Others sold fresh bunches of fragrant herbs.  Even though we were about to leave town, I couldn’t help but buy one for 3 euros—bay, rosemary, thyme, sage—heavenly.  The kitchen smelled terrific when I went in to make my tea this morning.

We stopped home for a quick rest and then went to Cuines Santa Catarina for dinner; I had eaten lunch at the bar there with Lois, but we had gone early and the full menu had not been available.  The innovative menu is printed on paper placemats in the form of a matrix.  Along the top are categories of food, such as pasta, vegetables, meat, and fish.  Down the side are ways of cooking—charcoal grilled, oriental, mediterannean, etc.  The restaurant is located right in the Santa Catarina, and the food is very innovative.  It can make for a confusing array of dishes, but if you are open to it, it’s just fine.  I started with a lemon, ginger, mint,and cane juice before switching to red wine.  We had miso soup, garlic shrimp, roasted baby pig with tomato marmalade, falafel, a spicy tuna roll, strawberries with basil, and tiramisu.  Somehow it all worked and it was all delicious. 

We chose Cuines Santa Catarina partly because we could eat on the early side—8 pm—and because it would not take too long.  We had to get somewhere to watch El Clasico at 10 pm.  “El Clasico,” as I’ve written before, is the name for any soccer game in which Barca plays Real Madrid.  Last night, they met for the second time since we’ve been here (after a remarkable 5-0 first time whooping) and will play three more times in just over two weeks—an unprecedented series of meetings—as both teams compete for three championships. 

We thought it would be fun to give our friends the full Barca cultural experience, so Alec had asked some die hard fans where we should go to watch the game, and so after dinner we went to Poble Sec to the Ovella Negra (Black Sheep), a cavernous bar full to the gills with Barca fans watching two big screen TVs.  I felt spoiled after having watched so much soccer in the comfort of my living room.  We found a place to stand near the front, but we had to look up at such an angle that my neck got sore.  It was also clear that Jerry and Rhonda were pooped—they had not slept on their flight over, and we had had them going all day.  So at half time we zoomed home—there is no traffic in Barcelona when Barca is playing—and arrived just in time to see Messi’s penalty kick to make the score 1 – 0.  Albiol (Real Madrid) had earned a red card for wrestling Villa to the ground, and as a result Real Madrid played the remainder of the game with only 10 players.  So they needed to convert on their own penalty kick later in the game and did, to tie the game 1 – 1, the score it remained until the end.  Fortunately, there was not much at stake in last night’s game—Barca had already pretty much sewn up the La Liga competition, and Real Madrid needed more than a tie to have any chance of winning.

I groaned as I climbed into bed and looked at my clock, realizing that the alarm would ring only six hours later; travel days are tough enough when you are well-rested.