First Days in Barcelona

Lindsey and I arrived safely early Friday morning. The flights were long, but bearable. The Barcelona airport was nothing special to look at. But they look to be building a brand new modern terminal that will look nice. We passed through customs with no problems and took a taxi to the downtown area where we met our rental owner.
We got into the apartment a little after 9am. The apartment is very quaint. Located right in the heart of the gothic quarter, it is a stone building with 20 ft ceilings. This makes it very difficult to heat up. I find it unusual that the Europeans use so many energy efficient appliances, but they haven’t added insulation to these buildings. We didn’t get much sleep on the plane, so we fell into a pretty deep sleep and awoke around 6pm.
We slowly got ready to go into the city. We headed to a tapas restaurant around 7:30pm for a light pre-dinner meal (remember, Barcelonans don’t eat diner until 9:30pm!). We ordered three tapas dishes and a half-bottle of wine and we were stuffed. I have no clue how the Barcelonans eat so often?
Feeling adventurous and full, we decided to find a bar to have a drink. We found this English pub, The Wooden Spoon, to have a pint of beer. Like most bars in this area, they somehow fit a pub into a tiny stone building. Most of the buildings have high ceilings, so their create floor space by adding levels. The bar was pretty quiet. It was 9:30 and well before most locals even think about going to a bar (they are eating dinner, remember). We decided to move to another bar.
We stopped in at the Bar Pastis. In my notes it said, “Quirky Bar” and it didn’t tell the half of it. Think of setting up a bar in your living room, decorating it with weird art and news articles and inviting over a bunch of artistic individuals and you have the Bar Pastis. The bar appears to have one owner and sole bartender who has been their forever. They have one beer on tap and they serve it in tiny glasses (un canya). It is features one sit-down table, two bar stool tables and an old typewriter. It is filled with people talking in Spanish or Catalonian. Occasionally, a person will walk up to the typewriter and start typing; his friends will circle around and start to laugh. Is it bizarre? Yes. Incredibly interesting to a foreigner? Quite possibly. Were we entranced? Yes.
At this point, we decide to make a pub crawl out of the night and moved on to the Indian Lounge. The bar is long and narrow with a main bar area, an upstairs that is a Houka bar (a middle eastern tobacco tradition), and a downstairs that is a lounge. We ordered the special of the day, Mojitos, and went downstairs. It was a comfy place and the mojitos were strong and good. I looked at my watch to see it was 1am. We needed to keep moving if we wanted to make the last bar.
The final stop on our tour was the famous Bar Marsella. This is the absinthe bar that famous authors like Hemingway and artists like Picasso would frequent to drink absinthe and get inspired. Absinthe is generally prohibited in many places around the world (due to its ingredient wormwood and its rumored hallucinogenic properties), if you buy it in the US it is a version without wormwood. This bar serves the real thing.
Walking into the establishment, you immediately notice two things. First, the place is packed with people who are very animated and loud. Second, this place hasn’t been dusted since Picasso was there. You have to fight your way up to the bar. Since most people order the Absinthe, they already have it pre-poured into rounded cups (about 3oz!). They give you a lump of sugar and a small fork. A big part of the drink is that ritual of preparing it. You dip the sugar into the absinthe; scoop it out with the fork; balance the fork with the sugar over the glass; and light the sugar on fire to dissipate the sugar into the drink. You add some mineral water to dilute the drink, stir and you are ready to drink. Without a doubt that drink ended our night (As Lindsey says, “That drink is stupid!). It really hits you like a tonne of bricks. One and your done (especially with all the drinks we had earlier). I told Lindsey, we come earlier one night to get a seat and people watch. The crowd and the liquor make it a very interesting scene.