barcelona in review

first off, barcelona has wide open pavements with generally courteous drivers and cyclists who share. vive la birkenstocks, i tell HOM. this has been a trip even my plantar fasciitis could handle. for a place with so many dogs and for a trip in the heat of summer, it has also been a pleasant, dog-poop-free trip.

you can eat up and you can eat down, and both satisfyingly. which is harder to achieve in some places than you might think. HOM says the trouble with french food is that it is such a big deal and takes up the whole night in addition to costing the earth, and the trouble with good british food is that it is elusive. in barcelona you can eat scrumptiously in holes-in-walls and you can buy jamon sandwiches and gelato off the street and you can also eat at hisop and montiel and feel just vaguely profligate. what you need is google and a data plan.

the catalans bring their dogs everywhere! we see more dogs than children! the dogs are almost uniformly better behaved than children! except for the chihuahua we saw trying to bring his mistress for a walk last nite. it makes me feel good to see another dog as ill-mannered as E, i tell HOM happily.

also, by a twist of fate, catalan women apparently come in my size. years of frustration have driven me to uniqlo and teenage sections and stretchable t-shirt material and sub-optimal fits. here i discover i am model size, pretty much. this could be a city to visit again and again.

if you notice, we did not do too many museums and monuments, but we did do la sagrada familia, and it was gorgeous. and we walked the length and breadth of the gothic quarter and inhaled the historic atmosphere and we oohed over casa batllo. 

it was a lovely trip.