On Saturday we flew into Barcelona relatively early and were able to walk around on the beach and the docks next to our hotel, while at the docks we stopped by a little bar to have some tapas and had easily the most delicious calamari rings, they were hand battered, and fried to perfection, so tender that they literally melted in our mouth.
The following pictures of the beach are the only ones we were able to take with a proper camera.
Saturday night we went out to eat at a Ikibana recommended by the concierge that was very satisfying. Lilah especially loved the interactive fish pond projected on the floor by the entrance, though at first she was a bit pensive about stepping on the “fish”. Lilah really took to the waitress, as Camille put it “She acted like a 9 year old boy with a crush on his babysitter”, she would stare and lean into her chest at any chance she got (all the tables were the high sidebar type tables which suited this quite perfectly). Lilah constantly demand her attention whenever she stopped by and on at least two occasions reached out and, to our shock, groped her. The waitress took this all in stride and thought (or at least made us believe) that it was the cutest thing. Here are some poor quality photos of that Dinner (again from this point we were limited to the camera on the phone). In true Spanish fashion Lilah got to sleep sometime just before midnight!!
Sunday morning Camille, Lilah and I headed down to the “Rambla” a street lined with shops and cafe’s along with the Boqueria (or Market) where you can get just about any cut of meat (including Bull’s Balls and various animal heads), seafood, and some amazing looking (and pricey) fruits and veggies. While we didn’t make it to the Boqueria we did manage to stumble upon a Palm Sunday procession which was quite a sight, Lilah enjoyed the brass and drums; it took Camille two attempts to get the video as the first time around (which was a much better vantage point by the way) she failed to press the “record” button.
Lilah and Camille took a nap as I went down to register for the conference and attend the first training session. When I got done with my conference activities for the day we decided to head down to the Science Museum for a look see (see the Itsy Bitsy Spider post). For dinner we found a little out of the way restaurant and on our way to the table Lilah and Camille managed to knock over our neighbors water glass, drowning the last few bites of her steak, they were unfazed by the incident (though we did buy them dessert). Again Lilah got to bed somewhere around mid-night. Here are some additional pictures from that excursion.
Monday morning Lilah and Camille headed out to the beach and to wander around Barcelona as I headed to the conference. That evening we had planned to go out for a nice dinner but apparently the plane ride and two late nights caught up with Lilah as she had a fever. So Camille spent the evening with Lilah in the hotel and I went out to the dinner provided by the conference hosts at Codorniu [wikipedia: Codorniu Winery, the world's largest producer of bottle-fermented sparkling wine made by the traditional champagne method (méthode traditionelle), was founded in Spain in 1551. It produces 60 million bottles annually. Spanish sparkling wine from the region Catalonia is known as "cava."] Where we were treated to a tour of the catacombs, a lovely 4 course traditional Catalonian dinner and a couple of numbers from a Flamenco dancer.
Lilah and Camille spent tuesday in the hotel as Lilah continued to have a fever and I spent the day at the conference, the conference evening activities were held at a night club so I opted to have dinner with the family in the room and go to bed early.
Wednesday was the last day of the conference, once the conference ended we checked out and made our way back down to the Rambla to wander by the Boqueria. We stopped by El Quim located at the center of the Market and sampled the fried egg with grilled baby squid (whole with ink sacs mind you), a house specialty, it was…interesting could have used some green chile (but then again I think everything could use green chile).
I hope you are sufficiently bored.
