Barcelona or Bust

Bienvenido a...

Barcelona!

Be prepared for an epic photo post. I came. I saw. I clicked.

After my very first flight on RyanAir [which, by the way, Alaina hot on the nose when she called it the "Ikea of all airlines"], we arrived at our hostel around midnight and promptly passed out after some very unpleasant cold showers. We arose for a depressingly mediocre hostel breakfast, but it didn't matter because we were in freaking SPAIN!

We met my roommate Monica, who is studying there this semester, at Plaza Catalunya. We may or may not have looked like crazy, confused tourists while trying to figure out the Metro on the way, but by the end of the trip we had that baby down!

Monica played tour guide and steered us all over the city and back! It was great because she could tell us what attractions weren't worth spending the entrance fee to go in. It's always fun to visit a city from a local's point of view - I wish someone had visited me so I could show them my Florence! But aaaanyway...

We ventured down Las Ramblas, one loooooong strip that leads to the water.

Lots of people and green!

Monica knows me well and led us right to, what else, a market! Mercato St. Josep. It was SO colorful!

They had a whole bunch of fruit stands selling every different kind of juice combination you could imagine, and this I had to try. I went with Papaya-Mango:

We went back later and I got strawberry-pineapple. Both were SO good. I wish Florence would pick up on this juice trend! But, overall, my dear Mercato Centrale in Firenze wins. It feels more personal there, I think. Oh, how I will miss market-shopping!

Our tour continued and we eventually found ourselves in front of Gaudi's Sagarada Familia, a church whose construction was started something like 140 years ago and they're still working on it! None of us had much desire to go in - the looooong lines and one too many Italian churches did us in - but it's a beautiful sight. I went in when I was here 8 years ago. I wish I could remember better how it looked then to see how much progress they've made!

Those crazy twisty tree branches in the front reminded me of Sleeping Beauty when Maleficent made all those thorn bushes grow in front of the castle to stop Prince Philip. Yes, I'm a Disney nerd. Don't hate.

You can kind of see how the front looks a little like melted candle wax. It's really such a cool structure!

Next stop: Parc Guell

Another Gaudi work! This I remembered well - it was my favorite part of Barcelona. I think it still is! It's so colorful and funky. If I had a patio, I'd want Gaudi to decorate it.

One of the best views of the city.

See how crazy-cool the architecture is?!

Mosaic work everywhere!

LOVE.

You're probably wondering by now - where's the food?? I was a tad disappointed by the food this trip - Italy has it aaaaalll over Spain in that area. But we still ate pretty well!

We stopped for lunch at a little outdoor place across from the sea:

That would be a sculpture of a lobster. Hard to tell from this angle, but either way - wicked cool!

We started with some mandatory Sangria. I was a little concerned, my past experiences with it have NOT been pleasant - but it turns out I liked it a lot! Probably because I've learned to like wine so much here. Yum!

One of the prettiest sangrias we had this trip.

For lunch I was SO tempted to try their hummus & pita, but in the end I decided that I'm just going to wait until I go home to get my hummus fix - it will make it taste even better! I went with a hot sandwich with serrano ham & manchego cheese. Gotta eat local!

My family discovered Manchego cheese several years and got hooked! It's mild but still has a real kick to it. I love how every culture seems to have their own version of ham and cheese. I'm still a prosciutto-pecorino girl, but this was very tasty in its own right :)

After lunch we decided to head back to the hostel for a siesta and to get ready for the night's festivities. We made a quick stop back at Mercato San Josep for some snacks and I got some mango (yes, I'm obsessed. for good reason, mind you - it's SO good!):

One euro of tropical juicy goodness. Mmmm.

We were amazed at how easily we slipped into the Spanish way of eating dinner so late - We didn't finish until  after 11 PM! A far cry from the 5 PM dinner I eat at school. 

We had one mission tonight: paella. The national dish, I ate this a little too often on my first trip to Spain and got tired of it, but I was very eager to try it again. Say the word seafood and I'm there!

Monica took us to a place near the beach recommended by her program, La Fintora. It was a good sign when we were brought a glass of complementary champagne!

And bread. Not in a basket, but on individual plates - we were definitely not in Italy anymore!

And olives that were SO. GOOD. A bit different from Italian olives - a little spicier, I think. 

We ordered Cava sangria, which is made with sparkling white wine instead of the regular red wine. I like it, but I think I preferred the classic sangria.

Pretty color, though!

And then it arrived in a pan almost the size of the table. Oh yes, we were excited.

I only wished there had been more mussels! It was reaaaallly good though - in fact, I think paella is the sole rice-based dish that I truly enjoy. A little sweet from the seafood and spiced with the saffron. I ate a little too much, but honestly, how often do you eat paella by the sea in Spain for heaven's sake!!

Before heading to the club to get our dance on, Monica took us to this really unique, cool bar, La Ovella Negra. It was like a huge open warehouse with wooden cafeteria-style tables and sangria on tap. It was really cool, very different. We went to Razzmatazz, the biggest club in Barcelona - and big it was! 4 floors of crazy booming music. I won't go into details, but let's just say - we had a really good time. ;)

We slept in and decided on a trip to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast! This city had SO many American chains, and when we stumbled upon Dunkies, it was immediately put on the list. If you're from New England, Dunkies is where you go for iced coffee. Sam and I were feeling nostalgic and Alaina was sick of listening to us rave about it, so to Dunkies (called Dunkin Coffee here!) we went! Because it was so late, we went ahead and found a place for lunch after coffee. Dancing all night makes a girl hangry! We picked a random place on La Rambla and settled. Nothing fantastic, but everywhere here was touristy so it didn't really matter. I actually was quite pleased with the salad I got:

Mushrooms, asparagus, and shards of parmeggiano reggiano. It was a really good combo!

[I have genuinely no idea why google refused to upload this right-side up. But you get the gist.]

We stumbled upon a gelato place that looked good, and felt that since we have become such gelato connoisseurs, it would be plain wrong to not sample it in another country. This place, Amorino, was actually pretty cool because when they put it on the cone they form it into a rose! You know me and pretty food. I swear it tastes better.

Mango + soy chocolate.

The soy chocolate was SO good and dark! The mango had a bit of an 'off' consistency and hard to eat, but my love for mango is enough to ignore such minute details.

Red shades, black dress, yellow gelato - I'm the Spanish flag!

That night we met Monica at Plaza Espanya for the "magic fountain"! There is a huge fountain in front of the national art museum and they play classical music while the fountain "dances" along. They actually played American 80s music for us...we found it incredibly entertaining. What fountain wouldn't want to dance to Madonna?

We went out for tapas that night but sadly we had no idea that Saturday was Spain's Labor Day and the best tapas bar was closed :( We settled for one nearby and it was pretty good but not a-ma-zing. No pictures, sorry! We were already dressed to go out and I didn't want to bring my huge purse (and I was a little paranoid about stolen cameras...because mine is so new and pretty!). Just imagine some tomatoes and mozzarella in olive oil (they called it a greek salad...we were a bit skeptical but enjoyed it), an anchovy, a big slab of salted cod - which I liked at first but in the end it was too salty, and a "tortilla" which in Spain is basically a frittata. This one was stuffed with veggies and it was really pretty good. Not an incredible meal overall, but I love the tapas concept of getting a lot of little things and getting to taste a variety of foods. Always fun!

We went out to a different club, Apolo, after we went to an "Irish" pub and then this awesome shot bar! They had an entire wall of different shots and they were insane. The best was the boy scout - they pour alcohol on the bar after pouring the shots and give you a marshmallow to roast, then you dip it in the shot, eat it and then drink. It was really fun. They weren't very alcoholic either, which I appreciated :) It was a late night (perhaps I should say morning), but LOTS of fun. I actually felt like a normal 20 year old for once. 

Our last day was beach day. Hit up Starbucks for breakfast (the Dunkies didn't have bagels and we were not feeling donuts for breakfast) and then were off to the beach. It was a little cool, but sunny for the most part. I didn't bother with a suit, but got a little sun. I also got the roomies into collecting beach glass! On my search, a little boy saw me looking at the rocks and gave me this:

"La quieres?" Bah, of course I want it! So cute! Best souvenir ever.

Boats galore!

When I got bored, I started to play with my new camera...

SO FUN!

Finding a place for lunch turned out to be a rather difficult task - everywhere we wanted was packed to the gills. We eventually found somewhere - at that point our only requisite was that they served food. We got to sit outside, and got Sangria, so all was not lost. I ordered the pan con tomato, which is a Catalan specialty. It's basically ciabatta-like bread with a tomato kind of rubbed/crushed on top. It was interesting...but made me long for bruschetta. It needed garlic and basil!

I also got a caesar salad which was...um, not caesar salad. The dressing was like some kind of ranch or something. It came with chicken though, which was unexpected but appreciated. 

I also stole several of Sam's patas bravas, which is a typical tapas dish. Potatoes pan fried with spices and sprinkled with paprika and served with a tangy mayonnaisy sauce. I'm not much for the sauce but the potatoes are gooooood. Try them if you get the chance, I've seen them at random Mexican restaurants before.

It was a bit of a mad dash from hostel to metro to bus station - we were literally sprinting with all our bags out of the metro. But we made it. The train however that was supposed to take us to the Pisa train station from the Pisa airport never showed, and we ended up having to take a cab from Pisa back to Florence. That was a VERY unexpected and even more unpleasant little surprise - cabs are not cheap. But it was either that or sit in the incredibly sketchy Pisa train station until 4 AM, and that just wasn't sitting right. Ah, traveling in Italy. Always a joy.

NOT.

The return trip put aside, it was a pretty fantastic weekend. Lots of fun, and I got to see MoMo, who I haven't seen since we left school in December! Perhaps the most interesting part of the trip though was that I realized how perfect my choice to study in Florence was. I would have hated living in a huge overwhelming city like Barcelona. Not to mention the food - oh how Italy has spoiled me there! I had fun, but it was good to come home. Tiny shower, no dryer, and no peanut butter, but it works for me. American girl, Italian soul.

~Namaste~

Puffy Pizza and Planes

Gah, no update in so long! Didja miss me? Barcelona was SO FUN!!! But more on that later. When we last left Gillianasana...

I'll be honest, Thursday did not begin well. You may remember my Easter morning surprise when I woke up to find my face swollen to 10 times its normal size. I suspect it's either a reaction to Italian mosquitoes or something else like bed bugs....EW. Whatever it is, it got me again, and my eyes were swollen shut. As in, I could barely see to walk around the apartment. Thank goodness I had one Italian class left that I could miss. I have pictures...but I'll spare you. I'd hate to spoil anyone's appetite.

What upset me most about this little obstacle was that not only was today my last cooking class (*tear*), but it was the class focused on my true carb love, bread. And not just any bread....pizza dough!!!! Yes, today we made pizza from scratch. I was not about to miss this, swollen eyes or not. By the time class rolled around it had gone done a little, so I threw on my big sunglasses and was out the door. 

We all split up into 5 groups - 4 pizzas and 1 dessert. My group went with a veggie pizza - eggplant, zucchini, and mozzarella with garlic and tomato sauce. It was fantastically easy, too - my family better be ready for some pizza a la ME!

We started with the basic bread recipe - flour, water, yeast, a little salt and a pinch of sugar. *Tip*: you always use half the amount of flour for the water. Like, if you have 300 grams of flour, you use 150 ml of water. You melt the yeast in the water first and add the pinch of sugar - the sugar helps activate the yeast to move things along quicker. Mix the flour and salt together and form what I call the flour volcano - bascially make a hole in the middle of the flour pile so the flour forms a kind of wall . Pour some of the water/yeast mixture into the hole and start gently working them together - we used a fork to do this, kind of making a whipping/beating motion. Eventually it will be juuust well-mixed enough to start kneading with your hands.  Add a little olive oil, white wine, and vinegar as you knead to keep the bread from drying out. After about 10 minutes, form the dough into a ball and make an X in the top; let it rest for about 2 more minutes, then work it a liiittle bit more, then reform the ball, remark the X, and let it rest again under a damp paper towel for about 10 minutes. When your 10 minutes are up, roll it out with a rolling pin on both sides - it will probably be a funky shape, not a perfect circle. Personally, I think that makes it more interesting. Just sayin.

For veggie pizzas, the veggies MUST be sauteed at least a little before being put on the pizza and baked. Veggies are mostly made of water, and if you throw em on there raw, they will release their water onto the pizza while baking and the end result is heavy and very hard to eat - no wimpy pizzas!!! We sauteed our eggplant and zucchini in some olive oil and garlic (hard to go wrong with that combo). For the sauce, we just used pureed tomatoes and heated it up, adding a little (what else?) olive oil. Ladel it in small amount in the middle of the rolled out pizza dough and swirl it around with the bottom of the ladel. Repeat this just until it's covered - don't oversauce! I promise, there will be enough, even if you like sauce. Just put the ladel down.

Add your sauteed veggies and cheeeeeeese:

And throw it in the oven for baby and me about 20 minutes-ish at 215 Celsius, about 415 degrees Fahrenheit. E voila!

Have you ever seen such a beautiful sight?

Ours was my favorite I think. The crust was the perfect thick/thinness, there was just enough sauce, not too much cheese and the veggies gave texture and taste that made this probably some of the best pizza ever.

Another group made a Margherita pizza, which is fresh tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella. I liked it, but I think I prefer tomato sauce to straight tomatoes.

Then there was a [mostly] white pizza with mozzarella, parmesan, prosciutto and I believe mushrooms. I LOVE parmesan on pizza. It gives it such a good bite. This was probably my second fave.

The last group topped theirs with potatoes and rosemary. I liked it, but I didn't love it; the textures of the bread and potatoes didn't work as well together for me. I would rather have them separate, I suppose. 

We kept it simple with dessert - stuffed peaches. They're finally in season here, and they were cut open, de-pitted and stuffed with a mixture of chopped almonds, brown sugar, egg yolk, cocoa powder

It was a very tasty little bite. The peaches were a little too underripe I think, but the filling was AWESOME. Like a really good biscotti - crumbly, sweet, almondy. Would actually be really good on oatmeal, methinks...

And no pizza is complete without wine, right? A very light white. My puffy self was grateful.

[I kept my sunglasses on the entire class. I'm sure everyone thinks I'm insane. Don't care.]

After that, it was a mad rush to GET OUT of the house and get our butts to Barcelona!! My roommate from school is studying there this semester and I was soo excited to see her :) After that the day started getting better (even though the puffiness didn't fully reside until late the next day...eek). I won't go into details about the rest of my Thursday, because, um, OY VEH. 

Barcelona - get ready. The ladies of The Palace are coming.

~Namaste~