Hola again! Having the time of our lives still and celebrating eleven months together today! Last night we went to an area called Port Olimpic for dinner. Really pretty. Tons of restaurants on the water, and all of them have tables set up outside. We strolled along the area well lit with a lot of Christmas-type lights, looking at the fresh fish selection - I'm talking octopuses (octopi?) and all sorts of critters, many staring right back at you, eyes and all. Then we settled on one right in the middle of the strip and had ourselves a feast! We started off with olives and shrimps that we didn't even have to order (you can tell how often we eat at fancy places) and the traditional Catalan toast with bread rubbed on it (forgot the real term.) I guess the Spanish prepare this themselves, but being an ignorant American has its privileges, because the waiter somehow "knew" we wouldn't know how to. Bryan ordered the "grandmother's feast." While he was eating one of the three appetizers that were included in it, we noticed that the couple next to us were eating it between the two of them. Needless to say my growing boy still kept his status as a member of the Clean Plate Club. I had the "sarsuela," which is a Catalan seafood stew. Just about every living sea creature (including lobster) in a beef-flavored broth with the hake pretending to be mashed potatoes. Then I finished off with Catalan creme, almost like creme brulee with a burnt marshmallow flavor. This is my favorite dessert ever. The mix of this feast and a pitcher of sangria left us too stuffed to enjoy the surrounding dance clubs, though we got a good feel for them as they opened up on to the water. Each club had its own resident scantily clad woman dancing on the counter, though I must comment that none looked quite as good as those of us who dared to dance on the counters of Jack Astor's for Sarah's bachelorette party!
Today we got a somewhat late start as the jet lag still has us kicked, but we were out of the room by noon and made our way to the station to head to Figueres for the Dali museum (about a two-hour journey). The museum itself is as surreal as his paintings, shaped as a rounded theater. From the outside, right next door is his house, which is pink with his signature eggs balancing along the top and a few gold bodies spotted along. The museum is filled with a lot of his less famous stuff, including a lot of really cool pen and ink drawings and many sculptures. Of the more interesting art I found were some paintings that lay on a table with a silver wine bottle on it - the painting itself doesn't look like anything, but when reflected on the bottle, it takes on its intended image. Absolutely brilliant. There were a couple of other Dali sites within a bus ride but we just didn't have time to catch them. It gives us a reason to return to Barcelona someday!
The tapas thing came in handy as the Spanish don't seem to like to eat dinner before 10 pm, so I got some garlic mushrooms and Bry got some potatoes with garlic and oil to hold us. Tonight we're heading toward Poble Espanyol where we'll eat dinner and then catch a flamenco dance show. Tomorrow will be a travel day as we're heading to Rome via Frankfurt.
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