I started off the day with a light breakfast and free coffee in the hostel. Chatted with a young New Zealand girl and cool guy from the Netherlands. At 10:30am, my 2 new friends and I left for the walking tour. The guide took us to Plaza Catalunya where we split into groups as there were 2 tours to take and you could choose English or Spanish. I decided to take the Gothic tour of Old Town Barcelona, which was recommended as the first tour. Our guide's name was Carlos and he was quite the character. He was Brazilian, but was living in Catalonia with his Italian wife. He provided us a great tour with a lot of history. We walked down "the street", La Rambla (which he told us to never ever buy anything at as it was very expensive) and went through city streets with good chocolates and wine. I definitely want to return to the chocolate street. He pointed out Granja La Pallaresa as the best place in Barcelona to get churros and chocolate. Apparently you get a cup of chocolate to dip your churro and it is the best thing ever. I'm trying to eat fairly healthy on this trip, but I may need to just try this once.
We proceeded to see the medieval wall that the Romans built, a market, the only true cathedral in Barcelona, an old Roman graveyard and finally the harbor. Afterwards, Carlos offered to take us to a local restaurant that has a great Fideua, which is a Catalan version on paella that has small noodles instead of rice. The meals were all 3 course meals and I ended up deciding on seafood paella with mussels, clams, squid and a prawn (I actually ate all the seafood! So proud of myself!), bacalao (salted cod) and an apple cake. I had no idea what I ordered for the dessert until it came. I decided to just take my best guess on what it was an winged it. It was delicious and a good choice. Thankfully, I only ate about half the paella, otherwise I would have been beyond stuffed. Even 3 hours after I finished eating, I was still very full. As I eat every 2-3 hours, this was not normal for me. But it was great to have a traditional Spanish meal at a place that was not for tourists.
After the meal, I decided to just walk around Barcelona. My offline map app had kicked me out for some reason, so I was without a map. I knew where to find La Rambla, though, and figured I could find my way back to the hostel from there. Worst case scenerio, I had the address and could ask directions to the street (which I ended up doing later after walking an extra mile or two). It was cool to walk along the marina in Barcelonam, check out the beach and then finish up exploring the area around La Rambla. After stopping in the grocery strore, where I found some almond milk and fruit, I headed back in the direction of the hostel. After walking for a while and not seeing my street, I stopped in a store and showed the gentleman the address. He was kind enough to look up the google map for me and allowed me to check it out and figure out where to go. I was very grateful and walked the few more blocks to my hostel.
I ate a small dinner of a jamon and havarti sandwich, fruit and salad and spent a couple hours talking to the Dutch guy. He was super cool to talk to and I look forward to hanging out a bit more. He is also the first European vegan that I've ever met. He told me that it doesn't go over well around here as many just don't understand his decision to not eat meat or anything that comes from animals. His reasoning is that it is healthier to eat plant based foods. Although, I have taken the challenge of teaching him about wine. We also talked a lot about American politics (of course) and traveling. He would like to go visit the west coast of the US, renting an RV with friends and driving from Vancouver, BC down to Washington and Oregon. I told him that he would love Portland as they are so vegan friendly and have many options that would fit his lifestyle.
Well, Day 2 has come to an end. I'm hoping that I'll sleep better tonight. The first night was a bit rough and I woke up several times. I still was able to probably get 7 or so hours of sleep, so I felt refreshed for the day. After walking around for the better part of 9 hours, I'm definitely ready for bed. I got in nearly 20k steps and burned 3100 calories (whooo!!).
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