Barça!

After the delights of San Sebastian we head east over towards the Mediterranean. It is a very hot day indeed and driving in a car without air conditioning makes it even more so. When we arrive at Barcelona we settle for a swim in the pool and the hotel's restaurant. The memory of this meal has already faded from memory and will therefore not reach this blog.

Next day is a lazy day, but also one where we catch up . All the great memories of San Sebastian are organized before we finally head out to catch up on some wine purchases that needs to be done, since we never got to Ribera del Duero.

But of course the main event on this part of our trip is a visit to the unarguably best football team at the moment. So we head for Camp Nou. K, who has attended her share of games (for a woman) asks whether hooliganism is to be expected. T doesn't think so and this is confirmed by the people going to watch the match. Many women and small children are in the audience and this is really a family event. It is also an event for many, many tourists. Of the 70 000 spectators this evening as many as 10-20 000 are tourists.

The match itself is very entertaining and Barca demonstrates their strength by beating Osasuna 8-0. Unfortunately for T, this is not the first time this season he has seen a home team score 8 goals. Lionel Messi also demonstrates why he has been voted the world's best player the last couple of years and T's former idol, Fabregas is actually equally good.

It is late when the match is over and we head for the city centre and here we make a classical error. Maybe it's the late hour, maybe it's the fact that we went to the city center and maybe it's because we are hungry. So we take a restaurant on the Catalunya square and order some Tapas. We get a glass of the house's white and red wine. K's white is insipid and T's red is sour. The tapas we ordered were: Patates con aioli, Pollo con ajillo, Croquettes jamon, Pescaditos fritas and a green salad that nevertheless came with tuna, aspergus, onions, tomatoes, olives etc. None of the tapas were very good and the garlic chicken were particularly disappointing, rubber-like and dry. We had wandered into a tourist trap and even done so knowingly.

We agree to come back to Barcelona another time and do our home work better next time. But the game was good.