Another day another Meetup. This time something slightly less taxing than an hours worth of Samba. Toni and I met up with a group of Spanish speakers to be, and went on a tour of Ravales historic bars. The first stop on our tour was a street lamp... that was made by Gaudi and had a heated bench underneath it (but no booze). Our second stop was what looked like a horn in a tall granite wall. Our guide Raul explained in Spanish, I was then relayed in English, that the granite wall was the outside of an old cloister/convent and the horn was used to signal the hour of the day and visitors (still no booze).
We finally arrived at our first bar the London Bar. It is a modernist style bar and has quite the legacy as a frequent of Hemingway, Picasso and the like. I could feel the creative juices flowing as I sipped a cold pint in the same place as Hemmingway and immediately became more boisterous and ill-tempered, just like the man himself. We even found ourselves a few friends in the group, a couple in their 30's Sarah and Paolo. The rest of the group was third year architecture students from USC and the vibe just wasn't there.
Our second and final bar was Bar Marsella the oldest operating absinthe bar in Barcelona. "A round of Absinthe for the group good sir." We learned that the proper way to drink it is to place a cube of sugar on top of a fork resting on the glass of the licorice like substance. You then squeeze water onto the sugar cube to melt it over the absinthe and sip up. Our tour guide Raul started asking around for lighters and was harshly admonished by the barkeep, "No, that is not how you drink. You think Hemingway, Picasso drank like that? No. It is just some silly thing tourist's make." After that enheartened speech I pledged never to willingly light my absinthe on fire.
The Bad,
As great as the tour was, it was fairly short and we didn't cover as many Raval bars as I thought we would. I also learned that a meetup group that is intent on learning Spanish is also one in which English is spoken almost exclusively. But it was nice to understand a sentence without piecing it together in my head. Also on the way back we had a drunkard come up to us and warn us about being held at knifepoint and getting our stuff snatched but I guess he was just looking out for us. Absinthe also leaves a wicked hangover.
The Truly Deplorable,
We haven't been as diligent posting material these past couple days and here is why... When we got back home after our meetup and after more than enough absinthe it was extremely stuffy in the apartment so we opened our front door window. We live on the first floor and the door is gated so it's not as if anyone can enter without a key but you can see into the apartment and stick a hand through the grates. We were stupid and naive and left the window slightly ajar without locking it when we went to sleep. Some truly vile creature pushed the window ajar and used some contraption or long stick to jimmy a chair towards the door that was sitting on the opposite end of the room. On that chair was Toni's purse along with some very important and expensive things inside. We woke up the next morning to find the window open the chair overturned and the purse gone. It has taken many glasses of wine and long days at the beach to feel good about being in Barcelona again and to put this event behind us. In the end, all we lost were items and we still have the most important things we need to enjoy Barcelona. We have become much more diligent in keeping track of our stuff and this was just one of those life lessons that hit very very hard.
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