Hola, Barcelona!

* Disclaimer: the keyboard layouts here are different--in fact, they are even different between France and Spain. Apparently, the quotation mark doesn't exist. So forgive me if I don't use correct punctuation. You know it's killing me! Stupid Europeans and their need to do everything differently.

I arrived in Barcelona Tuesday around 9 pm, and after getting lost trying to find my hotel, didn't check in until like 10:30, but I was super hungry and wanted to at least try some food my first night so I went somewhere close, Il Foro. It was actually more Italian than Spanish, but the risotto with mushrooms and fois gras was good and I had my first experience with a croqueta, which is basically a deep-fried ball of something. Deep-fried love, I'll say, because they taste so damn good and I ate like 30 of them while I was here.

Even though the restaurant was only like 5 minutes away, i got lost again. The map from my guidebook was the most f'd up map I've ever seen. First of all, it didn't point north. Don't all maps point north?! Isn't that so it's easy for EVERYONE to read them? And there was no compass rose to show which way it did point, so I basically just wandered from street to street until i found a street that showed on the map. I guess it was a good way to get oriented. The guidebooks say ''try not to look like a tourist'' but screw that. I had to have my map out most of the time. I also always had a water bottle and usually my camera out; I could not have looked like more of a tourist. And yet, by day 3, I didn't need the map much and people would stop and ask me for directions. And I could help them!

I stayed near the Barri Gotic area which is really old and medieval. Lots of narrow stone alleys winding everywhichway. I'd just see a street that looked curious and see where it took me. Such is the luxury when you wear comfortable shoes. Sometimes the street would come out somewhere interesting, and sometimes it would just go about 100 feet, then turn and I'd end up on the same street I started on. Here's a bridge i found when wandering. It kind of looks like the ''Bridge of Sighs'' in Venice, I think.

This was a great area to stay, I totally lucked out. Since the metro closes at midnight and people here don't even show up at the bar until midnight (and even that's early!) it was convenient to walk home from the bar. And before I get the lecture from someone, yes, I was always safe.