Another hot day
It was again very hot here, almost 100 deg F. but since it´s humid it feels a lot hotter. I walk around just sweating.
Today I woke late again. It really wasn´t that late since I was up until almost 3am last night and a full 8 hours sleep would put me awake at 11a which was when I woke. It felt later though because everyone in my room was gone or leaving when I finally rolled out of bed.
I first went to KFC, just to see what it was like since I´ll have all month to eat more traditional food. It wasn´t bad but out of the 11 herbs and spices I think they forgot 5 and they didn´t have any tabasco sauce to go with it. It was a bit tough ordering because the menus were in catalan, not castillian spanish, so even though I do well in spanish I was unable to understand much of what was written.
From KFC I went to the beach. It was nice...but again really hot. The water was wonderful. Some of the females were topless too so that was a plus. I think I almost burned my feet on the sand. I had to stop every few feet to stand on my towel to cool them down before I moved on.
From there I went to the zoo. The zoo here is great. See my review so I don´t have to type everything twice.
When I left the zoo it was abotu 5:30pm so I just strolled around the park a bit and then returned to the hostel where I bumped into the canadians. After I showered I met them for tapas and sangria. The sangria was sweet, I´m not a big fan of it this way. I like the way I saw it on television and how one of the canadians described it. Wine, fruit, some brandy, and that´s it. I´m sure that sangria is like most drinks where there are a ton of recipies. Eitherway I think they put suger or a suger syrup in it and I didn´t like that much.
We stayed there for 3 or 4 hours just talking after dinner. It was really nice. The topic went to politics a bit and I found that we were generally of similar opinions of the issues, it was the solution to the issues where we differed. It was refreshing to hear an outsider´s point of view.
I´ve got one more day here and then on Monday I´ll be going to Valencia. I´m excited about this. Tomorrow I´ll probably check out a big park here and then also go to a few musuems then call it a day.
Tapas are small portions of meals. You can make a meal of them by ordering several of them. You can also do as is customary which is to go to the bar, have a drink and one or two tapas, then move onto the next bar and repeat. They typically have an assortment of salad, meat, seafood, fried food, and deserts to choose from.
I enjoyed sitting at the bar with a drink, reading a book or socializing, and ordering one tapa at a time, passing several hours in the process. It was very relaxing and the assortment here in Barcelona was great.
Frequently the tapas bar will have the cold dishes out behind glass so you can point at what you want but know that they have hot tapas which you must order from a menu. Many locations will have a picture menu which is helpful. For most tapas you will pay between €1.50 to €3.00 each, making it very affordable.
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The zoo here is wonderful. It costs €14.50 to get in but the experience is well worth the cost. They have animals from many locations and each exhibit can be seen from many angles so you can almost always find and see the animal. Additionally each animal has a description about it written in catalan, castillian, and usually english. They also have seals, and dolphins, as well as a dolphin show that is done in catalan.
The zoo has additional exhibits about gorillas, reptiles, birds, and more. Today they have a travelling exhibit about exotic animals from the rain forest including multi-colored reptiles, frogs, etc.
There are numerous shade trees and places to rest. Additionally, for the children, there is a place to ride ponies.
Even if you do not know spanish you will find this zoo to be informative, educational, and a good value for the cost.
