Spain 2024 Part 5

 Day 14

I had forgotten to get the bread for sandwiches the day before, so I ran out first thing to the bakery in the nearby market. A sign on the door said they were closed for personal reasons. I kind of wandered around frantically for a few more minutes, completely unsure where I would find bread. Then I happened to pass by a little Argentinian shop that sold some baked goods. Luckily they had some freshly baked rolls.

I quickly made sandwiches, finished packing and he headed to the station. We waited at a nearby bus stop for a long time. It was supposed to come every few minutes, but it was nowhere to be seen. Finally, a bus arrived that would take us about halfway to the station, so we hopped on. Of course, right when we did, we saw the correct bus coming down the street behind us. Oh well. We took the bus to the end of its route and hustled onward toward the station. We had just enough time for me to make a last minute stop at the grocery store at the station to get some mandarins. They also had the “Jamon de Trevelez”, a specific type of ham from the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains, that I had been looking for.

The ride was nice and comfortable, though we had to switch trains in Madrid. We got into Barcelona in the early evening. I had hoped to go to one of the two “Xampanyerias” or Cava bars in the center of town. I had been to one on my first time in Barcelona and have been dreaming of going back ever since. Last time Lise and I were in Barcelona, we had tried to go to it, but went to a different, but similar one I hadn’t known about. Both were great old places that serve cheap Cava and good food. Unfortunately, the one that I really wanted to go to was closed on Mondays. I had thought I would settle for the one that is open, but it’s a bit more expensive and the food a little fancier, but in the end, we just didn’t have the time or energy to take the buses and/or subway all the way into town for it. Instead we explored our hostel’s neighborhood, which wasn’t super interesting, but we had fun going shopping in the cheap “everything stores”. Lise was looking for stuff among the halloween decorations. She was looking for a ghost statue, but never found the right one. She did find some weird gel window decorations of bats and a ghost garland.

We stopped off at a typical looking bar for a beer. We were in a neighborhood with a lot of immigrants and this bar was definitely a hang out for that crowd. Most of the people seemed to come from Latin America. The bartender, also an immigrant, though I couldn’t tell from where, maybe South Asia, was super friendly and gave the place a fun atmosphere. As we sipped our beers under the glow of TVs showing soccer highlight reels, the bartender brought us a small basket of fried squid. The free tapa wasn’t dead in Barcelona! It was pretty salty. Salty, but free. After that we continued onward toward the neighborhood’s market. I assumed it would be more lively around there. I mean, it was a Monday night, so I could only expect so much. The market was closed, but we did pop into the grocery store inside of it to get some things for the following days’ sandwiches. The streets were pretty quiet and calm, but there were a couple of places open. One restaurant was a kind of hipster looking place with a more fashionable, younger looking crowd. The other was a rougher bar full of local yokels. The couple of outdoor tables at the former were taken and it was kind of expensive, so we headed over to the trashy bar and sat at one of their plastic tables on the sidewalk.

I went inside to order a couple of beers and ask for a menu. In the back of the bar some guy was running an e-scooter repair shop next to the bathroom. Periodically guys would come in to get their scooters fixed. I ordered a plate of croquettes and something I hadn’t heard of called a “Bomba de Carne” or meat bomb. The table next to us was packed with a diverse group of ruffians from the neighborhood. People seemed to kind of come and go from their group. They were loud and it looked like a lot of them probably spend a bit too much time at this establishment. They were black, white, Arab, maybe Roma, young, old, well-read and illiterate. An extremely large woman with summer teeth showed up with a big bag of cheap chips and opened it up sideways to serve the whole table. The chips were gone in minutes. Our croquettes arrived and I didn’t even mind that they were clearly store bought from the freezer. They were cheap anyway. Later, the bomb arrived. It was a tennis ball-sized fried sphere, filled with mashed potatoes and spicy meat. The top of it was slathered with an insane amount of mayonnaise. This appeared to be homemade and it was surprisingly delicious and shockingly spicy. Yeah, it was kinda gross and sloppy but I really enjoyed it. Meanwhile, a couple of young, blonde Mormon missionaries had walked up to the table next to us and they were chatting. Compared to the folks at this table, these boys looked like they had just been unwrapped and taken out of their package. They were so fresh, clean and innocent. They seemed to be familiar and even friendly with the people at the table, but not exactly comrades. I overheard that at least one of them was Canadian. Their Spanish was pretty good. I mean, their accent needed some work, but they could communicate conversationally better than me. At some point, the woman with the summer teeth turned to look at them and exclaimed “whoa, they’re handsome!” The boys seemed unfazed when people kind of mocked their religion. I don’t really have much sympathy for the Mormon religion or the fact that they do this evangelizing all over the world, but I do have a soft spot for the Mormon people. I liked the way these two boys behaved with these people, getting to know them, being vulnerable, all while knowing there was almost zero possibility of a conversion among them.

The next morning, we did some last minute shopping at everything stores for ghosts and bought some bread and things for making sandwiches. We went back to the hostel, packed up and made sandwiches for the road. Then we walked  back to the station and stopped off at a little cafe that we’d been to a couple of times before on a previous trip. We just ordered a couple of hot sandwiches. While we waited, I went across the street to the grocery store to pick up one last piece of cheese and a bottle of Pedro Ximenez Sherry. This syrupy sweet sherry was not a drink that I particularly like, though it can be an interesting component in cocktails. I bought it more for its culinary uses, like putting on ice cream or for using as a glaze on meat. We ate our sandwiches and went to catch our train back home. The portion of the train ride between Barcelona and the border blessed us with really incredible views of the Pyrenees and the surrounding foothills. There were some really unique rock formations that I hadn’t seen before and it really made me want to explore the area more via a slower means of transport. The French side of the train ride didn’t have many interesting sights, except for all the flamingos in the coastal lagoons
around Sete. And that was the trip.