We landed in Barcelona at 7:30 am, weary from not sleeping for two days. The slick AeroBus dropped us off right in Placa Catalunya. We realized on the drive over that the streets were unusually empty since May 1 is a holiday (May Day). And it was only 8 in the morning. Since we couldn’t check into our tiny-yet-affordable room at Apt. RamCat until noon, we hung out at a café in the plaza and checked out all the closed (and horrifically expensive) stores.
After checking in, we cruised down the main tourist drag of La Rambla until we hit the coast, then we made our way north until we hit the beach. Since it was May Day, there was a union celebration that involved, among other things, an effort to break the world record for the World’s Largest Paella.
A horde of chefs stir the World's Largest Paella
We declined to taste the jumbo paella, figuring that the world’s paella would not be the world’s best paella. We made our way to the beach, where the sunny holiday had attracted hordes of sunbathers.
We then met up with former Alivisatoid and extreme Catalan, Andreu. We toured the Gothic Quarter with Andreu and caught up on all things Berkeley and nano.
Alivisatos reunion in the Gothic Quarter
After struggling to stay awake the entire day, we succumbed and took a nap. We managed to get up for dinner at La Quinze Nits, where people line up around the plaza for the opportunity to eat a decent but not spectacular meal and down pitchers of sangria without maxing out their credit cards.
After that, it was sleep, sweet sleep, before our transformation into hard-core tourists the next day.
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