They don't speak Spanish in Barcelona

OK, yes they do speak Spanish but that is only one of their official languages. The other one it Catalonian. That's the region the Barcelona is in and they are quite proud of it. I don´t know what the difference is but my limited Spanish doesn't work as well here as elsewhere in Spain but the people are just as friendly and helpful and they don´t seem to hold it against me that I'm speaking the wrong language badly.

I arrived early Sunday morning on the night train from Madrid. None of my normal 'first things first' places were open (tourist info, b'fast places') at that time of day, at least on a Sunday so I made my way to the metro and found my stop but had no idea which way to go when I emerged from underground. I came onto a really wide pedestrian way between two streets and just picked a direction and started walking. When I got to one of the metro stops I'd passed, I figured I was going the wrong way so I backtracked (it was only a couple of blocks) and found the street the hostel was on and headed down it. It looked like an alley but I'm used to European streets and knew better. Eventually, I saw the familiar little house with the pine tree. Recently in my travels, I have been getting dorm rooms to myself . I was hoping that such would be the case this time but no such luck this time. The big city hostels are kept busy year round, I guess. I was able to check in though even though check in is usually not available until much later. I was glad of that because I need to a shower after two successive nights of night trains, I was feeling pretty ripe. When I got to my room, it was full of slumbering roommates AND I had forgotten that this particular hostel was again a mixed dorm arrangement (it's all that was available) so all of the roommates were male. Well, being that they were all young males and it was a Sunday morning they weren't so much slumbering as passed out. I grabbed what I needed for the day out of my pack plus my shower kit, freshened up, stowed the rest of my stuff and headed out and figured I'd worry about the lads later. I strolled back out to that same big pedestrian walkway I had first come on to. It's called La Rambla and by now it was no longer empty. It was a full on market place now. Mostly tourist stuff but other things were tucked in between the kitsch. Some of it was kind of weird/fun. There were a bunch of human statues. One was a guy sitting on a toilet, pants down around his ankles and everything. Another had a headless mannequin in a suit and tie painted silver from, uh, neck to toe and beside it was a table with just the head, also silver. That's where the human part of the human statue came in. I don't know how long La Rambla is but it's quite a ways. As large a place as Barcelona is, I figured the best way to get the lay of the land was the standard hop-on, hop-off tour bus and the landing zone was at the top of La Rambla. This particular bus tour was divided into two separate routes. One covering the old city and waterfront and the other going to the newer and north part of town. I did them both with doing any of the hopping on/off bits but took notes for future reference. Once back at the landing zone I meandered back down through La Rambla but this time checking out the storefronts more but still having a gander at the goings on at the market area. Lots of the statues were still at it and it was really cold. I was glad I had tipped the headless guy but whatever he made for the day, it wasn't enough!

Remember my little alley like street to the hostel? It was mostly empty when I arrived and starting to come to life when I left to look for the tour bus. My return back to the hostel was after dark and the place was packed. Everyplace that had looked like a garage (which was most of the way along) was a storefront! All the places out on the main drag were geared for tourists. This is where the locals shop and probably dine and I hope to grab at least a lunch or two from one of these places before I leave. Well, my day ended and I returned to the hostel figuring the lads would be up and away by now and I could sort of settle in. Two of them were still in bed! I grabbed my reading material and headed to the common room. I don't know who the two bodies were but at some point they passed through the common room because when I was finally ready to call it a night, I went to the room and it was empty. I readied my bed and then read for a bit more and finally fell asleep. I did hear when the guys starting coming back in the very week hours of the morning but they came back in shifts and were more respectful than the young men I had roomed with back in London. And they went to sleep right away. I was up and out as quietly as I could in the morning, though I'm not sure there was much that could have disturbed them.

Today, I did the waterfront even going so far as to dip my toes into the Mediterranean Sea! I walked on the beach, rode to the top of the Columbus tower, visited the Maritime Museum, went to a 3D Imax movie (Dinosaurs! Alive) in Spanish and lost money in the Casino. Now I'm catching up on my blog and it appears, I've done something to scare off my roommates because it looks like I have the room to myself. Normally, I would get a feeling a inferiority but instead I'm gonna try to figure out what I did and get ready to do it again because for a few days when I get to Italy, I'm gonna be in a mixed dorm again!