Side Note: We are finally back to blogging. At the moment we are attempting to catch the blog up to present day. Please bear with us as we get everything up to date over the next few days. This post picks up where we left off in March. We were just arriving in Barcelona. We were so young then…
We arrived in Barcelona, dropped off our bags and headed out for our walking tour. Hosted by an American, he was easy to understand and we got his jokes. On the tour we learned about the Catalan Independence movement and how many of those individual in the region of Spain do not feel Spanish.
Instead they are Catalan and would never consider themselves Spanish. We saw Catalan specific architecture, learned a little about Catalan cuisine, language and the Catalan Independence flag. Honestly, I was hoping to find a Catalan airport so I could have my passport stamped and say I visited another country.
One thing of note on the tour was our visit to an outer section of a small church. It was here where individuals were executed by firing squad during Franco’s dictatorship. It was also bombed during WWII. A lot of history in the pock marked wall, none of it good.
From there we headed to the beaches of Egypt. Apparently Barcelona, on the Mediterranean coast no less, has no natural beach. For the 1992 Olympics, the city began bringing in sand from Egypt. The tradition continues to this day. It was a cool, cloudy day so we sat on the shores of Egypt and enjoyed the sailboats (perhaps Phoenicians) pass by.
We grabbed a bite to eat at an craft beer restaurant before heading to Las Rambla.
We had been warned about Barcelona and Las Rambla by everyone on the internet and everyone we encountered in every city we visited whenever Barcelona was mentioned. Our host in Barcelona gave us a map and noted the streets we should not walk on, should not speak English on, nor mentioned Airbnb on. We were told Barcelona is very dangerous and there is a 90% chance you will get pick-pocketed and it will happen on Las Rambla.
This was a right of passage we did not suffer however, as our Waterloo was but a few days away.
Instead we walked gaily down Las Rambla enjoying the sights and sounds of the Time Square of Barcelona. Full of street performs, black market goods, and local artisans peddling small paintings of large buildings, it was fun to see what all the fuss was about.
We found our next experience not too far down Las Rambla and planned to enjoy ourselves further.
The Jamon Experience is an incredibly campy tour/museum/visual and audio experience paired with some of the most expensive jamon money can buy. The tour bit consists of dark rooms with projectors and mirrored walls to allow the participant to watch and learn about the process of jamon making, from the birth, life, feeding, and death of the black hoofed Iberian pig. The oldest woman on the tour could not resist taking pictures of everything, very much against the rules. Probably how I (Clay) will be in a few decades.
Thankfully that bit was not too long and we headed upstairs to sample the finest jamon the Iberian Peninsula has to offer. We were able to try six different jamon varieties and a few glasses of cava. The first couple of pieces were relatively run of the mill jamon, but the last four were special because they were from very specific Iberian regions and followed further stringent rules and regulations. These were the Dom Perignon of pig legs.
At the tasting, no one was talking to one another around our large table of eleven and the middle aged American couple on the tour broke the ice. Providing various opinions on the jamon, they got the ball rolling and it didn’t stop for a good hour. Another couple was on the tour from the Netherlands and a group of five was from Belgium. The Belgian group was there to cheer on the 72 year old patriarch of the family who had run a marathon in Barcelona earlier in the week.
At some point, the American woman mentioned that one of the Belgians looks a bit like Mark Wahlberg. He did not. She persisted and everyone looked at her as if she was crazy. Nevertheless, and in probable hopes that others might begin to think a little better of her judgement, she admitted that her husband is often told that he looks like Liam Neeson.
We had already discussed this amongst Elizabeth and myself, but it set off a flurry of laughter, comments, and hearty agreement from the others that he did look a bit like Liam but the Belgian still did not look like Mark Walhberg.
We left there to float among the petty criminals of Las Rambla and headed home full of celebrity sightings. We finished the night at a falafel stand, finally getting our needed vegetables.
cornetravel 
No kidding- you face in the picture with the pig leg-PRICELESS!!! I feel better to know what y’all are doing/did. Miss yall bunches.
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