There are two experiences that no visit to a new city is complete without

1. Getting lost on public transport

2. Accidentally ending up in the dodgy part of town

Today I completed both of these!! I already took ẃrong turns on several occasions and ended up in decidedly dodgy parts of El Ravel, thanks to my delightfully situated hostel. Today I did a double whammy... First I got on the wrong train at Plaça Catalunya station (rule number one, never run for a train and jump in just when the doors are closing when you´re not familiar with the transport system and not 100% sure where you´ŕe going). I got on the S1 line instead of the L1, which I think is an excusable mistake. I followed the golden getting-the-wrong-tube reparation of getting out at the next stopped, cossing over the platform and coming back. I eventually made it to where I was trying to go, which was Gloriès station, to visit a flea market there recommended by my guide book. It was only afew stops from the centre of town but I emerged in the baking mid'afternoon heat into this deserted wasteland of an area with what looked like a derelict park, ringed by a high fence with spikes on the top, under a flyover... holey moley!! I SO nearly turned around and went straight back down into the safety of the metro but managed to brave it and did in fact find the flea market. I guess it was good, I browsed for 30mins or so, but to be honest I was feeling pretty sketchy by that point, after my getting lost on the metro experience and then the location of the barrio. There were lots of second hand clothes stalls, underwear stalls (not second hand!), electricals, knock-off perfumes and an awful lot of stuff that made me think "hm now I know where all those famous barcelonic pickpocketers come to sell their stuff". I did get some socks, though!! When in doubt buy socks!! They are 90% cotton and six pairs for 3euro... BARGAIN.

Something awesome happened on the metro on the way there.. there was a guy playing accordian in the carriage! So cool! I´ve seen a few busking accordian players since I´ve been here, they like to seranade diners at the outside tables. It´s probably hideously touristy and cheesy but I like them :)

A degree of weird / disjointedness has been the theme of my day today, my final full day in Barcelona. I rented a bike again this morning, just for two hours this time. I wanted to visit the Palau de Musica Catalunya, which was a little walk away from the centre, so I thought I better cycle. The Palau was well worth a look, beautifully mosaiced and grand although, in the bizarre way that Barcelona has, surrounded by and opposite heavily graffiti´d walls and doors. There is SO MUCH graffiti in Barcelona! It´s everywhere! So much more than any other city I have been in. I´m not sure whether people DO more graffiti here or whether the authorities have just given up cleaning it off, I don´t know but it was one of the first things I noticed and continue to do so.

A map in the bike rental place leaflet showed lots of blue cycle lanes ringing the central part of the city, so I thought I check them out. It was oh-kay, but cycling alongside 4-lane dual carriageway is never really going to match up to cycling free and easy along the shoreline metres and metres away from any traffic. Once I´d exhausted the cycle lanes (and the exhaust fumes and pretty much finished me) I headed back into the narrow streets but that too was unfulfilling, by 11am they were busy enough for cycling down them to be quite frustrating and not much fun. No harm done, though! I still got to see things I´d not seen before.

My first choice for lunch wasn´t serving lunch yet (12.30pm and they were still serving breakfast, this will give you an idea of the night-liveliness in Barca) so I made a short detour to Maoz, a vegetarian falafel joint. I got an énsalada' pot, which they put in lettuce, hummus and three falafels and left me to fill the rest from the (all but once choice vegan) pretty extensive salad bar. The salad bar was weird though, for salad it didn´t have much of what I´d classically call salad i.e. raw undressed veggies. There was a lot of nice stuff, but I ended up with a pot of olives, roasted cauliflower,, white cabbage with cumin seeds thing, chickpeas, carrots in sauce, tabbouleh, gherkins, salsa, tapenade, tahini and things like that. It WAS yummy but it wasn´t exactly a salad in the classic sense of the word, it was very rich and a bit deep-fried for my taste (lol, hark at me being so picky as to find fault in a veg*an falafel bar, the thought of such a thing which has never even been considered down in deepest darkest devon outside of sidmouth folk festival! I have been so spoilt for veg*n choice here in Barclona it is going to be a shock to the system to come back home, although we do have a lot more choice in the supermarkets/shops back home, it´s just the options for dining out that I´ll miss). The lady serving in there was awesome, she was from the uk (I heard her talk to someone else in english) but she humoured me and answered in spanish when I spoke to her and when I asked questions in spanish about the salad things she answered in spanish back!!

My other spanish language adventures of the day included asking the hostel receptionist if they found any sunglasses as I´ve lost mine, asking for change in the bank, querying vaguarities of the various dishes on the salad buffet at the falafel place, asking in a souvenir shop if they had any more of a particular pair of sunglasses as the pair on display was damaged and numerous simple exchanges when buying things! Get me!! I could totally get back into spanish, it surprises me how easily it has come back, how much I remember and how natural it feels to be speaking it.

Then was my afternoon adventure, then a pot of fresh pineapple from Mercat de Boqueria (so good). I browsed the souvenir shops for the first time since I´ve been here (the ones in the back streets seem to be busier and less filled with creepy asian shopkeepers staring at you). Some little b****** stole my almond milk from out of the fridge in the hostel D: gah. Luckily they left my soya milk so I´ve still got some for breakfast but seriously, I f***ing hate that about hostels, who on earth STEALS other people´s food?? I am EXTREMELY nervous now because I have a piece of iced vegan carrot cake in there from Gopal, which I bought for my morning snack tomorrow before I leave for the airport and which I have been looking forward to all week. Gopal doesn´t open til 12 so if this gets nicked I have no way of replacing it and I will NOT be a happy bunny. Heads will roll.

Later on I finally got my Sangria!! First one since I´ve been here :D I met up with Lucy, an aussie friend who is studying in the uk and coincidentally happened to be in Barcelona at the same time as me. We sat outside in Plaça Reial with a couple of her friends in the sun and drank Sangris and it was a really lovely way to end my last day here.

It´s been a nice, if somewhat disjointed day. My feet started hurting today, which is fine. They can hurt now if they want to, I´ve done everything that I wanted to do!! I´ve got an hour or so tomorrow morning before I have to leave for the airport at 10.30-11 (ok, 10.30, who am I kidding, I´m almost certainly going to be at the airport at least 4hours early... you know me!). My plan is to get a coffee and sit on a bench on Las Ramblas to have it with my vegan carrot cake and soak up a last few rays of mediterranean sun before it´s back to reality.