Soooo....!

I'm sitting in our room at a hostel in Barcelona, "borrowing" a friendly neighbour's wireless internet connection.

This is our second full day in Barcelona, after traveling 13 hours by train from Ceuse on the 23rd. We were joined in Ceuse this past week by a couple we had met in Thailand, who turned up randomly at camp and joined our rig. A few days later we got a visit from Brendan (who I met at a few woodford's and climbed with a bit in Brisbane), and his girlfriend Alex. So our camp went from 2 people to 6, and we spent a few good days climbing, cooking and eating together.

The temperature difference between here and Ceuse is pretty big, so we have been sweating it out here after being in the cool mountains! We are staying just off La Rambla, which is the huge tourist strip through the city. After spending our first night spent around La Rambla we realised that the over-priced and over-crowded area was not where we wanted to spend our time (or money). That is, excepting the huge fresh food market nearby which sells amazing and yummy fresh fruit for a decent price. We also stocked up on every type of "jamon" ham possible on our first visit there.

Last night we hunted down a popular tapas bar named Sagardi which had oak barrels of home brewed cider behind the bar to kick start the meal... The place was packed, and we took about 15 minutes to work out the system. The place was traditional food from the Basque region, and the bar is filled with about 60 plates of skewered fillings based on bread called "pinoxto". All you do is walk around stuffing your face with these delicious morsels, maybe goats cheese with chorizo mince, or a crab meat and orange peel croissant, the list went on. When you are done gorging yourself, you ask for the bill and they count your sticks. We had around 15 skewers each at just over 1 euro per skewer (and could've easily kept going). After this experience we found a cocktail bar which made the most amazing mojito I have ever had =)

Today we started again at the fruit market, then stumbled across a coffee roastery while wandering around. The roaster took us behind the bar and we bought some nice colombian from him for our next camping stint. Tomorrow morning we will go back to get a tour of his wholesale operation which should be cool, it's nice that all these people in the coffee industry are so keen to share the passion... I think we stumbled upon literally the only specialty coffee roaster in Barcelona, as we had tried to find one online to no avail. They had a good range of coffees with some fresh crop arriving next week, and will also mail us fresh coffee to where we are camping which is perfect !!

Now we are getting ready to head to another tapas bar, but less traditional. It is run by the students of the famous chef from "El Bulli" (who owns the best restaurant in the world) and is apparently amazing and full of unusual combinations. Looking forward to another tapas treat...!

All in all it has been nice to take some time off climbing and recharge the batteries here. Although there is a huge budget change between camping, and spending time/eating our way through a major city. We are moving to Rodellar tomorrow, which is likely to be another month camping stint. I'm really looking forward to settling there and starting to climb again.

Much love to everyone, send me mail with some goss!!!

=)