THE RAIN IN SPAIN....

Yesterday started out a bit overcast but basically a really nice day. After our good success in Madrid with the city bus tour, we bought a two day ticket for Barcelona, as there is so much to see here and it is really spread out. Our second stop was Plaza Catalonia (Placa Catalunya in Catalan, the local language) and the beginning of La Rambla, the famous walking street which is one of several by that name, that goes from this plaza to the water front. Rambla actually means stream in Arabic - this used to be the drainage ditch along the medieval wall.


We got off to see what we could see. We saw lots of tourists and lots of vendors and shysters trying to separate them from their money. However, half way down was a very cool, huge food market, La Boqueria. This is like a Pike Place market with Les Halles thrown in for good measure.


Every possible food group was represented here.

Some of the meats -


(Catalonia is known for these sausages):


Lots of fruit, ready to take away and eat while shopping. This one is called pitaya.

Here's the egg market.


And the cheese market



Whatever kind of shellfish this is, it is quite expensive...about $50/kilo!

The dried fruit and nut section:

Marzipan. I was disappointed that there were no marzipan poodles, a phenomenon I have only ever seen in Heidelberg, Germany.

Rabbit, anyone?

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to this market, including a great conversation with a vendor about Ecuador - she is Israeli and married to a man from Guayaquil (but hasn't yet made it to Cuenca). Here's what we tried at her stall:


Back on Las Ramblas, this is about the last photo I was able to take in sunlight.

As we walked toward the port the sky got darker and darker.


Here's Columbus again, who stands near Barcelona's waterfront. This is reputed to be the biggest statue of him in the world and is erected on the spot where he brought the goods back to Ferdinand and Isabella. It makes a good story anyway.


It finally started to rain BIG DROPS so we hopped back on the city tour bus. Unfortunately the only seats available were on top. The bus did have a vinyl cover but it was ineffectual; every time we turned a corner, all the water would whoosh off the top of it onto the person (me) sitting in the outside seat.

Before long there was a full blown thunder and lightening storm underway.

It was quite some time before we were able to find seats on the inside of the bus and tempers were getting frayed as everyone was wet and grumpy. Eventually we made it back to a location where we could make a run for it between squalls without getting completely soaked. The whole rest of the day and even through the night there were torrential rains, thunder and lightening. I finally succumbed to a pathetic umbrella vendor who was even more of a drowned rat than I was.

Next, a sunny day! and more fabulous architecture (Gaudi and others) in Barcelona.

Audrey