Day Thirty-Six
Barcelona
12 September 2007 23:48

The morning today was filled by a combination of us sleeping and doing laundry. After all the laundry was hung up (by Justine while I checked our email and bank balances) we headed out.

Our first destination was the Parc Güell, which was intended to be a gated community, but never eventuated. A highlight is the long mosaic park bench which we sat on for quite a while and is rather comfortable. The drainage system from the chairs is good too. The views from the park offered a 360° view of Barcelona. The Sagrada Familia church is an imposing structure. In the tranquil park are a number of cats, sleeping, too.

Just as interesting as the Park is the way up. The hill we had to climb is long and steep but there were half a dozen escalators to help us with our ascent.

After a 1.5km walk downhill from the park to the nearest station, we arrived at the massive Sagrada Familia. The way we approached the church seems to have been from the back and though I am no fan of Gaudi’s work I think a combination of the park and church make me a convert. He seems to have been a very inspired man.

The “front” of the church, however, looks new, different to the intended design and just awful. Both of us agreed that the original façade is nice but the new is just terrible. The inside is ugly but even worse due to it being a giant construction site. If the design stayed true it would be impressive but as it is we don’t like it.

A short while after sitting in the park and contemplating the church we headed off to the Las Ramblas once again.

In contrast to the night, Las Ramblas has heaps of street performers, buskers, and yes, people trying to hustle with variations of three card monte. A large crowd surrounded one hustler and we both chuckled as we watched people throw away their money worthlessly.

At the end of Las Ramblas we saw the statue of Colombus and headed across the road to the docks. The far end of the docks has a very new shopping centre so we headed in for a look and ended up buying some Spanish chocolate and some stuff from Calvin Klein since it seems to be a lot cheaper than back home. Justine also bought a pair of Havaianas thongs with a design you can’t get in Australia as well as having Swarovski crystals embedded in the, which is also a service the shops offer but again not at home.

For dinner we both had paella. Mine was seafood, though I sent it back when it came with meat and chicken, but no seafood. Justine had a vegetarian one. When I got mine again it had the prerequisite mussels, prawns and scampi. I washed it down with Spanish beer.

The paella was OK, but we like the one we make at home better, even if it is not as traditional or authentic.

I’ve now taken over 10,000 photos. Obviously not all are winners but it’s still a milestone!

It’s either been a while since I’ve discussed it, or done it, but last night I felt the urge to cook something I’ve not cooked before.

Unsure of what to cook, I searched the Internet for a short while before deciding to cook a Mediterranean-style chicken dish. With the range of food styles substantially narrowed, I settled on a Greek Chicken Casserole. I read a small number of recipes and concluded that the flavours and ingredients in Greek food weren’t what I wanted to eat. Spanish came quickly to mind, and I resumed my search.

I had nearly settled on a Spanish Chicken Stew when “What about Paella?” popped into my head. Now determined to cook a Paella dish, I searched for a few more minutes until I finally settled on a Chicken Paella recipe.

A brief trip to the local supermarket and we had the small number of ingredients we were missing. After an hour of chopping, stirring, pouring and waiting, the dish was finally complete.

The great thing about Paella – and many other things I cook – is that it only uses one dish, which is great for someone lazy like me. Paella is an easy dish; you simply cook the meat, chuck in onions and garlic, then the vegies. Add rice and stock and once the stock reduces, eat!

The recipe I mostly followed is easy and though it takes an hour to cook, doesn’t require many involved steps. I didn’t add chorizo since Justine wouldn’t eat it, nor did I add some of the herbs since we don’t have them.

Paella has earned itself a place on our recipe list. Next time, I’ll add all the ingredients, and possibly add a bit more stock so there’s some “juice”. The recipe called for two cups of rice, though half that would have been more than enough.