We are definitely not in Kansas anymore. I am still thinking in Italian, but it doesn’t work here. The people here mostly speak Catalan and, of course, Spanish. It’s a little bit freeing–I am not straining to understand and constantly learn; I am just language-lost. There are not coffee bars on every block. And no boats out the window. BUT, it is stimulating and fascinating and that’s fine with me.

Our apartment owner, Eleanora came first thing in the morning to check on the air conditioning and had someone come to fix it. All good.

I had booked a Gracia (our neighborhood) food tour through WithLocals so we walked the 10 minutes to the Fontana metro to meet Teo, our guide. We strolled through the streets and squares with her pointing out a place good for bread, a place good for clothes, a place with fabulous Portuguese food etc. Finally we entered the Mercado della Libertad. Very different from the totally tourist focused Boqueria, this is a real local market. Teo took us around as she chatted with many of the stall owners. From olives to animals it’s basically all here. There is one little bar in the back that has three little tables and we got one of those and they started to bring us food to try. I took a few snapshots but mostly I was looking and eating. We ate: pan tomat (bread with tomato rubbed on it and good olive oil:

We tried our first vermut and it was fabulous–slightly bitter and slightly sweet and somehow thirst quenching.

Then we had meatballs in a brown gravy, little round, red chorizo, fresh cod, lightly fried with a tomato and pepper sauce on top, a platter of seafood:

And the grandmother made tortilla:

Teo also brought us a small platter of hams and cheese, which we brought home.

We bought some little wild strawberries which Teo said we had to taste and also some prepared foods for dinner (chicken with prunes, garbanzos and rice and spinach). I bought a small bottle of olive oil in another shop, and Teo took us into the supermarket to choose a bottle of red wine. We said our goodbyes and walked back home trying to remember all the places from the 3-hour tour.

After a good rest, and a nice phone call from Josh, I bought tickets online for the Casa Vicens, Gaudi’s first house. Sr. Vicens commissioned him to build his summer house here, in Gracia, in 1888. For a first house (and our first real Gaudi experience) it is amazing. Here are a few snapshots I took:

We went up to the interesting roof, too. The audio tour was downloaded onto our phones so we could use our own earbuds to listen.

Walking home from there, I noticed how there are so many trees on the streets and so much graffiti, too. We sat for a while in the little square just below our building. Lots of young families were out there on the swings, kicking soccer balls and chatting.

Our dinner from the market was perfect. I started researching where we can get our Covid test for our flight home, and then we watched The Staircase and called it a day. A good day!