March 24-26
The plan: we arrive in Barcelona on the 24th, while Bets, Andy and Johnny arrive on the 25th in the morning. We pick them up from the airport, rent a van, drive to Logroño, enjoy Rioja and tapas, drive to San Sebastián, enjoy an amazing city with amazing food, drive back to Barcelona, spend three days there and then Betsy and crew fly home and I’m sad they have to leave.
Now here’s what actually happened:
With all of my passport issues sorted, we flew into Barcelona from Casablanca with no issues on Saturday. Boom. We had one night in an AirBNB in Barcelona, so we went out to explore the city.
First stop was this awesome meat shop:
That’s right – they just slice the meat right off the leg like that. If PETA didn’t have a problem with me after our snake and camel issues in Morocco, then they definitely do now. It was incredible and delicious. Apparently you can ship one of those legs to someone as a gift or something for a few hundred euros… but not to the US. They cannot ship meat to the US – I think it’s FDA rules from that whole mad cow era.
Next off to see more of the city. It was super rainy, but not too rainy to have an entire street of tents selling palms in anticipation of Palm Sunday. Look at how intense those tall palms are! Definitely like nothing we had ever seen!
Around this time, Johnny was getting ready to come visit me!!
We hit up a few tapas bars and walked the rainy streets.
Then we got the news… Johnny made it to Newark without any issue but then got sick while waiting in line to board the next flight. Betsy and crew had to adjust plans and grab a hotel room in Newark for the night to wait this out. They were not sure if he had the flu and if he was ok to fly or not. So, super upset, Michael and I went back to the Airbnb.
The next morning, Johnny seemed to be feeling better, so they were planning on taking the overnight flight that night (now with an added layover in Munich, unfortunately). With an extra day in Barcelona, Michael and I decided to make the best of it – by drinking beer and being sad that my sister wasn’t in town yet.
Started with the most insane Irish coffee I’d ever had. Also look at how delicious that tapas looks!
Then onto beer and meat shops:
As the day got later, and we got closer to Johnny’s flight, Michael and I got word that Johnny had a fever… and it was getting higher. After a failed attempt to visit the Newark airport clinic (apparently it’s not a real thing despite what the internet says), they decided to push the flights again and go find a real doctor.
Now it’s decision time again – none of our airbnbs are able to be canceled at this point, so Michael and I decided that the next morning we would grab the rental car, drive out to Logroño and stay in that airbnb for Monday night. So bummed, we picked up the car on Monday and started driving. It did not take us long to realize we made a huge mistake. The drive was 4.5 hours but it felt much longer. Super long. Plus there were tolls that we didn’t know about (aka didn’t research) which made the drive long and expensive. Plus I was really sad and Michael was bummed. So that made the drive much worse on everyone.
We stopped into Contino winery which was a great tour. The guide showed us around the cellar and gave great detail into the three different wine areas within the Rioja region.
But then… we were walking through the cellar and walked past this:
The tour guide said nothing and kept walking, so I said, “umm…. did someone paint that on the wall?” and he said “ummm….. no.” So I said, “ummm…. it looks like Madonna and child.” And he got excited and said, “I know, right?!?! That just appeared! I never point it out because one time I pointed it out and people got weird about it.” And then he directed us to another spot a bit over that looks like Jesus on the cross:
That one is smaller and a bit less obvious. But still totally there. Felt perfectly in line since it is Holy Week. It also felt a little comforting after having a few bad days in a row.
Besides divine intervention, we had a great tasting also. Mmmmmm cheese and sausage, plus delicious wines!
After the wine tour we headed to Logroño and the town did not look that cool. Ugh. What are we doing here!?!?!
We checked into the airbnb which at least had laundry (definitely being really glass half empty at this point). The guy who rented us the place suggested we go to Calle del Laurel which is one square block of tapas bars. Part of me just wanted to go to bed. It was a long day and Johnny had gotten some antibiotics (ear infection, not flu) and was scheduled to fly out Monday night (again!!!!). Nothing says healthy baby like casually lounging by a hotel fire in Newark.
So this meant that we were going to be driving those 4.5 hours back to Barcelona on Tuesday morning at 4am. But we went out anyway, mostly because we felt like we had to.
Thank goodness we did! It was a really neat area that was a ton of fun and really just what we needed to lift our spirits. Our Airbnb host directed us to some of the “best” places and we didn’t go everywhere, but we’re pretty sure he’s right. So here’s how it works: there are two types of tapas bars. The first, you walk into a bar, you order a glass of wine and one tapas. They serve only one thing, so you don’t have to make decisions. They give you the food, you eat it, it’s delicious, you pay them next to nothing and go to the next bar. (For those interested, “next to nothing” is about 5 euro for 2 tapas and 2 glasses of wine.
Mushrooms only bar – Bar Soriano:
Guy cooking mushrooms:
Patatas Bravas bar – Bar Jubera:
The second type of bar has options which makes it harder, but still delicious and still super cheap. Here are some tapas that we had to select:
This is the ‘Tio Agus’ from Bar Lorenzo. It’s basically just a great meat sammie. Mike went back for round two.
Meat on a stick:
Calamari:
Great experience, great food and great town. We are really glad that we made the effort even though it was definitely a mistake and silly to drive all this way. The airbnb was a sunk cost and we should have adapted to the change in plans. But despite all our sadness and mistakes over the past few days, Johnny and crew were on their way!!!!! For real this time.
