Gunternation

I just checked with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and my work permit was issued on March 5! I should receive it early next week. Everything should now be in place for me to start work on March 18.

Except, shoes…

Dear old gent passing by
Something nice takes his eye
Everything’s clear, attack the rear
Get in and pick-a-pocket or two.

-Oliver!

Those adorable miscreants scampering along the city streets grow up to be very, very creepy.

Bill had read about the prevalence and techniques of pickpockets in Barcelona and he warned me to be wary of people trying to get my attention or distract me, or trick me into revealing where I kept my money. We took the basic precautions–nothing in our back pockets, bags swung across the body and carried in front, Bill’s wallet zipped in an inner jacket pocket, and our passports locked in the room safe. Still, I feared I would be a nervous jumble walking the streets, blasting “Back off!” at the first little lady who innocently bumped my elbow. But, the streets were fine. We didn’t notice anything suspicious. People were pulling out wallets left and right to throw coins at the bizarre living statues that line La Rambla. Even when gathered around the bunnies and birds in the pet hawking stretch of ramble, people kept a polite distance.

Friday evening Bill and I happily board a crowded metro train. We’re going just a few stops, so we take positions near the door. There’s a crunch of people around us. The car is full. A man on my left bumps into me, and then catches my eye and smiles apologetically, his expression saying, Oh, these overcrowded trains, what can you do? A moment after the train starts, I feel some movement on my butt. I think maybe I’ve leaned against someone’s hand on the bar behind me. I turn around quickly and say “Oh, I’m sorry.” A man looks up at me, and then points at the metro map, saying something in Spanish. “Sorry,” I say again and turn back toward the door. Best to ignore that guy, I think. So I stand there stoically ignoring him, but he turns his attention toward Bill, who is standing behind me near the middle of the car. The man points to the pole Bill is hanging on to as if to say, can I put my hand here, but then he decides he’d rather be on the other side. What a fidgety guy! After a few moments I notice my purse wriggling. I grab it and move it to the right. The guy to my left throws his hands into the air. A pickpocket! I don’t look at him, resuming my stare out the window. I can’t believe that guy tried to pickpocket me, I’m thinking, what a jerk…wait, what is happening to my left front jean pocket! I slap my left hand down, and again hands fly in the air. We are close to our stop; I summon the highest level of personal space awareness I am capable of. At our stop Bill and I jump off the train , duck away from the exiting crowd and exclaim simultaneously, “That guy was pickpocketing me!”

One guy had managed to unzip the small backpack Bill was carrying, and my purse was also unzipped. I’m not sure it was zipped when I boarded the train–the purse has a zipper and a velcro flap closure–but I think it was. The zipper pull was on the right side of the purse, so the guy would have had to reach all the way under the flap. When I turned around to see what was going on with my butt, perhaps? Thankfully nothing was taken, but we felt really foolish that it took so long for us to figure out we were marks.

As I thought about it, I got really creeped out that these men were crowded against me feeling my pockets and rifling around in my purse. I couldn’t believe that the guy went after my pocket seconds after I caught him groping my bag. I did think it was cunning the way he made eye contact with me, so he would not seem like a threat. We vowed to tell the next pickpockets to F Off at the first finger wiggle.

When I see someone rich,
Both my thumbs start to itch
Only to find some peace of mind
We have to pick-a-pocket or two.

Creepy! Creepy! Creepy!

Our dining proclivities should be evident by now. So we were understandably excited about a visit to Barcelona, an eating town, in the land of tapas and paella. And while paella never landed on our plate, we did consume many tasty bites of tapas, and also the Basque version, pintxos. Tapas and pintxos are both bar food, meant to be enjoyed throughout a night of socializing and imbibing, and are constructed out of similar ingredients: olives, anchovies, cheese, red peppers, shrimp, squid, pickled veggies. Pintxos are usually on a piece of bread and are speared by a toothpick–pintxos is the Basque word for thorn. After full days of sightseeing, we didn’t have energy for hopping, but we did make a dinner of pintxos our last evening. We sat on the patio at Bilbao-Berria. The waiter brought us glasses of Cava, a sparkling wine frequently consumed alongside a red pepper stuffed with tuna, or peppers and anchovies atop pickled onions, or anchovy wrapped olives. Dos Mas, two more, are two happy words! We were so enchanted that we forgot to take pictures. At the end of the meal, the waiter counts up your picks (prices were indicated by the length of the pick). Our pinxtos meal with two glasses of cava each was €36.00. Yes, dining in Barcelona was wonderfully affordable, especially compared to Dublin.

Quimet y Quimet

Tapas is available in many restaurants, but at some places specialize in small plates. We made a stop at a tiny, standing-only bar called Quimet y Quimet. We ordered three plates: seafood, cheese and bread. The cheese plate had tiny pears and wine jelly.

Bill in Quimet y Quimet

Seafood plate at Quimet y Quimet

Bread plate at Quimet y Quimet

Cheese plate at Quimet y Quimet

Our favorite meals were at Bar Central. Yes, we ate there twice. This little spot in Barcelona’s Boqueria Marketconsists of about twenty stools, a beer spigot, a glass case of seafood and a grill. Thursday we shared a truly amazing seafood platter of razor clams, squid, salmon, mussels, other things de mar and a plate of fried potatoes drizzled with garlic and olive oil. On our second visit on Saturday Bill had sausage and potatoes while I had a plate of my new favorite food–grilled squid. I know there are a lot of squid squeamish out there, and I understand–you have to chomp a lot of rubber calamari to find the exquisite delight of this fork tender, sweet offering from the sea. I was tempted to go directly to the nearest tatoo shop to have “Squid is my life!” indelibly marked on my skin. As it was, Bill had to talk me onto the plane, claiming that 12 years of marriage is more important and rewarding than unfettered access to grilled squid. We’ll see.

Mixed grill at Bar Central

The object of my affections, along with some little clams.

We also snapped a pic of our neighbor’s sardines. I thought they looked lovely. We were a little intimidated to order them, but now we know how to eat them, and they’ll be on our plate at the next opportunity.

Sardines at Bar Central

Pastries

Cafe con Leche!

Other moments of gustatory merit: Bill’s grilled rabbit at a Catalan restaurant called Can Culleretes, several stops for pastries, many cups of café con leche, a welcome first meal of avocado and brie bocadillo (sandwich) and quiche, and a blindingly pink drink of dragonfruit juice. We also were enticed by a taqueria where we had pretty darn good enchiladas, tacos and guacamole.

Dragonfruit!

• Tapas vs. Pintxos
• Three ways to know you’re being pickpocketed
• Gaudi: Insane genius or just insane?
• How many streets must a man walk down until he finds a specific candy store?
• Annoying Americans who can’t speak Spanish
• Five Tenets of Catalan Independence
• Picasso’s blue period: How blue was it?

Please identify in the comments the three topics for which you have an insatiable curiosity.