the 1st real group event was a pre-pre-tour. most of the teams had flights that arrived in BCN at some point throughout this day so the coordinators of the trip planned a tapas crawl through the catalunyan capital.
they divided us into 4 groups, each with a guide from BBB (barcelona by bike) and we all went to 1 of 4 places then after 30 minutes or so we rotated, all ending up back at the hotel at the end. matt and i were with 'cousin carlotta' in the last group. we left the latest of all, and we wanted as much time between that lunch and the tapas as we could.
tapas: from the spanish tapa, to cover. a light snack usually eaten with drinks. just thought i'd throw in that definition in case anyone was curious.
1st up: Sagardi Euskatel Tabernawe were told to take 2 tapas each + a drink.
R: berry, cheese tart with something crumbled on top
R: olives, peppers and sardines
2nd stop: Euskal Etxeaeuskal taberna
R: roasted garlic, tomato, cheese (probably sheep), leaf on bread
think like an egg salad only crab really finely chopped
R: cured ham and peppers on bread
3rd stop: bodega la palmafor the last 2 places we actually sat down and they brought out plates. this one was family style.
lower left is a chorizo
top right is almost a salami
this is another catalunyan favorite. the history goes something like this: somehow the story gets us to - we have a loaf of bread, or parts of one a few days old and well, as bread gets stale it gets hard so a sauce/paste of tomato was made and painted on 1 side of a slice of bread to soften it up.
it's not bad but it did get a little mushy the longer it sat.
patatas bravas, or brave potatos
you saw another version of this earlier, + the 1 i had at the hotel i didn't get a pic of. hey, i was really sleepy but trying really hard to stay awake just that much longer when i ordered them.
anyway, these are a huge catalunyan favorite tradition. just think cheesy fries. only it's not really a cheese, it's a mayonnaise, but it tastes cheesy.
croquette of chicken, ham with serano pepper - oh wow this was great! as full as i was, matt and i were doing our best to shove 1 bite of each down so we could taste it all. but i snagged 1 of these off someone else's plate who couldn't finish.
egg with potato - kind of quiche-like. wasn't my favorite
tomato bread with cured ham
this was a great fun time. word gets around and people found out we had been there a few days and were asking about where to eat dinner the next night, and trying to ask carlotta what was what as we walked past. we were in an area where matt and i had been spending a lot of time. st. juame I is a place (read plahs) matt and i seemed to not be able to leave. lots centered around there or we had to travel through the piazza (is that a word people recognize better?) to get to where we were going. so we were able to comment on a few things. no background on it, but could say, as carlotta overheard me as we entered the square, "that's city hall and that's the seat of the catalunyan gov't". i got a big smile for knowing that.
below are the few pics of people i took from the night. all are clockwise from bottom left
bill
peggy
jan
peggy's husband denny
? probably martha's husband bobby
martha
steve
judy
jerry?
laurie?
kerry
mark
jon
carolyn
matt
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