Sunday, April 18, 2010

28.03 - Sunday - from Benidorm

As every year there was a huge mess on my part related to the time change. I had only my phone - which I did not trust to do the time change automatically (and then my computer confused me as well since had forgotten it to Estonian time so it differed from my phone time.. uh oh). Anyways - huge confusion, but all turned out for the best in the end. The plan was to stop by triathletes housing and head over to swim practice. Ended up having famous pancakes (famous rightly so) and then headed out to the practice just like planned. It was refreshing to swim :) More updated on the training camp and more check-ups :)

Goodbyes to triathletes, met up with my travel companions and back towards Barcelona we headed - me behind the wheel. Took us about 5 hours of driving and 1 hour of going around in circles and arguing about the usefulness of GPS devices :-S Best part of all was the wonderful discussions with my friend :), I've missed those! Really enjoyed the drive and the chat - one can never have too many friends with whom to discuss about the world matters for hours without once getting bored :D I'd come back for a visit just for the talks at anytime!

Arrived to Barcelona, one crankier than the other (except me of course :) ), one hungrier than the other (especially me of course ;) ). Dropped off the car, dropped of the packages at the apartment and headed to regular midnight dinner :D at the Japanese buffet place.

Now let's talk about food :) Local specialties I got to try out were:
Pa amb tomaquet - roasted white bread with olive oil and garlic rubbed with tomato. This is how the locals eat bread here, none of this buttery stuff.
Paella - those come in many different variations, the one I ate was 'paella valenciana', it is the original version with chicken and seafood.
Tapas - all kinds of little snacks like meat, sausages, bread, fish served with oils and herbs. One must have is 'patatas bravas' - potato chunks in spicy tomato sauce.
From deserts - Crema Catalana - Catalan version of creme brulee, it is a rich eggy custard with a caramelized sugar topping, YUM!
Then of course 'cava' - sparkling wine made the same way as French champagne and sangria. Sangria is everywhere and is served throughout the day like lemonade.
Another wonderful food experience was definitely the Japanese buffet place we visited in Barcelona - it was grand. You just picked whatever you liked from the menu and everything was served to the table nice and quick. That was really neat as the food was superb. Haven't eaten that much sushi total in my whole life :)

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