My Chicken Offends you?!

Today, was a late day. Just like most of them have been so far. This was the first day we saw Barcelona in the daytime. We thought the city was busy at 2am but it was at least twice as busy at 2pm. After waking up at 12 noon, I finally kicked our butts into gear at 1pm and we headed off to explore Barcelona. We were both amazed at the gothic architecture. On almost every street corner on La Rambla, you’ll find beautiful grotesques on four or five story gothic buildings.

A random left turn outside of out hostel led us through a eery construction zone and to a high energy open air market. This place was crazy! Produce stands, small restaurants, egg vendors, candy booths, and more. We bought fresh fruit salad in a plastic cup for breakfast.

We saw the statue of Christopher Columbus (who is said to be pointing to America), posed for a few photos, and wandered off to walk around the port. The port had the same old vendors you’d expect at a high-trafficked tourist attraction, fake gucci bags, fake ray-bans, and city souvenirs. We quickly got tired of the port which seemed more and more like a tourist trap the longer we spent there. We walked back to our hostel and got heckled into buying some very yummy gelato in the open air market along the way.

After Skyping with our families, we walked out to find some dinner. Even though it was 9:30pm, our sleep rhythms were off as well as our eating habits. Waking up at noon didn’t help either. I wanted to walk North West on La Rambla, which is the main drag in the old Barcelona, since we spent all afternoon walking the other way.

We were both in tense moods, as we get when we are hungry and tired, and were having trouble finding and picking a place to eat. I wanted something fast and cheap and I assume Amanda wanted something very tasty but mainly safe and slow. I pointed to a Schwarma place that looked like it would be cheap and Amanda pointed to La Poma, a pizzeria, that definitely did not look cheap.

I conceded and we queued up in the line to get in. I looked over at the lack of a line at the Schwarma shop and gave an obnoxious sigh. Amanda responded by telling me I could eat there if I wanted but that she would be eating here. I stayed put.

The menu was in Catalan and Spanish. Two languages Amanda and I are horrible at. I do have a few schooling years of experience with Spanish, but I still have problems understanding or speaking to a Spanish speaker. We opened our handy translator iPhone app (an offline one since we’re roaming) and started translated bits and pieces of the menu. We found a goat cheese salad and margherita pizza with “jamón dulce” with which we used the app to learn meant “sweet ham”. Amanda asked to use the translator and started typing something in. She immediately burst out laughing and when I saw what she had typed in, and the response, I joined her uproarious laughter. She had meant to type “pollo picante” which means “spicy chicken”. In her Italian mindset, she actually typed in “pollo picanti”. And what did that translate to? “Chicken offends you”. At that moment, we joked for a little while longer, the spirits were lifted, and it set the tone for the rest of the night. Another late one for the Ross travelers.

Look at your man and back at me, I’m on a horse lion.