Our first long day

A street in the Born area
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We flew with Easyjet from Gatwick airport. It was chaos, with huge queues to both check in and get through security and tons of people trying to jump to the front - very annoying. Ruth and I behaved ourselves and got through fairly quickly, but were very glad we had got there with time to spare. I think Easyjet could do with some help when it comes to organising and controlling queues if that experience was anything to go by! Our flight took off a little late but arrived on time, and we were in Barcelona! Everyone I know who has been to Barcelona has loved it, so I was really excited to finally be visiting.

Our wonderful apartment - A home from home for a few days.
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We took the aerobus to Placa Catalunya in the centre, and then struggled through the underground and what seemed like a million steps to take the tube two stops. I'm pretty sure we could have walked to the apartment in less time, but hey, we did ok. After I tried to lead us in the completely wrong way from the tube stop, we asked for directions at a hotel and finally found our apartment.

Our big night out ended at 5:30am back at the apartment

Enjoying a rum cocktail on our big night out
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The apartment was great, on a side street in the Born area, which people compare to Soho in London. We never had any problem with the street noise I had heard about in Barcelona and were always able to just walk out and find entertainment in the evenings. That first day we were tired after an early start to get our flight, and so decided to do like the Spanish and siesta (or in our case, read The Guardian!)

At about 8pm we wandered out into the Born area, which was very lively and full of people enjoying the warm evening. The guidebook said you needed to book tables for dinner, so we went to Taller de Tapas and booked a table for 10pm. I love the way they do everything so late in Spain, definitely my kind of place! We then sat down at a table in a square next to the Santa Maria church and enjoyed our first glass of Spanish wine, along with some very designer tapas - aubergine and feta, and a potato/ caviar thing. Delicious, and beautiful in its presentation! We then tried to order a bottle of wine, at which the waiter looked so incredulous, miming how big the bottle would be (as if we couldn't handle that ;), that we felt shamed and ordered two more glasses instead. We would find that the waiters all over Barcelona were very reluctant to give us any more than a glass of wine at a time until we became a lot firmer over the next couple of days!

Ruth looking fresh-faced at the beginning of our night.
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At 9:30 we decided to go and see if we could get our table at Taller De Tapas, but it turned out we had been using my phone for the time, and I had forgotten to put it to Barcelona time (one hour ahead of London), so we were in fact there at 10:30 and had missed our reservation. Oops! We wandered around looking for a free table, but had no luck anywhere until about 11:30, when Origens 99.9% had a free table. We ate some more tapas (meatballs and cuttlefish was my favourite Catalan dish) and our first cava - definitely a drink we enjoyed all week! After dinner we visited a bar and wine bar, along with some dancing to "New York, New York" at an outdoor concert (we assume as part of the big festival that was taking place the following week-end) before ending up at an indie club called Karma at Placa Reial. Our big night out ended at 5:30am back at the apartment - the club was still going strong at 5am, but we were done. It was a great first day in Barcelona!