A lazy day

The Textile and Design Museum courtyard, where we had a great brunch.
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After our long day and late night, we woke up very late on the Sunday - around 2pm. We figured we didn't need to wake up early and seize the day though, as we had a whole week (this may be the reason we missed some key sites, including the one everyone now asks about... More on that later!).

We were starving, so decided to head over to the Museum of Textile and Design cafe for brunch. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we sat in the lovely courtyard over delicious green iced tea and sandwiches. Feeling suitably refreshed, we decided to head for the waterfront. We wandered down to the harbour, had a look at all the stalls there and then walked over to the more modern area of Port Vell,  where the aquarium and other activities are. Although this area was perfectly nice, we thought it was pretty generic and it actually reminded me a lot of Canadian cities - probably because it was fairly modern.

The lovely harbour area
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As it was still a lovely, hot day (even though it was getting into late afternoon) we walked back along the waterfront and headed for the Barceloneta beach area, stopping for a minute to listen to some very inventive music. The beach was lovely, although the sand seemed very gritty to walk along, so we stuck to the boardwalk. We stopped and had a jug of sangria overlooking the water, were awed by the five star Hotel Des Arts, then walked back towards our apartment to get ready for dinner.

A strange statue on the beach
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We had dinner at an ok Mongolian restaurant (very reasonable prices) whose name escapes me, then stopped for a drink on our way back to the apartment. We were going to have an earlier night, as we were still tired from the night before, when we heard this loud noise coming from near the apartment. We headed towards the music, expecting singing of a similar variety to the night before, rounded the corner and were greeted with a topless lady. It was very strange, with a number of middle-aged to elderly people (men and women) in the audience, watching this girl dance. It turned out this was only a very small part of the entertainment though and that ended and this very energetic dance group started up - the boys in particular were making us laugh, very showy and "look at me!". I guess it was a variety show, as after that an apparently hilarious comedian came one, but as our Spanish is of the most basic variety, we decided it was time for us to move on. So that was it for our first full day in Spain - pretty low key, but really enjoyable! We decided we would start sight seeing for real on Monday morning, on the tourist bus.