Here There and Everywhere

Tapa Tapa; Sidewalk Dining in Barcelona

Have you ever noticed it’s never the issues you worry about that happen? I had a concern that with jet lag we would be hungry when places weren’t open. As it turns out, our own schedules are so off that we fit right in with the Barcelona late-dining set.

We wanted something light for dinner, so decided to walk around the corner.

Just out the door and around the corner of our hotel, we came across this:

It’s just a little convenience store with a variety of small things, matches, snacks, little laundry detergents, etc, so you must wonder why it mattered to us? After all our years of living in the Middle East, our grandchildren adapted “Baba” as their special name for AdventureMan. He loves being Baba (a common for a father or grandfather in Middle Eastern communities) and he loves having a little grocery store named after him in Barcelona.

A couple blocks up, near the Gaudi house, we found Tapa Tapa, and what hooked us was they had pictures of the tapas. I ordered mussels, my husband ordered stir-fried vegetables, both were delicious (we shared) and light. By the time we walked back, we had done almost 14K steps.

Gaudi House

So much garlic! It’s a good thing we were sharing!

We were really hungry for vegetables, and these were tasty and delicious.

Can you see the pictures of the meals on the mats under our dishes?

It was a lovely, mild night as we strolled back to the hotel. Sometimes you really are just happy and you know it.

As we packed our bags for a 0900 pickup and got ready for bed, we decided we didn’t need to get up early and go to the Santa Catalina Market the next day. Santa Catalina had been the one market I really wanted to see, a market area where real people shop for groceries, or have a little breakfast, not like Boqueria, which is a very social quick-food place. Santa Catalina closes down Saturday afternoons and is not open on Sunday, so I didn’t get to go and I was disappointed. There is a part of me that would have liked to get up early and rush to the market to experience it, then rush back to the hotel for our transfer to the ship.

Sometimes I hate being older and wiser. And the grown-up part of me knows that rushing and not giving yourself time to pay attention to the details is a recipe for disaster. I used to take more chances. When did I become this person with good judgement?

January 14, 2023 - Posted by intlxpatr | Adventure, Aging, Cultural, Eating Out, Food, Restaurant, Travel | Barcelona, tapas