I got up fairly early this morning to get the train from Madrid to Barcelona. There now is a high speed rail link that gets from Madrid to Sevilla in two and half hours called the Ave. But there is not such service to Barcelona but I did not mind. The journey to Barcelona was about five hours. I was catching the train from the same place where Christian and I took the train to Toledo.
On the train trip they gave out complementary headphones to watch the DVD movie's being played. I think if I kept all the head phones from the flights, and bus tours and now train, I would have ended up with five pairs of headphones. They must be so cheap to make that are considered disposable items.
I could have flown from Madrid to Barcelona and saved about 4 hours in travel time but I though it was not necessary and nowadays if you can avoid flying, avoid it. I was not in any kind of rush.
I was now on my own; Christian stayed behind as he meeting Warren a few days later. The original plan was to travel for three weeks across Portugal and Spain but I was too restless; I had a lot on my mind; I was having a good time on holiday but I was also being a bit uptight. Once, I decided to come back a week early, I felt much better. When you go on holiday you are still traveling with yourself and the same thoughts you had elsewhere. I was reflecting quite a bit on the last year and my personal life and work. I have various conversations on the go with friends and acquaintances in London about projects and work and I wanted to get back to some of those potential bits of work. I thought about going back to London from Madrid but I don't know when would next get a chance to see my friends in Barcelona.
But it did mean I was in Barcelona on my own for a good part of the time there. I have lost count of how many times I have been to Barcelona. I have some friends here and it is always a pleasure to see them. And I would indeed see them later.
I arrived at the hotel and it was about 3 PM now and I was a bit peckish. A restaurant across the street was recommended to me. It turns out the restaurant was Galician. It was a local restaurant the decor was nothing special but the place was reasonably large and the food was very good. And the restaurant had "Pimento de Patron" on the menu. One of the waiters spoke good English and was kind of enough to talk me through all the dishes even-though I had a good idea what the food was about.
In the evening, I went to a bar called "La Confeteria" just off of "Calle Parallel"; I met Carlitos and Raquel here years ago. The name is a reminder that the bar used to be a sweet shop many years ago. I was asking the barman if he knew where the new restaurant the Carlitos works is; he gave me some directions. I took a taxi over the to area called "El Born". And I could not find the restaurant; I got the street it was on wrong; I had walked down every steet in the area except the one the restaurant was on - unlucky. I ended going for a long walk in Barcelona that night walking through residential parts of the city. Eventually, I made it back to where the hotel was and found a kebab restaurant open, of all things, sometime well after 1 AM.