I wish I'd know about this place earlier in the summer! For the bargain price of 3 euros, you can become a member of the Antic Teatre of Barcelona, an old underground theater in the middle of Barcelona's La Ribera neighborhood. The Theater is currently under renovation, meaning there are no upcoming works. Honestly, the only good reason to join now is to access their huge, tree-shaded outdoor patio bar with cheap (San Miguel sponsored) beers. The club boasts 6,500 new members in the last two years, and it's not hard to imagine why.

note: this is not my cool picture. It was the result of a google image search, which led to to this guy's really cool collection of Barcelona photos on flickr.

The Catalan Transit Service is predicting more than 450,000 thousand cars will be returning to Barcelona this weekend as August vacations come to an end. There go the good parking spots.

Lee and I have are both particularly fond of August in Barcelona. A lot of people complain of the sweltering heat and the fact that all the shops and restaurants close. The weather's been beautiful both summers (maybe the Spaniards should try Chicago, DC or Hong Kong in the summer)! And the city seems really peaceful with so many less people and much less activity. I'm really enjoying no lines at the supermarket and crossing the streets against the lights. I wish the city was always like this.

Someone showed up today at 10am to check in. He was insistent that he wanted to see the room before he checked in. His room wasn't ready as the previous night's guests were still sleeping. I explained this, and he actually asked me if we could knock, wake them up, and ask them to come in.

Um no.

Who issues passports to these people?

A recent guest at the hostel took these cool panoramic pictures of our lobby and was kind enough to share them with us. They give a much better idea of the full picture than any of my previous pictures could.

I'm a little late in writing about this, but one of my favorite Barcelona celebrations ended last week - Festa Major de Gracia. Residents of the neighborhood of Gracia decorate their streets and host bands, DJs, etc for an entire week of non-stop partying. We went twice to partake in the street revelry. Highlights of this year included Calle Verdi's Mexican Lucha Libre street complete with some odd warm rum punch made by old ladies and our favorite street from last year that did great things with plastic bottles and light sticks.

No, making a reservation for the 22nd showing up at midnight and claiming that since it is technically the 22nd your room should be available is NOT OKAY.

Blogging remotely

So after almost two months of hounding movistar, Lee and I finally
have our iPhones! I can't get blogger to work, but I found out you
can email in posts. I haven't played too much yet, but so far I'm not
regretting the 39 euros. That's right folks. We may be a little
behind the times over here, but no one paid $599 for one of these!

Sent from my iPhone

Watching the Olympics outside of the US just isn't the same. I watched the Athens Olympics from London, where the highlights were Paula Radcliffe crapping out during the marathon and some teenage boxing sensation who barely eked out a silver. Hardly the the stuff of Olympic legends. The Milanese were even less excited about the Torino Olympics. I figured that Olympic games occurring a mere 154 kilometers away would spark some enthusiasm, but alas the only excitement they could muster was over was a pair of Italian ice dancers that got into a cat fight on the ice. So far, Spain has medaled in cycling and fencing. The coverage is a smattering of handball, windsurfing and judo. Titillating. The most international coverage their team has gotten has been for a racist photo shoot that they're playing off as an "affectionate gesture."

No good backstories, no rousing patriotic music, no graphics, no gymnastics color from Elfi Schlegle, and certainly none of the good ole American bias in coverage.

What are these crazy Spaniards thinking?

Gil's going on vacation for the next month! What are we going to do?

It came to my attention today that this interview for Interes (an agency of the Spanish Department for Trade of the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trademade dedicated to attracting foreign investment) made it to light.

Scroll down for the lovely picture of my face and a link to the interview. I'm almost 100% sure they did something to make me look uglier here. If I'd known they were going to crop it to just my mug, I would've sent them my Glamor Shots.

Spanish Version

I was updating the section of our website dedicated to current cultural events in Barcelona when I came across this website for the Mas i Mas Festival. Normally I try to include links to the websites in English so our guests can get more information from the original source on any particular event. Websites in Spain tend to be a little on the shoddy end, so I wasn't too surprised when I clicked the English link and nothing happened. I tried the "Espanol" link and caught a trend. The ONLY link that worked was Catalan. The real shock though was that putting your cursor over the Espanol or English links brings up a little wagging finger, as if to say "No, no, no this is not Spain nor a place that welcomes tourists - This is Catalunya. If you don't read Catalan, then tough torrones"

Where am I?