Friends in Barcelona

Since always Barcelona was high on my list of places that I wanted to visit. I was considering stopping there for a few days every time I was coming back from Europe to the US, but for various reasons it never happened. So when I found out that Eric will be there for several weeks in November and December, I decided to slightly modify my plans and stop in Barcelona on the way to Poland. Also, two of my friends (one of which I miss tremendously) live in Barcelona and luckily they both were there when I was visiting.

Eric was a great guide and made sightseeing very easy. First time in my life, I did not even need to read a guidebook! As he had been staying in Barcelona for several weeks, he knew all the good spots there and had several interesting friends, to whom he kindly introduced me too. So, yes, the majority of time in Barcelona I spent eating and talking to people :) Much better than going to the museums ;)

My tour guide, Eric, and I. Notice that I am wearing a sleeveless top, whereas he has several layers of clothes and a cap!


Also thanks to Eric we went to several nice places for food, like for example this great Tapas place:


Unfortunately, I only found two Tapas that did not have fish or meat on them:


I was very impressed with Barcelona's fresh produce market. Selection of fruits and vegetables there was definitely comparable to the one in San Francisco, and its meat and sea food selection was even better than the on in SF!


One of the two "old" friends that I have in Barcelona is Kasia, my best friend from primary and secondary school. Until the age of 14 we were basically inseparable. Our ways parted when we went to universities in different cities and moved abroad afterward. We reconnected around year ago through nasza-klasa.pl (Polish equivalent of facebook.com). Kasia lived then in Buenos Aires and I was thinking about visiting her there. As you can see she always chooses interesting places to live ☺

Meeting Kasia in Barcelona was wonderful. I was very happy to see that she is as interesting, independent, charming, easy-going and cynically funny person as I remembered her to be. From the very first moment I felt very comfortable in her company and talking with her was as easy as if we had dropped the contact a day, not thirteen years, before.

Kasia and I:


Other friend that I reconnected with in Barcelona was Doris, with whom we were in the same PhD program in Dresden. It was very nice to see her and catch up on the news from the past three years.

Doris and I:


All in all, it was a very nice side trip for me before going to Poland. It was not as much filled with doing touristy stuff as with seeing friends, which made it special.