Ducha

There are many characteristics one considers when selecting a hotel. Does it include a free breakfast? Is there a pool? Is the bed firm and the towels soft? Does it have a view? Is the staff friendly and helpful? How close is it to points of interest? Is there HBO?... Yet there is one key criterion I hold above all others.

What is the quality of the shower?

Firstly, is there plenty of water pressure? Not so much, of course, that you feel as if you've been pelted with a BB gun. But nothing is sadder than coming in after a day of touring in the hot sun and milking out only a mere trickle from the shower head. I had a particularly heinous experience one New Years in San Francisco. I woke up New Years Day with a raging hangover knowing that I had to be out of the hotel in an hour. I thought a shower would do the trick, but to my horror when I turned it on water dribbled out of exactly two of about fifty holes in the shower head. And it was cold! I got cleaner from the steady stream of tears running down my face than from the shower, itself.

Which leads me to my second prerequisite: there has to be plenty of hot water. None of this lukewarm business. Or the possessed showers that fluctuate between freezing and scalding at any given moment like bathing Russian roulette.

So if you're ever in Barcelona and fancy a stay at the Hotel Aneto, let me assure you, the coffee may be as thick as mud, the single rooms might be claustrophobic, your feet might hang off the end of the bed, there may be a strange pounding noise that occurs everyday between the hours of 4 and 6pm, and an unknown stranger may shake your doorknob in the middle of the night as if trying desperately to get in, but man oh man are the showers par excellence.

Final Barcelona pics...



Rooftop of Gaudi's La Pedrera apartments.






We enter St. Josep La Boqueria.












Now onto la Sagrada Familia. I call this one "Darkness & Light".




Seriously though? A madman was here.


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Location:Carme,Barcelona,Spain

Let's Go Barcelona!

"Bringazingzing!...Bringazazzlering!" Why is it that European phones make the oddest and most inconsistent ringing sounds? This particular songstress woke me up with a start at 11:45pm last night. I flung off my eye mask and picked up the receiver, dazed and half asleep. "Hola?" I answered; at least I remembered my Spanish. A flurry of words from the man on the other end followed, none of which my tired mind understood other than the magical phrase, "Your bag is here. I bring it up now". Hurriedly I pulled on my pants since, the airport having lost my bag, I had no pjs. A loud knock later, and I was reunited with my Precious.

What was hard to explain to the man at the baggage counter and the receptionist at the hotel is the value of this backpack. "Don't worry señorita; it will come mañana". Now, if this were a week's vacation, sure, de nada. This happened to me in Mexico. I complained for a few hours, and then bought myself an all-purpose sarong and headed to the pool. But a bag that I packed over the course of 6 months, weighing each piece ounce-by-ounce? A whole 'nother ballpark. Losing THAT bag is worthy of a jump out the window down the elevator shaft in last night's sardine can hotel room. That's right. The only window in the room opened into the heavily trafficked elevator shaft. (Needless to say, we have since upgraded...)

After waiting 2 hours on the Tarmac for the last leg of our flight, then watching with pitiful eyes and a sinking heart as the baggage conveyer refused to puke out my backpack, then getting into a room that looked fit for padded walls, then realizing I forgot to activate international calling on my phone so the airport couldn't reach me, then eating paella that looked as if it might get up and walk out the room, all the while suffering from an ill-timed cold, and I was just about at my wits end.

Then I remembered our trip motto. Sauce, Taste, Toss. So I curled up in a fetal position on the miniature mattress in our room, had myself a good 5 minute cry, picked myself back up and called out the battle cry, "Let's go Barcelona!" Here's what I figure: better to start at your lowest point, because it's only up from there,baby. And after hugging my backpack in the night like it were my prodigal son, a day of touring the city in the sunshine, finding an amazing vegetarian restaurant to call home and sucking down chocolatey pastries, I'd say things are looking way up.




































Catedral.








Dolce de Leche.







Watermelon Summer drinks at Teresa Carles Cocina Vegetariana www.teresacarles.com.















I title this shot "Church and State."








Saint James and the scallop shell of the Santiago pilgrimage.








The view from Montjuic.








- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Carrer del Carme,Barcelona,Spain