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I think Epcot ruined me. Seriously. We were sipping coffee in a beautiful plaza here in Barcelona this morning as a street performer serenaded us with an accordian. All I could think is that it reminded me of being in Epcot as an eight year old kid. That’s just messed up.

Seriously though, we’ve been enjoying our time in Barcelona. This city is filled with narrow alleys and old buildings with balconies. Most balconies are draped with laundry, or some curious onlooker watching the people pass by on the street below. There’s action everywhere, in every direction, up and down. It’s pretty interesting.

The Spanish eat lunch at 3 and dinner at 10 or 11, so it’s normal to see people on the streets until 1 am or so. Normal people, too. Not young party people. I love this culture. It seems like they’re just trying to get as much experience and fun out of each day. You have no choice but to blend in, so we’ve been eating dinner real late and going to bed at around 2.

Another fun story (Mom, don’t read this): We witnessed some petty crime yesterday. We were sitting in a park when some dude starts chasing another man shouting “Polica! Polica!” on the top of his lungs. We ignored it, thinking they were playing. But they weren’t. As the thief tried to escape, various people from all sides of the park attempted to stop him — with slide tackles, tripping, whatever. Even a group of old guys playing bocce ball started throwing rocks at him and screaming profanities. Josh had a pretty good chance to take him down but the guy saw him get up from and avoided him. Ultimately the guy escaped into a parking garage. Very frustrating. It was pretty funny watching the old guys though, just flailing their arms and shouting long after the guy escaped.

Seems like this stuff is REAL common over here. You pretty much have to guard your belongings with your life. Sort of annoying, but that’s the way it is.

We changed our plans a bit and it looks like we’re off to Paris tomorrow. The trains are not as easy (or cheap) as we thought (it would have cost us 160 euro for the direct overnight train to Paris, even with our rail passes) so we ended up reserving a late afternoon train to France. We leave at 5.30pm and arrive in Paris at 7am. So it´ll be a long day. Travelling through the Pyrenees by train should be an experience though.

Tonight we’ll celebrate our last night in Barca with some tapas y sangria. We’ve been drinking pretty good cerveza, too. It’s called Estrella Dam, but I think it’s from Holland. Haven’t found a Spanish beer yet. They don’t seem to into beer here. Strange.

OK, it’s 6pm. Time for lunch….

We were able to score some tickets (well, we dropped some serious coin for them) to see FC Barcelona play their first league game at home last night. For those who aren’t aware (Bev, if you’re reading, you can skip down to the next paragraph), FC Barcelona is one of the world’s better football (soccer) clubs. Their roster boasts some of the biggest names in the sport: Ronaldino, Deco, Messi, Eto’o, Zambrotta, etc. Their stadium (Camp Nou) holds 120,000 crazy fans and is the second biggest stadium in the world.

Our three tickets were in different spots in the stadium, but Jamie and I ended up 12 rows behind the Barça goal! We got to see all three Barça goals (Eto’o scored 2 and Messi 1) right up close. It was amazing. Despite how close we were, it was tough to see the action on the other side of the pitch, so our seats weren’t really as good as they seemed. But we got to see the goals up close.

We were also right behind the Barça cheering section. Lots of horns, flags, chants, songs, etc. We learned some of the chants towards the end of the match. One chant we picked up ended with “Barça, Barça, Baaaaaarrrrrça!” but the Catalans here pronounce the ‘ç’ as a ‘th’ so it sounds like Bartha, Bartha, Barrrrtha!. Pretty funny stuff.

It wasn’t really a great game (Barça overpowered the other team) but it was certainly a fun atmosphere. Not as wild as I thought. No hooligans or anything like that. Lots of smart, intelligent fans who just watched the game and chanted every now and then.

Don´t have too much time to type right now but we´re having a great time with Josh in Barcelona. Amazing city. We´re actually going to Camp Nou in an hour to see FC Barcelona play their first home match of the season. This is one of the best futbol clubs in the world and the stadium holds 120,000 so it should be pretty interesting.

We´ll check in again later.