So, Barca. Don't forget to hover your mouse over the piccies for captions. We started by picking up Chris at 4am and driving to Luton. Then we picked up the Tour Bus (some might call it a shuttle bus from the mid-term car park to the airport terminal but they're just jealous) and tried to look lively. We failed.
We flew over the beautiful Pyrenees on the way to Spain (at least I think it was the Pyrenees. Seeing as both Tudor & I failed geography, it could have been Kilimanjaro for all we know)
Our hostel, the Gat Xino, was lovely - more like a hotel really, small but neat and very clean, all white and lime green. We spent the afternoon of our arrival wandering down La (Las? Los?) Ramblas, which is the main shopping street with lots of stalls and street performers. Our favourites were a) the two blokes painted grey on bicycles with a skeleton who clapped hands and cycled frantically when you put money in their tins:
and b) the man who looked like Tony Curtis, dressed in a dirty mac, making clucky noises and winking at the young boys walking by. Yes, his street performance was as a GAY! Hilarious! And if you put money in his pot he did this:
We couldn't stay long however, as we had to go and set up for the gig. It was in a place called Mercat de les Flors (flower market) and, apart from the minor hiccup of Chris being electrocuted during the sound check, it all went very well.
and Tudor did very well indeed, I thought.
When the gig was over, we stayed in the bar whilst Juanra (the guy who'd organised our trip, which incidentally was sponsored by our very good friends at San Miguel - the refreshing taste of latin culture, mmmmmm.) did a DJ set. Eventually at about 1.30am it was all finished and I thought it was time to go home to bed but No! We may have got up at 3am the previous day but this was arco's World Tour and we had to push on through. The decision was made to go and find a bar to have another drink or two. Although Dave (bass player) and I really wanted to go to bed (not together, you filthy-minded people, it wasn't THAT kind of tour) we decided we had to go because whatever the funniest thing to happen that weekend was to be, it would surely happen that night if we weren't there. And the others would never shut up about it. So we limped along like zombies to the only bar we could find that was open. Inevitably, it was a gay bar. Full of drag queens to boot.
I just knew it. Anyway, off to bed around 3am (yawn!).
Up late the next day to have a bit of shop and wander round town. Started off the day with brunch at an outside cafe and the boys had a very small beer each to start the day off.
There's some very nice architecture old Barca way:
And some a rather impressive food market too:
The boys were delighted to be dragged shopping, natch.
In the evening, we'd booked a table at a restaurant called PLA, which was a tip off from John, who works at my friend's Sarah's company, who apparently had the best meal of his life there. Damn good it was too. They even served shot glasses of onion soup as pre-starter starter. Yum!
Then off to another bar (phew!) via some more extraordinary architecture,
and home by 2am. Lightweights...
The next day, over brunch, we debated where to go and ended up choosing the Gaudi park which is a mad park designed by...well, you can guess.
It was excellent and we took the opportunity to take some promo shots of the band whilst we were there:
Maybe we got a little carried away.
The view from the top of the park was good, well worth the climb.
To the airport at five and flew home (well what did you expect us to do at the airport?). What a jolly good trip.
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