Barcelona

Our last day at 21 Rue Montorgueil... Ryan and Ricardo left on an early flight to Barcelona, and Quinn and I stayed behind so we could meet our landlord for the apartment. She lived in Bordeaux but was in Paris for a few days. As we turned in our keys and went through the motions to tie the loose ends on the apartment, she told us that our building was about 200 years old. When she had bought the flat in 1984, our apartment was 2 apartments at that time with no kitchen or private bathroom. The entire building had a communal bathroom and shared a sink. There wasn't even a shower or bath! We also learned that the hot water heater held 100 liters, that the street used to be even more lively when she lived there years ago with butchers and more markets.

Given the hiccups we've had when going to the CDG airport in the past, we headed over on the RER a bit early. No hiccups on the RER this time but our flight was delayed and we spent forever in the gate area (5 hours!). I had a chance to catch up on my blog though... Paris is such a huge airport that I'm surprised the facilities haven't been upgraded. There are no bathrooms in the gate area (you have to go outside and back through security again) and no air conditioning!

We finally arrived into Barcelona and got to our hotel by about 10pm. We were meeting Ryan and Ricardo for dinner but we stopped at the corner cafe, a frankfurteria, to grab some hot dogs to hold us over. I couldn't believe the hot dog nonsense we were served was our first meal in Barcelona but when you're hungry, anything will do!

We later met Ryan and Ricardo and headed to Carrer del Born where we walked around seeing the many different tapas restaurants. We stopped in at Taller de Tapas for patatas bravas, monkfish, octopus, and shrimp tapas. We walked around the area taking in the scenery, then headed back to the hotel.