A street festival near our flat:

A kayak exhibit at the Olympic Museum:

This yacht followed us from Barca up the Costa Brava. It’s the 79th largest yacht in the world.

10:00 wake up
10:00 – 11:00 surf internet, read, drink chocolati
11:00 motivate to run or go to gym
11:00-12:30/13:00 work out at gym
12:30 – 17:30 sit in lounge chairs at beach club (alternating days, visit museum or some other cultural site)
17:30 – 19:30 any of the following: shower, shop, read, surf internet, nap, wander
19:30 – 20:30 cocktails on the terrace or at the local, play backgammon or cribbage
21:30 dinner
23:30 – 1:00 digestifs, watch Seinfeld DVD*, read, surf internet

Optional, 3:00 – 6:00 read, check out the activity in the placa, all due to annoying insomnia

* Two seasons down, seven more to go

The first was a tasting menu at Cinc Sentits. We didn’t realise the restaurant was tasting menu only, which can be problematic for me (or I can be problematic for it). But the restaurant was accommodating and did a seafood tasting menu for me (it is rather difficult to stay veg in Barca so I have resorted to pescatarianism at times). Our 9-course “Sensations” menu was incredible, delicious, outstanding… The highlights for me were the shot of maple syrup, crème, cava foam & sea salt; the liquefied pan i tomatoquet (a tomato & garlic bread that is a staple with meals but this one was liquefied with a tomato sorbet and superb olive oil); the scallop with sunchoke puree, the strawberries with fennel and rose water, and the chocolate bread pudding – olive oil and vanilla ice cream, bread, chocolate, macadamia nut & salt. We had five of the courses wine paired. A fabulous experience.

Our second outstanding meal was at a bocadillo shop downstairs from our flat. We have walked past this joint countless times and have always remarked that we would eat there. After tonight, I only wish we had tried it earlier. Bo de B serves bocadillos (sandwiches), a few salad plates and postres. I had the veg salad, Sean the chicken salad. The salads were piles of marinated cucumber, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, feta, rice and tzatiki, all drizzled with a lovely herb vinaigrette. This amazing meal set us back a whopping E 10,50 (the bocadillos are a steal at E 3-4 each, piled thick and high with goodness). This cheap meal helped offset the Cinc Sentits one

A Spanish cooking class….
Just before leaving Seattle, C and L gave us a gift to a Spanish cooking class. The class was fantastic, it was small, just Stef, me, a couple from Perth and the instructor (Theresa). We learned to make four classic Spanish dishes. The starter was, chupito de sopa de tomate al aroma de idiazabal de peio gracia amiano (cold tomato soup with idiazabal smoked cheese). The second course was tortilla de patatas y pan con tomate (potato omelette with tomato bread). The main dish was paella de marisco (seafood paella). And dessert was crema Catalana (similar to crème brulee). The class was hands on; we each helped to prepare the dishes and all listened/watched intently as Theresa showed us some of the subtleties in their preparations. Once the meal was ready, we enjoyed a bottle of wine and the fruits of our labor. After Theresa learned that Stef and I were in town until the end of August, she drew a map of the open-air market where she purchases her ingredients and gave us the names of each of the vendors that she feels has the best clams, fish, cured ham, etc.. This was a definite highlight and we’ve enjoyed using her favorite vendors to purchase ingredients on the nights that we cook in.

A trip to Milan….
We spent this last weekend in Milan. One of our friends from London grew up in Milan and each year he has a birthday barbeque at his parent’s house. We flew to Milan on Friday evening and stayed at R’s parent’s place. After a late evening on Friday, we rolled out of bed at the crack of 10:30a to help get ready for the bbq. Their house is beautiful, 3 floors (I believe that each floor had a kitchen), a large grassy yard and a covered area with a communal table that seats 20. For me the highlight was that R’s dad has two wood-fired, brick pizza ovens. There is one in the ground-floor dining room, for use in Winter, and another outside near the communal table which is used in the Summer.

We had a great time helping R, K and his parents get ready for the party. R’s parents’ know enough English for them to coach us as chef’s assistants. I loved being able to help to pull some of the dishes together. I am also convinced that his parents could do a great cooking-school-bed-and-breakfast. R’s Dad has been making pizza for 25+ years so it was especially fun to have an opportunity to see him at work. I now know that I need to get a pizza oven.

Guests started arriving at 1p and a few jugs of Pimm’s and lemonade were consumed before folks started in on the prosseco and Campari. Sometime between 2 and 3p, R’s Dad started cooking the pizza. The pace was steady, about every 10 minutes a new pizza would come out of the oven: caramelized onions and salt; olive oil, salt and fresh rosemary; tomato sauce, salt and anchovies; caramelized onions, salt and squash blossoms; olive oil and salt; tomato sauce, mozzarella and anchovies; mozzarella, tomato sauce, roasted red pepper and aubergine. And so it went for roughly 2 hours….14 pizzas were cooked. There were 18 or 20 of us at the party, each time a pizza would come out, it would be cut (with scissors which I though was brilliant) into 16 pieces and circulated. After the pizza course was finished, we opened some wine and chatted for a few hours before the next course. Between 6 and 7p, sausages, hotdogs and shish-kebob skewers were put into the brick oven. Soon after, we all sat at the communal table and enjoyed the meat, roasted red peppers, roasted zucchini, roasted eggplant, salami, and veal in tuna sauce with anchovies. With great conversation and great food, suddenly a few hours had passed. Another break for more chatting and just as things started to slow down, the roasted pig leg was put into the brick oven to warm (it had been cooked earlier in the day). As soon as the leg came out of the oven to be carved the entire party (except Stef ?) descended upon it as if we hadn’t eaten in a week. I’ve never seen so much meat disappear so quickly. As the evening went on, wine gave way to limoncello and coffee, the birthday cake came out and folks started to head home. Suddenly it was 1am. I couldn’t believe that this had been going for 12 hours. Certainly a hedonistic and fantastic day!!

While a few folks at the party knew each other, many did not and it was fun to see how easily the group mingled (it helped Stef and I that R’s friends speak English very well). We definitely enjoyed meeting R’s friends and are looking forward to seeing them at R&K’s wedding in late Aug. (Thanks again R&K for a great weekend)

Sunday we spent a few hours on Lake Como before flying back to Spain. W are now back at the flat and are looking forward to the coming weeks. We hope that you all are doing well and looking forward to seeing you soon.

Below are a few more pictures:

The view from our flat

The view from our flat

Port Vell and Barceloneta

Love the art in this city

Cheers….Sean and Stef

Apologies for my pathetic Spanish but I am trying. We have had a fabulous first week in Barcelona! We managed to find a good mix of relaxing, exploring and doing practical things. And of course, there has been plenty of eating and drinking.

Our flat is perfectly situated. We are on the edge of the Barri Gotic, across from Barceloneta. It’s just a few minutes walk to the beach. We get a nice evening sea breeze to cool off the flat but Sean has negotiated for one air conditioned night per week. When at the flat, we spend most of the time on the balcony, looking out over our placa – Placa Antonio Lopez. We have no idea who he is/was, but the main Post & Telegraph office is also on the square so it’s usually bustling with activity. below is the view from our terrace.

We have been going to the beach every few days, reading books and working on our tans. There’s also a long beach path that we’ve been running almost everyday. Have to be up and out early – by 10am – before it gets too warm to run.

We’ve found the fromagerie that we will be buying all our cheese from. Oddly, it’s run by a Scotswoman and I tried speaking my kindergarten Spanish with her. We haven’t found a regular market stall for our fruit & veg yet but will likely do our shopping at the less touristy Santa Caterina Mercat. Fruit and veg are definitely cheaper here than in the States. As is the wine Cooking on our two-burner electric range has been interesting; I think the range was meant for a small-ish boat. Our fridge is also small – dorm-room size, so we have had to be economical in what we purchase.

As always, our holidays revolve around food and wine and we’ve been scouting out restaurants and tapas bars. We’re working on booking dinners at a few Michelin-starred restaurants. But we have cooked in several times and have enjoyed our meals on the balcony. Interestingly, Irish bars seem to be a trend here and we’ve enjoyed a few pints at one – Guinness is a perfect pre-dinner bevvie.

I had hoped to send along some pictures but we forgot the card reader for my computer. You’ll just have to trust me that Barca is beautiful and we are enjoying every minute of our stay.

Hope everyone is well and enjoying summer.

Adios,
Stef and Sean

Top 10 list of what we’ll miss the most:
1. Our new friends – you all know our issues WRT putting names on the blog but it’s time for the cast of characters to be revealed. Margaritas and picnics in the park with Erika and Keith. Tapas at Galacia and cookies with Nicole and John. Pizza w/ Karla and Roberto. Memories of India and Sagar with Colleen and Nathan. Bloodies at the Castle w/ Kelly. New Years Eve with Erika, Keith, Kelly, Julian, Kara and Chris. Technogeek conversations with Neil. We’ll miss you all loads and look forward to our friendships deepening over the coming years. (These partners in crime are revealed in images taken by Lara Ferroni at The Castle on our last night in London and can be viewed here.)

2. The Underground – Londoners love to complain about the public transportation, but the Underground is great. All journeys begin with a quick assessment of which line/station is closest to the destination and a quick check of the TFL website for live travel updates. The station names are entertaining – and are so Britishly literal, e.g. Bank is the station for the Bank of England. We’ll miss our favourite lines – the Central for its speed and the Bakerloo and Jubilee because we like saying those names. SP loves the logic (though not the scale) associated with the TFL Underground schematic and he loves the way that all of the different types of public transportation actually work together. All these praises and we only went out of zone 2 once

3. A Pint at the Castle – Pints over here are “imperial”, think 20oz instead of 16oz in the States. Within an 8 minute walk of our flat you can get to the following pubs: The Castle, The Elgin, The Pelican, The Metropolitan, The Earl of Lonsdale, The Duke of Wellington, The Cock and Bottle, Sun and Splendor, The Prince Albert, The Prince Bonaparte, Portobello Gold, Portobello Star, Ladbroke Arms, The Walmer Castle, The Ground Floor, The Market, The Fat Badger, and The Mitre. To be honest, I’m sure that I’ve missed several, but you get the picture. Our favorite local pub has become the Castle, it is less than 100 meters from our front door. Over the holidays we managed to become friends with the bar manager and the head bartender. We’ll certainly miss being able to pop in, say “hello” to Remy and Adam and enjoy a pint.

4. The sound of suitcases rolling across the cobble stones of Dunworth Mews – This one may be odd, but suitcases make a very distinct sound when rolled over uneven cobbles. To SP, this sound is now associated with coming back from a business trip (nice to be home), or heading off on a fun trip to the Continent.

5. British honesty/transparency – Twice we had been waiting for the tube when we heard announcements apologizing for the late train as ‘there was a person stuck under the train’ at a preceeding station. Also, several times BA has made oh-so-honest announcements as to why our flight had been delayed. Sometimes too much information!

6. Being called Darling and Love – SB’s favourite Portobello Road fruit vendor and SP’s favourite barista both call us Darling. It makes us feel special. Never mind that they call everyone else that too; we ignore that as it might cheapen the experience.

7. Sunday Roast with a jug of Pimm’s – Choose your meat (veg sausage for SB), smother it with gravy, add roasted veg and throw in a side of Yorkshire pudding – what more could you want on a Sunday afternoon. Oh yes, a jug or two of Pimm’s to help you digest all the food.

8. Restaurants – It’s hard to even begin this topic. Whoever said that London/UK doesn’t have great food hasn’t been to the city in awhile, as the food here has been fantastic. Eating and drinking at Galvin Bistrot Deluxe, Bumpkin, Sagar, Galacia, Memories of India, Ping Pong, ffiona’s, E&O, Taqueria, Coffee Plant and The Lonsdale have been fabulous experiences.

9. Being on Europe’s Doorstep – Final country count for the two of us (business and holiday): 15 (some countries visited multiples times). Not bad for nine months work/play.

10. 12 Dunworth Mews – This is the place that we’ve come to know as home for the last 9 months. Our 900 sq ft (100 sq meters) is quite large by London standards, yet cozy relative to our place in Seattle. We’ll miss the fabulous art work hung in the flat, we’ll miss the shower that takes layers of skin off your back because of the high water pressure, we’ll miss the 100,000 BTU hob. We’ll miss walking out the mews on a Saturday morning to find 1000s of people wandering our Portobello Road market. We’ll miss the local newsagent who displays newspapers in 15 different languages on the rack outside the door. We were lucky to be able to call it home for 9 months.

Limiting to a top ten list is tough as there so many others things that we’ve enjoyed and appreciated about London:

• Age Concern Kensington and Chelsea and the Soup Kitchen – Both places were welcoming and appreciative of SB’s experience even though I was the one absorbing and learning. Both orgs are staffed with lovely and warm people who do amazing work happily and selflessly. I will miss many of the regular guests at the Soup Kitchen, many of whom knew my name and always asked if I was alright before I could finish pouring them their tea.
• Diversity – it is so nice to see so much diversity, e.g. newspapers in ~15 different languages at the local news stand, World News that is truly world news, hearing multiple languages spoken as you walk down the road.
• One and two pound coins – it is so much more efficient than having dollar bills (SP is convinced that the US should adopt this model). These coins just feel like quality pieces of currency. SP also likes that a pocket full of change can easily exceed $20. This stands for the many countries we have visited – even Croatia has a 2-Kuna coin, with a tuna on it, so we named it the ‘Tuny’ (not to be confused with the Canadian Toony).
• Sharing our favorite sites and experiences with visitors from the States: Jen, Karl, Cam & L, Todd & Carolyn, Helga & Josef, Steve & Laura, Anne & Neville, Jodie & Leland, Tom & Vanessa.
• British newspapers (but not the free morning and evening tabloids) – There are multiple London newspapers, they span the political spectrum and their slants are obvious. They cover true world news and are always critical of GWB, much to SB’s pleasure.
• Picnics in Kensington Park – even if the Royals once rudely interrupted by flying in and landing their helicopter

• The art in our flat – our flat came w/ some interesting art, we’ve quite enjoyed this art. We have two favorite pieces, the upstairs “Greater London in Blood Smear”, as we now call it, and “Liz Taylor”, which hangs in the guest room. We didn’t know “Greater London” was greater London for the first 5 months that we lived in the flat. It took an evening of drinking and Keith to figure it out. We’re not quite sure how we missed it but it is Greater London. The blood smear addition came from our landlord, who told us the artist was HIV positive and painted GL as a depiction of his blood. When we first moved in, Liz was actually behind the guest room headboard but we discovered her and hung her. Many of you have participated in the debate as to who she is and we found out from our landlord, who once stopped by, that it is Liz from Antony & Cleopatra. But he found the Ann Margaret and Blondie suggestions good ones.
• English foodstuffs – Branston small-chunk pickle, lime pickle, HP brown sauce and Marmite. Rhubarb yogurt, Quorn products and ginger beer.

While there are many people and experiences that we will miss about London, now that we are back, we are looking forward to seeing friends, family, the cats, Danny (the dog) and spending some time at Whidbey. We’re quite pleased that we had the opportunity to live in the UK for 9 months and have certainly enjoyed every minute; we look forward to returning!

Cheers for reading and sharing our London experiences!

S&S

Tuesday was all about sitting at the beach, soaking up the sun. We rented a couple of lounge chairs and an umbrella and read and dozed and swam and read (then repeated the same process)… We mixed it up a bit after a late lunch and hit the poolside again. After hours of lounging, we found the energy to bus into Old Town and have drinks and dinner. SP had picked out Buza 2 as our aperitif spot, a tiny bar situated outside the city walls on the rocky shores of the Adriatic Sea. It is a well known bar, with only a ‘Cold Drinks’ sign depicting its existence through an opening in the city wall, but it was not too crowded that evening. We sat at a table perched on a rock above the crashing waves, gazing out on the sea and Lokrum Island and enjoyed a few rounds of Ozujskos before dinner. We had made a dinner booking at Dubrovacki Kantun, a lovely little Croatian bistro, where we were served by the owner. Here we ordered a Dubrovnik platter (olives, tomatoes, smoked ham, bacon, anchovies (both marinated and salted), and Pag cheese), tomato soup, caprese salad and black cuttlefish gnocchi.

After seeing a bit of Old Town on Tuesday night, we knew we needed to go back and explore the narrow alleys and high walls. The town is absolutely stunning in its beauty, both the architecture within the town and the views from the walls. It is hard to believe that the city was under siege in the early ‘90’s and that many of the buildings within the city walls sustained direct hits from the missile attacks. We walked the 2km of city walls, completely intact (despite the recent war and being 600 years old. Those who know us, know that sightseeing with us can be brisk but we took our time here. The colours of Dubrovnik and Croatia are intense – the bright blue sky, the red terracotta tiles, the purple Bouganvilla growing in every garden and the deep, deep blue-greens of the sea. Everywhere we looked we were taken in by beautiful vistas of the sea, houses and flowers. We likely took 200 images in 1.5 hours on the walls.

Of course, all this activity made us hungry so we lunched on salads and pizza at Poklisar on the harbor before heading back for some quality pool-time.

While in the Old town, we had made a booking at Wanda for Thursday’s dinner, but we decided to go there Wednesday night instead. But not without a stop at Buza 1 beforehand. Buza 1 is less marked than Buza 2, with just a doorway leading through the city wall. It is slightly south of Buza 2 but also outside the wall, hugging the rocky shore. There was no Ozujsko on the menu here so we branched out to Lasko, another Croatian pivo. The winds had kicked up that day and we watched a man row (backwards) his boat along the shore, struggling a bit through the chop and swell. We also watched an enormous yacht, Ecstasea, enter the channel between Lokrum and the mainland. We later found out that this was Roman Abromovich’s yacht, the smallest of his three. Abromovich is the Russian billionaire who owns Chelsea Football Club.

When we finally tore ourselves away from the view and made it to Wanda, we were seated by a gentleman who turned out to be the owner (we found this out later when he brought us complimentary dessert wines and sat with us for awhile). We had a private table outside and we soaked up the atmosphere. We enjoyed the food too. Wanda’s menu is more Mediterranean than Dalmation and we found many items on the menu that sounded wonderful. SP started with a salad, me with mussels. Then we both moved on to pasta – linguine Vongole and spaghetti de la mer. Dessert was port, which we might not have ordered had we known that Goran would be bringing us pudding wine while we chatted with him. Turns out, Goran spent 15 years living and working in L.A. and we chatted about CA, his restaurants and life in Dubrovnik. He was pleased with our choice to stay in Lapad, a beachy resort area 10 minutes away from Old Town. We had a nice conversation which was cut short when he was called down to his other restaurant. He had asked us to wait for his return but we headed back to the hotel as we had a sea kayaking date the next morning.

When we booked our sea kayak tour, we were warned that the tour could be cancelled if the winds or weather were not cooperative. It was fairly breezy in Lapad as we left on the bus for Sveti Jakov beach meeting point south of the city so we were not confident that we’d be paddling that day. Our guide arrived at the beach and warned us that it may be rough out there but we headed out regardless. It turns out the roughest part was the entry for SP and our guide, whom were both soaked by the waves; SB managed to get in with nary a drop of water on her ? Paddling on the sea, in a single kayak, with fairly large swells and some breeze, is definitely more work than paddling a dopey double on Lake Union, but infinitely more beautiful and rewarding. We headed to the northern point of Lokrum, where we (read SB) decided it was getting a bit too rough; we turned around and headed south along the eastern shore of the island. We ended up in the Lokrum harbor, where we beached the kayaks and went off to explore the island. Our guide walked us to a beach on the west side where the snorkeling is good but the surf was too rough that day. This beach is also in the process of being set-up as the ‘stage’ for Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night Dream, to be performed during the upcoming annual Dubrovnik Summer Festival. It would be a stunning venue for the play.
After exploring the rocks here, we headed up to the fort on the high point of the island for a beautiful view of Old Town and its walls. Back down for a quick swim near the harbor and then we were ready to paddle again. We hugged the island’s eastern shore again then crossed the channel to paddle the mainland shore. Here our guide gave us some history on the houses and caves along the shore. One house, which we thought was a hotel, was a house built in the 1960’s by a wealthy man for his mistress. Now the Croatian PM stays there when he is in Dubrovnik. SP’s favourite house was a small white cottage that was actually perched on top a tall but narrow cave. We asked about a hotel that was situated in the hillside & shore of a nearby point. Our guide told us that it was a hotel that was popular before the war but had been so extensively damaged that the owners cannot or will not spend the money to repair it. They apparently also cannot decide on a selling price so it sits there empty. We cannot imagine that this could last much longer as the location is marvelous and someone will soon want to develop the property. And we would stay there. Tired from the day’s activity we headed back to the hotel for a quick dip in the pool (SP only) and then a nap for the both us.

We didn’t feel like heading back into Old Town for dinner, it was nearing the weekend and getting crowded with cruise ship tourists, so we went back to Levanat. We made two stops along the way, – at a beachside bar for a beer and at a promenade-side bar for a drink on a swing. (The promenade from Lapad’s public beach to the main street is lined with restaurants and cafes, many of which have swings as chairs; we felt that we had to sit in a swing, enjoy a drink and watch the world go by.) At Levanat, SB made the decision to order all new dishes while SP was jonsing for the Squid Cordon Bleu. We again choose a bottle of Croatian wine and received our amuse, although this time it tasted more like caper butter. Again we almost finished our bottle of wine before our starters arrived – and we had paced ourselves knowing that the service would be slow. We had a fried rocket and mozzarella salad – amazing, if not artery clogging! Our mains were mixed shells Bouzzara and Squid Cordon Bleu, accompanied by a seasonal salad. The mixed shells Bouzzara was somewhat disappointing – it had less of the fabulous spicy tomato sauce and was served lukewarm. Additionally, it was 85% mussels yet more than twice the price of the mussels Bouzzara. I tried one of the ‘white mussels’, which SP renamed ‘Brazil nuts of the sea’ because that is exactly what they looked like, and didn’t find it tasty. SP was again quite pleased with his Cordon Bleu. Even with the slow service, it was a super meal to end our fabulous holiday in Dubrovnik!