Hola from Barcelona (Barthelona if you want to pronounce it correctly)

After very gladly seeing the back of Zaragoza this moring (hasta la vista, el dumpo), we sped on the train to Barcelona today and things are much better here... This city is amazing, so big and colourful and active and far better disposed towards us non Spanish speaking types. We spent the afternoon walking the streets, checked out Las Ramblas (or La Rambla depending on the signs or tourist information you look at). La Rambla is an enormous boulevard with countless cafes, bars, tapas and paella joints in the centre and is surrounded by buskers, human statues and the usual beggars. We sat at one bar and had una grande cerveza (1 litre of beer) and a big glass of sangria, followed by a jug of sangria cava, which is sangria with Basque sparkling white wine rather than the usual red wine...weird but nice, and quite potent too.

For the rest of the afternoon we wandered to various bars and drank beer (including a beer with lemon, which was unusual but nice), and finally went to a photo place to burn our current count of 600 photos onto CD. It was going to take so long that we´ll be going back tomorrow to pick it up! I really like it here, despite the paranoia about being pick pocketed (which is rife here). Luckily our hostel has a safe here so we've been able to lock up our important stuff, like passports and Eurail pass and extra cash. The city reminds me a bit of Paris, but a little grimier and with more colour and character. But it's certainly far easier to communicate than in Zaragoza, where the majority of people were intolerant and even hostile. I do not recommend visiting Zaragoza unless you have a good command of Spanish and/or are interested in Roman Catholic historical stuff.

One memorable moment that we keep forgetting to mention was in San Sebastian, where we were walking down the street in broad daylight when we were passed by a guy on a bicycle who was completely naked. He even gave us a big smile as he passed as if to acknowledge his insanity.

Another thing we've noticed in general since we've been in the UK and Europe is how over-legislated everything is in Australia. For instance, alcohol - you can buy it in every supermarket, and even in more unlikely places, such as internet cafes. In fact when we were writing yesterday's entry in Zaragoza we were swilling cans of beer. No, I'm serious. It's cool, although probably quite bad for our health.

Anyway, we're just having some down time at our hostel at the moment and will soon head out for dinner - still haven't gotten used to the whole siesta thing yet and eating at 9/10 pm. But we've started having lunch later in the day so it's getting easier.

Off now but we'll check in again in the next few days, hopefully with some photos once we have our CD sorted.