The day started out innocently enough, with me working on code inside and irene doing her homework on the roof deck.
The cable cars to Montjuïc was running (we can see the other one in the other direction too):
And we had a snack of sausage, olives, bread and lupini beans. We felt pretty damned healthy. Until...
After a long day of coding, and irene returning from Spanish class, I had to get out of our small flat. We ran across a little hole-in-the-wall place selling booze half way to the Boqueria near a sculpture that looks like Spock made. It had a few tables, but in Barcelona they have to be pulled at midnight on weekdays and 01:00 on weekends -- it's a densely packed city with a thorough mix of residential and commercial. Tough decision: stand up and drink, or ... well, there wasn't any other choice, was there.
The young couple that ran the bar were super friendly, tolerating our bad Spanish and helping us out. When we asked for a vermouth -- she said they had a local artisan product -- we were a bit surprised when we got a pint glass filled to the rim. OK, so it wasn't a pint glass, but it was at least 6 ounces or 200 ml. For something like €3. And it was tasty.
At some point, a clutch of German tourists showed up and ordered beers and Jamesons, and something must have happened because our bartender told them to get out immediately. She had dialed into her cellphone the number of the local police and was counting down "5... 4... 3..." ready to hit the Call button. We never found out what the Germans did to inspire her wrath, but they handed back their glasses and walked away without a fight or anything ugly. We had another round of Vermouths to calm our distressed nerves.
Someone there has a fun sense of design and great penmanship:
Shortly before 02:00 closing time, the omnipresent Barcelona cleaning machine swings into full gear. We thought we might get soaked, so quickly ordered a third round of the giant vermouths just in case. Somehow, we narrowly missed getting hit by the spray, another close call.
We were gonna head back the next night to ruin our livers again at the same place, but we only had €3 left between us, and besides, it was raining a little.
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