House hunting?

We met with a real estate agent from Lucas Fox whose postings I'd seen online; they have some really upscale properties. It's a long shot, but could we afford a vacation place here? perhaps one that we could rent out when we're not here? Like the waiter says when they bring the dessert menu, "it doesn't cost anything to look." Unsurprisingly, Lucas Fox was located in a swanky neighborhood with ornate buildings like this one; look at that ornamentation!  I'm a modern kinda guy, but I do appreciate the detail.

We like the location we're staying, in the old city. It's a bit gritty, it's a bit funky, and we like that more than poodle boutiques and tea salons.  From the back of our flat there's a weird construction that looks like maybe they extended the interiors of the buildings into central courtyards during a real estate boom, then stopped.

Other views from the back show the cacophony of urban life, and a wildly shaped space alien antenna thing on the horizon.

Futher east is Montjuïc

There are cable cars that leave from Barcelonetta waterfront to the peak.

When we returned from the agent, we took a long look at the construction site up the block from our flat. Would the construction they're doing here be a modern building, right on the Raval, that we could buy into at a pre-construction price?

Nope, Irene checked it out, and it's gonna be a hotel. Tea salons coming soon, I can see it.

Oh well. Time for lunch on pleasant rooftop.  Irene fried up onions, red pepper, endive from the market, with some Spanish olive oil and Jerez vinegar, some tolerable bread and really good olives from the market.

 Later, a simple snack of figs and Pyrenean goat cheese, also from Sant Antoni's.

I had to slave over a hot computer all day, but fortunately was able to work on the rooftop as the temperatures dropped. Finally, after dark, I rustled up a simple Escabeche De Bacalao. We'd gotten bacalao yesterday from the fish monger at Sant Antoni and they instructed us how often we'd need to change the water to rehydrate and desalinate it properly for serving tonight.  I mixed it up with some funny acorn-shaped cherry tomatoes with a super sweet taste, bulbing onions, briny black olives, orange supremes, and doused it with some more of that great local oil and vinegar.  We're eating on Spanish time, about 10pm, so it's hard to get decent light to photograph this. But it sure tastes good, fresh direct flavors and vibrant textures.

We washed it down with some local wine Irene got from Celler de Ronda, the same place we hit our first day. These two were dispensed from giant wooden casks into plastic 2 Liter plastic flagons for take-away. Irene's choices today were a Penedes white and a local red; total price? €6.70 for 4 Liters of wine, including the deposit on the flagons.

No, it's not Château d'Yquem but it's eminently drinkable. The world needs more affordable wine, an alternative the the cultist/elitist special occasion stuff.

As we wrap up another day, it's well after midnight. We can hear the waitstaff putting away the chairs and tables on the Raval -- apparently the law says they have to come off by midnight, but the bars stay open much later. We can smell the aromas of cooking: garlic, onions, beef, bread, fried food. Last night when we came home around 2am, there was a traffic jam of taxi drivers and late-nighters hitting the kabob places that were doing a roaring business. It's great to be in such a food-loving town.