The best ice cream in town

It is Italian. Of course. It is horribly expensive, but you won't regret even one cent. And you'll come back.
Vale-BCN proudly presents:
So if you ever come across Gran de Gracia (Metro Station Fontana, get out at Gran de Gracia, turn left and go down the street. The ice place is on your right... after about 500m.
Those of you who are more into milky creamy ice cream: get some joghurt or chocolate, or tiramisu or mascarpone. Or all at once. Because the special thing here is, that you buy a certain size and than you may put as many flavour into it, as you feel.
Today was my fruit day, so here you find a medium-sized cone for 4 Euros with Mango, Passion Fruit and Strawberry. I specially recommend the mango ice-cream. It feels like eating freshly-picked mango fruit without those naughty fibres sticking between your teeth.

Sant Jordi

In Catalonia, April 23rd is a special day: Sant Jordi (St. George), who killed the dragon in order to get to his princess. In remembrance of this special event, on this day women receive a rose from their husbands, fathers and friends, while men get a book.
But, knowing that most people realize their rose-and-book-duties on the very day, the rose-selling and book-retailing services are prepared: all over the town you can find loads of book and flower stands.Of course the Catalan colours need to be present at ALL times. As well as the usual more radical groups like "one language - one country", "Catalonia claims independence", etc. Most people smile and keep on picking up roses.
By the way, you don't even have to decide on the colour:

A glimpse at our living room

Yeah, we still need a sofa.
But I love the colour of the walls ;-)
Oh, and the things around the carpet are mainly to keep Pacco away from it until he learned it.
And the small table fits on the balcony.

Ficitous Marriage

I just heard a brilliant feature on ficitous marriage on Deutschlandfunk. So for those who speak German, you might have to spare some 40 min on www.dradio.de --> search for "Love Police".

BCN in the morning.

The view from the balcony, at about 7:30 in the morning.

What you get at the local market

... for barely 16.23 €
Including some entertaining quarrels with stressed out old ladies, totally convinced that they should be served first. 3 kg potatoes
2 kg onions
12 eggs
2 heads of letuce
4 pieces of leek
1 kg tomatoes
2 kg oranges
1 kg pears
2 kg bananas
1 kg strawberrys
5 cucumbers
600 g lean beef
200 g liver (for Ricardo)

+ one Ricardo to carry everything home ;-)

Breakfast

And that is our sunday morning breakfast scenario ;-)
Me, trying to peel some mini eggs (Wachteleier? huevos de cordoniz - don't know what it is in English), with Barcelona behind me.

First impressions

The Weather
During the day: warm and dry, though sometimes a bit windy.
At night: cold and dry.
I think we have seen rain twice since we arrived. During the night of course. However, Catalonia could need some more rain; they are talking about summer water shortage already.

Schedules
People won't work before 10 a.m. Consequently the library only opens at 10. But on the other side I can stay there until 9 p.m. Basically the day here starts later and lasts longer. Good for Ricardo who loves to sleep in. Different for me as I am an early-bird. Well, I just do some work before heading off to the library ;-)

Telephone and Internet
While in Germany it is difficult to get OUT of the contract (I am still fighting with Telekom who insist in offering me there "Umzugsservice" within Germany and refuses to acknowledge that Barcelona is NOT in Germany), her in BCN it is difficult to get IN. We signed our contract on February 23rd. And they can't even predict when we will get our connection. Probably before August (no kidding!).
Luckily our neighbour has a reasonable stable internet connection available. Without password.

The Mercat
We already found the local market around the corner. It is just gorgous. So much fruit, vegetables, olives, fish, meat and whatever you might imagine for about half the price than in the supermarkets. Lately we've been eating very healthy and very fresh...

The apartment
(photos will follow). The washing machine was delivered yesterday and is working just fine. We have a bed, a wardrobe, even a balcony table (see picture) and the only thing still missing is a sofa for our guests to sleep on. But I'll let you know as soon as we are prepared for you to stop by ;-)