Hotel Neri

It's not exactly a kid or a family hotel, but we love it here.

Barcelona Gastronomica

We have eaten two different ways for dinner in Barcelona. For the most part, we've eaten at our hotel's little desk, eating food we've bought from the amazing Il Cortes Ingles (a 3-location department store -- each location is a few blocks from the others, and each houses different sections; for example, one location is just kids, denim and hombres and another is for the supermarket, perfumes, etc.).

I love buying food at the supermarket because everything is sort of familiar and yet so foreign. You can buy juiceboxes and fruit and sundries, but if you want fresh milk, you're kind of out of luck. Better to buy the boxed variety. The irony is that there are THREE whole sections of yogurt in the dairy area - heaven for a yogurt-crazed woman like me.

So, for the most part, Raf and I have snacked on manchego and brie cheeses with fresh bread, apricot jam, nuts, tomatoes and dates, washed down with a bottle of wine (which is so dang cheap here, even for the yummy rioja wines). Add a little dark chocolate and it's more than enough for a good meal. The kids have been good with sandwiches of fresh bread and butter, a few pieces of fruit and some almonds, and a little boxed apple juice.

But then Raf and I had an amazing idea. Since our 20-or-so-room hotel is closed to the public (you have to be buzzed in) and there's an incredible restaurant on-site, two floors down from our room, we thought, Hey, Emme can "babysit" and we can eat downstairs while they watch TV. So we made reservations and did just that.

We ordered a bottle of Cava (Spain's sparkling wine) and the 60-euro per person "gourmet tasting menu" which had seven or eight courses - I cannot even tell you what we ate, exactly, but it was one gastronomic feat after another. For example, one appetizer course came served in tiny shot glasses; there was a layer of an orange-pink fish pudding topped by a layer of wispy cream. Another course featured small pieces of seafood and vegetables artfully placed on a shallow dish; once the dish was placed in front of me, the server poured a cold gazpacho soup over the seafood and vegetables, then dusted with black truffle shavings.

Our pre-main dish was served on a piece of slate (pictured above). It was a gold brick of mashed potatoes (the "gold" probably was real gold dust molded into a kind of fondant), a single snap pea, cuttlefish, a scallop, and a swipe of gold dust. Seriously. And it was surprisingly good. The main dish was a beef filet with cherry confit on top - incredibly melt-in-your-mouth good.

For dessert, there was a mango or papaya pudding floating in an almond cream and topped with an "herbed ice" -- crushed ice that is infused with herbs like rosemary and mint and god-knows-what. Then a deconstructed tiramisu and finally a plate of unusual chocolates (infused with chili and wasabi and some sour Asian fruit) and coffee.

We don't normally eat gourmet food, so this was a chance to step outside of the Cheesecake Factory zone. It was like the taste bud version of a crossword puzzle, to keep my appetite for gourmet delights sharp. We couldn't have afforded El Bulli (touted as "the best restaurant in the world," and it's here in Barcelona), but this was, for us, just as good.

The best part? The kids only called the restaurant once.

Bewitching, Bewildering Barcelona

Although I am utterly intrigued by it, Barcelona is not an easy place to understand.

We took our girls out for a walk along Avenida Portal de l'Angel yesterday morning around 10 am, in search of breakfast pastries and coffee. As we walked, Raf said, "Check out the guy on my left." As I craned my neck (to the right; sometimes it takes me a moment to process directions), Raf said, "Oh, you gotta be kidding me. You don't see that guy? Quick!" When I turned to the left, I caught a glimpse of an older man, shirtless, with the tattoo of a pair of underwear on his groin/buttocks region. That wasn't the odd part, oh no. *That* was swinging proudly in the front. (You read that right: not only was he naked and "wearing" a tattoo of shorts, but he was hanging like a bull. Raf couldn't stop talking about it. "If I was a short little guy with something like that, I'd probably walk around naked, too.") Of course, Emme saw it, too, and said, "Looks like a big
hot dog swinging around."

That goes into the "Something I've Never Seen Before" category.

Our hotel, the Hotel Neri, is a newly renovated 13th century palace, a tiny jewel box within the Gothic Quarter. It surrounds a quaint, charming fountain-centered plaza called the Placa de San Felip Neri, which is touted in several guidebooks as an oft-overlooked but important gathering spot. I've read that Antoni Gaudi attended the church there, and in non-summer months a school uses the square as its playground. The interior of our rooms is beyond gorgeous and the windows with their crystal-chain curtains beg to be opened. However, the plaza is sort of a hobo village at night (for Barcelo-bo's) and Raf and I watched, spellbound, as an old drunk hobo disrobed and bathed in the fountain while tourists stood by, captivated as we were. He splashed and smoked an old cigarette and reached for a blow-up raft that he'd probably brought as a makeshift air mattress. It was still light outside, not quite sunset time. Hobo bath time, apparently. Later that night, when Raf and I went down to have dinner at the acclaimed and ultra-posh hotel restaurant downstairs, I could see the fountain and its inhabitants clearly from the window by the bar, but no one seemed to even care that there were hobos outside, just went on with their meals.

Full of surprises, this Barcelona.

Erin Cristina Barcelona

There is something about Barcelona, from its magnificent airport (glass-fronted with gleaming marble walkways and the pretties, glittering "mall" that I've ever seen - I could have spent an entire day/week just at the airport, so I knew the city might have secrets to tell me) to the light-filled streets spilling into and out of the Gran Via... from the moment we stepped out of the airport and into the atmosphere of Barcelona, we were in love.

For one thing, the weather is warm, a welcome change from the moody cool/no, warm/no, cool and rainy disposition of San Sebastian. It feels like home (meaning Los Angeles), a dry heat that radiates. The outlying suburbs of Barcelona, between the airport and the city center, are also very familiar, not unlike the views we'd see from the 405 freeway in and around Los Angeles. The traffic, too, was just like home, except with scores of helmeted scooter riders whipping in and out of cars.

But when our driver turned toward the Catedral, which began construction in 1300 (1300!), the one with the spires that poke up at the sky like an old woman's fingers through the middle of the Barri Gotic (Gothic District), I knew we were someplace else, someplace magical. The driver stopped abruptly in the middle of a square and unloaded our baggage. "I can't take you further," he said, explaining that his van could not navigate the alleyways. "But it's on the left. Take a left." He handed me a map (useless when you don't know a city yet) and we were on our way.

We passed several "lefts" that hardly seemed noteworthy, thin arteries that only alley cats could pass through. But it was gorgeous, and even three tired, hungry kids and too much luggage rolling loudly along the cobblestones couldn't keep me from smiling. Each step had something to teach. Gothic gargoyles scowled down at us. Miniscule passageways rose above us like tiny bridges. A guitar player strummed flamenco in a postage-stamp-sized placa. We had to ask for directions three times before we retraced our steps and found our way down a "street" that was crowded with just Marlowe and me -- which didn't stop two taxis from motoring through. Our hotel is a gemstone hidden within the Gothic walls of Barcelona, the Hotel Neri, and I will write about it in another post - it deserves a sumptuous description fit for staying in a dreamworld of art and architecture.

But for now I am too eager to finish this post and enter the dazzling light of Barcelona. The city throbs with excitement and passion and lights and sensual pleasures. It is intense and thriving and Raf and I jumped in with both feet, tremendous joy on our faces and our own Sagrada Familia trailing us.

Ah yes, I am the Penelope to his Javier. This is the place.

Our Apartment in San Sebastian

I'm no expert on travel or traveling with kids or traveling with kids in Europe, but I can tell you that getting an apartment here in San Sebastian has been a godsend for our family. Frankly, we chose to rent an apartment in San Sebastian because our travel agent didn't think the hotels would be as comfortable for a family of five and she knows that we're babies when it comes to crappy accomodations. So she sent us a few ideas and we found this gorgeous place literally a block from the main beach, La Concha Playa (or La Kontxa, as the Basques call it) through http://www.emyrent.com/. If you are ever traveling here, look for our apartment listed as "Belle Epoque," it is where Emy (the proprietress) grew up and her family lived here for a hundred years -- the walls are lined with family photos and she's mixed modern Ikea furniture with family heirlooms, creating a comfortable and classy place for tourists to stay. She told me that it's a community landmark and all work had to be approved by an historical society.

We met Emy the day we arrived and she shared lots of insider tips about San Sebastian, like how to eat pintxos (San Sebastian's gourmet answer to tapas) and where to buy groceries for the kids. We have WiFi, a TV, microwave, fridge, dishwasher, stove, washer/dryer (it's a combo here, which is interesting) and a laundry line (pictured above). Unique to most European apartments, we also have three bedrooms and two large bathrooms with showers.

Needless to say, fixing our own meals has been incredibly helpful, both for the kids and for us -- we are loving the pintxos and sangria, but in order to eat "normally" we really needed a small kitchen so that we could wash and cut fruit, prepare eggs, store yogurt and chocolate milk, or have a cup of coffee in the morning while the kids sleep (yes, the apartment came with a French press - oh-so-Euro). Last night, I made pasta and zucchini for the kids and an arugula salad for me and Raf -- I've been feeling like we are missing out on veggies while we're away from home -- and it was so much better than ordering from a menu, not sure what you'll be getting on your plate and paying more for it than it's actually worth. Beyond that, I felt like Raf and I were so cosmopolitan, walking into a Spanish supermarket and buying fruit from a fruteria, relying only on our Spanish (because the ladies didn't speak English).

The other amazing part about the apartment is the little washer/dryer appliance under the counter, which is small compared to what I'm used to and a little unusual because it can both wash AND dry (though the dried clothes tend to smell a little moldy because of the excess moisture in the appliance). Being close to the beach means that our towels are sandy all the time, so it's been nice to wash 'em a little as we go, as well as our clothes. Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a laundry fanatic. I don't really love to fold, but I love the smell of clean clothes and I tend to hang many of our clothes on a line anyway -- a holdover from my last trip to Italy. The only things I don't like hung on a line are towels -- I try to get them at least partially dry first so that they're not crispy -- but I always feel so smug and eco-conscious when I use the clothesline.

After the first day, we all felt very much at home here, where we have to use three keys to get in: one for the street-level building door, another for the outer door to our suite of two apartments, and the last for our own apartment. All of them stick and have their own quirks for opening, but we've gotten used to the formidable sound of the locks. The girls love to race up and down the worn-in marble staircase to and from our 3rd floor enclave (actually 4th floor, 'coz the lobby level doesn't count in Europe), which takes far less time than waiting for the ancient, crowded-with-a single-rider elevator.

More than those things, though, is a sense of ownership and residency. We are leaving today for Barcelona and, though we are set to stay in the "It" hotel of that city(the Hotel Neri -- our huge splurge of the trip), we're all a little sad to say goodbye to our adopted home on San Martin Kalea.