Barcelona Day 1

We flew to Barcelona today, remorsefully leaving behind delicious pierogies, cold beer, mild weather, and quaint old European buildings. In exchange we get the hot, humid, sprawling metropolis of Barcelona. Even the airport was humid, like an indoor swimming pool. Taking good advice to not drink the tap water here because of high saline content, we immediately got bottled water. We got picked up by our AirbNb host's transportation gal, Lucia. She drives to our shared apartment in downtown Barcelona. She spoke Spanish to us on the way and we tried vainly to keep up. We reached the building - a cramped 50s apartment squeezed among many others like it. The apartment is shared with several other people and it has tons of quirks and janky shit. We're on the sixth floor, which is actually the seventh because here they don't start counting til the floor above the "lobby" level. Out the back patio we are in a huge courtyard where it can see and hear everything. The standard of living is lower here, maybe this is what "second world" means.  We went to a corner grocery store and stocked up on wine, salamis and smoked meats including the famed jamoni iberco, fruits and other stuff. Matt is totally bushed from yesterday's two walking tours of Krakow, plus not sleeping enough, so he is trying not to get horribly sick. So our first night in Barcelona will be very chill, and I will most likely wander around once it gets much much much cooler. Until then I will drink wine and maybe nap, and spy on all the courtyard neighbors' goings on. Oh and practice my Spanish with my translate app!