Thomases in Barcelona!

The week before we were due to move to Barcelona, I pulled up the Kids in Barcelona webpage to see exactly what kinds of family-friendly activities this city has to offer. We found a wealth of information, including ongoing classes for kids and families.  We have already been to 2 things that have been suggested to us and were surprised to see that of all the attendants at the 2 events, we were, for the most part, the least Spanish family attending.

Circ Raluy:
While walking down Las Ramblas towards the ocean, we came across this little gem:

Circ Raluy: A Circus born and bred in Catalunya.  It has been ongoing for almost 100 years and all of the trailers and tents are original to the show or have been restored from other circuses.  

 It was some time in the late afternoon, so the circus wasn't open yet.  I made a mental note to look it up on the interwebs and see if I could buy tickets online.  After a little bit of research (their website seems to have been done in the late 1990s), we found out that Circ Raluy only comes to Barcelona once a year, during the Christmas holidays (setting up shop mid-November to mid-January).  We were in luck: once a week, Circ Raluy has a special "Spectator's Day," where tickets are almost half off.  We bought ours for about 7 Euros a piece, which we considered a good deal after a 1.5 hour show (2 hours counting intermission).

Des has been learning how to take pictures and this is a particularly non-blurry one he took of yours truly.  What this picture doesn't show are the beads of sweat on our foreheads.  If you happen to attend Circ Raluy, I recommend that you layer up.  It can get quite chilly at night outside (jacket + scarf), but it is quite warm inside.  I wish I had worn a short-sleeved shirt underneath my long-sleeved one because by the time the show was done, I had wet marks in the armpits of my shirt.

The inside of the circus.  There are two seating options: one for closer to the main stage and one for farther away (the ones we bought for 7 euros a piece).   As you can probably see, it is a rather intimate environment and our seats were pretty good.

I loved these old-timey lights inside of the tent.

Billy was inspired to try jazz hands after watching (and being supremely impressed by) a guy that came out as a tap dancer and quickly segued into tap dancing on his hands...and "running" up and down a staircase on his hands.

This looks pretty creepy, I know, but it was so neat to see up close.  This is one of their original organs.  They open up the back so that you can see the sheets with the little holes in them being fed into the machine, which is how the organ "read" and played the music.  Also, circus music is, in and of itself, quite creepy.  I wonder if Des is creeped out by it inherently or if it's something you just learn to be creeped out by because everyone tells you its creepy (and then you stupidly read Stephen King's It when you're in 6th grade).  

So, our recommendation is that if you're in Barcelona between November and January and have a kid 3yrs+ (Des is almost 2.5 and his attention span was rather limited), this would be perfect for you.  Word of warning: the entire show is in Catalan and there are several parts in between the acts that are comedic bits done entirely in Catalan.  My favorite part was the aerial dancers, Billy's the tap-dancing hand guy, and for Des, it was the FC Barcelona v. Real Madrid game played by dogs in jerseys (FC Barcelona won, of course).  I came out of the circus with a mile-wide smile, feeling like such a little kid again.

Food (of course):
Ahhhh...the joys of eating abroad.  To me, food has always and will always be a central aspect of my life.  I build my days around what I'm going to eat (and, if I'm lucky enough, when I'll get to nap).  Lucky for me, eating and siesta-ing are national pastimes in Spain and I've chosen to do both with gusto!

If we're to live here for a good chunk of time, it made sense to me to start with my own neighborhood, El Raval.  We walked through our neighborhood towards La Rambla del Raval.  Interesting fact: in the Rambla itself is a statue of a cat made by the Colombian artist Fernando Botero, my favorite artist (he loves to paint and sculpt fat people, animals, hands, things, etc).  We have yet to go visit it, but I can't wait to let Des loose on it to see if he could climb up its feline rotundness.

Suculent, on the northwestern side of the Rambla.  We stopped here because we were in the mood for breakfast food and they had a bocadillo (little sandwich) with tortilla de patata.

Tortilla de Patata.

Des eating his tortilla de patata.

Another evening, we decided to have some small appetizers (some like to call them tapas :) before we called it a night.  We stopped by a local favorite named Mucci's, a chain restaurant local to Barcelona that serves delicious gourmet pizzas and really great baked (not fried!) empanadas.

Des and Bill watching the game on the big screen.  Order their warm brownie...totally worth the indulgence.

I decided to look for "famous" places to eat in El Raval so that we could snootily say, "hmmmm...oh, yessss...we did happen upon such-and-such place whilst in Barcelona...yessss...delicious, if I don't mind saying so  myself...hmmmm."  So, I consulted Forbes and decided to go to the cheapest option available, the one with the one $ sign: Ca l'Estevet (in Castellano: Casa de Esteban; in English: House of Steven).  It has been open since the late 1890s and as per the server, the only thing that has changed since then were the chairs, credit card machine, and lightbulbs.

Our server was so sweet to Des.  He brought him a large coloring book and a big cup filled with crayons.  Even though this restaurant probably didn't serve a lot of children, the server came to us with a seat cushion, folded up, so that Des could sit a bit taller.

Original tile.

What I would do to take this home with me...

Small but gorgeous setting.

We tend to dine on the cheap, but eating here (although Forbes said was only one $ sign, which to them means cheap) was pretty pricey for us, costing us almost 50 Euros for an appetizer, 2 entrees, 1/2 entree (for Des), and water.  We tend to stick to about half that for lunch and we usually have leftovers.  That being said, it was delicious, typical Catalan food and I would definitely recommend it for a romantic evening.  Ask the server to give you a history of the place...pretty neat stuff.

We ended our first week here with a trip into Gracia to catch a kiddie movie at the Cine Verdi.  As part of their Verdi Kids series, we watched the film, "Amic per sempre," originally a German animated movie that had been dubbed in Catalan.

The line and wait was long, but the theatre personnel postponed showing of the movie until everyone in line had made it into the theatre.  Although I understood very little of the language itself, the movie was easy to follow along and Des seemed to enjoy sitting in a big theatre with other kiddos.  They even have little red booster seats for the kiddos!  Very family friendly theatre a bit out of the way from the hubbub of "old" Barcelona.

The last bit of this past week, I've spent sleeping off some weird illness that, coupled with my jet lag, left me sleeping for 16-18 hours each day.  Hopefully, I'm over the worst of it and can get back to eating and enjoying the heck out of Barcelona.  Only 15.5 weeks left here...