Barcelona, Day 2.

Well, I'd been stressing a bit about that silly ATM card, so went to bank today in the hopes they may have already received it and I could breathe easier. The branch was a lot farther away than I thought: it took me 1 hour to walk there, but it was a nice stroll, at least.

The bank was closed when I arrived though, which seemed odd to me, since their hours announced that they were open Monday through Saturday. A promenade up and down the block revealed that most other banks and businesses were closed as well. What gives? At 10:30 a.m. on a Monday?

Turns out, it was Catalan Easter holiday. Go figure. Sucks a bit, because need to sit through another day of "money-manage" and tiny pain-in-the-neck nagging stress...

With nothing left to do about it, I decided to head for Parc Güell, which was more or less nearby (I say more or less, because as it turns out it wasn't all that nearby since it took me another half hour to get there), which is a famous place designed by Barcelona's pride and joy architect Antoni Gaudi, and where, as it turns out, I ran into Mieko.

Everything is so different when you have friends. Running into them is nice (even when you know you will see them again that night, since you're rooming together), and as we had plans to go to the beach later in the day with Dorothee, the city took then for me a very small, homey feel, like I belonged there. There was no rush to sightsee anymore. The golden sands of the Mediterranean called, and Barcelona...could wait.