Las Ramblas

After thoroughly exploring La Sagrada Familia, our tummies were seriously rumbling.  So, my Colombian Guide in Barcelona Extraordinaire navigated us through the hellish Barcelona metro system to Las Ramblas where we could check out the busy crowd in search of TAPAS!  While my hunger was calling (loudly!), my tongue was what really needed to be quenched.  After weeks in Sober Saudi, I was really looking forward to a fermented beverage.  So... we found the nearest tapas bar!

I decided "when in Spain..." you might as well enjoy the local flavors, so I decided to take a break from my vegetarianism and let my guía do the ordering.  Opting for local favorites, we got Pan con Tomate, Jamón Serrano, una Cana y una Sangría, and... Caracoles.  The tomato-rubbed bread was a perfect snack to silence our stomaches and the ham was to die for.  Seriously, and I usually find pig to be pretty distasteful, but this stuff is amazing... like a strip of salty meat butter... I am salivating just thinking about it.  ....The snails, and this was my very first tasting of the little gastropods, were actually quite delicious, mostly due to the garlic sauce they were cooked in.  I even enjoyed fishing them out of their little shells, but the one distasteful bit was looking at their little horned faces right before ingesting them.... next time maybe we can get them de-anteneaed....