We took a short taxi ride to our hotel in the center of Barcelona, the Catalonia Duques De Bergara. This hotelsits at the top of Las Ramblas, one of the great streets in Barcelona.

Kurt and I are in one room, with two beds, and Phil is sleeping on a sofabed in an adjacent area. The bathroom is very big, but the rest of the room is small. The hotel is clean but spartan. The beds not very comfortable. The hotel is very quiet, though, despite being a stone's throw from Las Ramblas.

After dropping off our stuff, we strolled over to Las Ramblas. I was surprised at how busy it was. It's really a street just like any other in a big city. It reminded me streets in Paris or Berlin. Small alleyways ran perpendicular off of Las Ramblas; those streets were far more interesting (perhaps because they were less crowded).

After passing a zillion Tapas bars, and getting some money at an ATM, we stopped in at Pizza Marzano, a small restaurant near the intersection of our street at Las Ramblas. The food was relatively quick and pretty good. (Mind you, it was around 6 PM now.) Also, we were able to sit in a smoke-free section, which was really a plus.

After eating, we rambled down Las Ramblas for some gelato, and then mosied on the side streets back to the hotel.

It was 8 PM and my bags still hadn't arrived. We stayed awake as long as we could before crashing at around 8:30.