Back in Barcelona

I took a train from Valencia to Barcelona today - back to the same neighborhood, in fact the same apartment, I stayed in last year. That's how much I liked it.

On the train, I was sitting next to a big, muscular, tattooed guy who looked like a rugby player in his off season (if there is such a thing - I don't know anything about rugby). About an hour into the 4-hour ride, he pulled his cross-stitch project out of his pack and started working on it: a lovely pastoral scene of a thatched-roof cottage in the woods. Shortly after that I went to the cafe car to get something to eat and stand for a while. I left all my stuff on the seat. There's no way a guy who does cross-stitch is going to steal my stuff.

Then I got to Barcelona and had a fantastic dinner at a bar recommended by a friend. There were two Americans sitting behind me, a couple who looked to be in their 50's. The guy said "Most of this stuff has gluten in it. If I have even a piece of bread in the morning it can take weeks or even months for me to recover. It's a big deal for me. Try being in Sweden for two weeks with all that beer when you can't have gluten." Then they looked at the wine list and he said "It's almost impossible to find wine without sulfites. I doubt they have any wine without sulfites." I had three tapas and two glasses of wine. When I left, he was still dissecting the menu.