Barcelona is an interesting city and while I was there the weather was beautiful (15 degrees, sunny). Not beach weather, but quite pleasant. A few random observations on the city:

• Old Europe fascinates me with regard to smoking. It is alive and well. It seemed like everywhere I went there were people smoking. This should not be that surprising as Britain just banned smoking in pubs and restaurants – but it still dismays. Nothing worse than sitting on a patio, enjoying lunch in the sun and having it negatively impacted by the smokers around you.
• Unlike most other cities, English is not prevalent. In most European cities, English is everywhere and in most cases, service staff speak ‘some’ English. Not in Spain. I am not sure why this is, although I could hypothesize that this is due to a strong nationalist pride that goes back to when Spain was a relevant world power (i.e. medieval times). No where is this more obvious (and irksome) than in the taxi drivers. I did not meet a single taxi driver during the entire week who even knew a ‘little’ English. Not even the airport taxi. They would just stare a blank stare. Funny, even the French taxi drivers knew a little English.
• The lack of English makes the Spanish radio stations very ironic. I had to laugh when every single service industry staffer would shake their head when I asked if they spoke English as bad 1980’s WHAM blared in English over their radio station. I found it even more ironic when every other song in the cabs were English.
• We purchased the DK Top 10 Barcelona guide for the trip and part of the guide was the subway maps. The subway was fast, clean and very easy to use. It made us feel like we were really exploring the city and at €5 for a day pass, it is a lot cheaper than taxis.
• I love coffee. I strongly dislike coffee with milk (One of only two things that bother me in the UK: you cannot get cream in your coffee and the bacon is ham – NOT bacon!). I had my first cortado by accident – which is espresso with a little bit of milk. I enjoyed it quite a bit (Actually, I mean, I enjoyed them over and over and over).
• They have this very interesting setup for bikes in Barcelona run by a company called Bicing. I cannot read their website but I hypothesize from observation that you put in your card and the bike pops out of the rack. You can then ride around and deposit it at one of the many, many racks scattered through the city. Interesting idea. It looked like many of the locals use the service (more so than my fellow tourists).

Interesting city.