I suppose you think that Barcelona is in Spain. Well having been here a few weeks I am beginning to wonder. To be strictly correct of course it is the capital of Catalonia, one of the seventeen autonomous communities of Spain although here they sometimes seem to forget the Spain bit.





The kids learn Catalan at school with Spanish as a sideline and all public notices have to be in Catalan. We cheer for FC Barcelona rather than Spain and we hate the ‘meringues’ of Real Madrid.





So learning Catalan becomes important, particularly the bit that allows us to go into our local town of Gava Mar to the J.A.S. Cafe for morning coffee and croissants and the Bodequeta Del Mar for evening ‘sherbets’. That bit we have managed with no problem. But restaurants are a bit more difficult......





All the restaurants have a Menu Del Dia, basically a table D’hote menu giving you a choice from four starters, main courses and puddings usually with wine and always with bread and olive oil. An expensive Menu Del would be 15 euros and many are as low as 7.50euros, so very good value. All you need is two hours spare for lunch from about 2.00pm to 4.00pm, fortunately being retired Christine and I have the time and Dave and Alex have quickly adjusted their work patterns to allow for the long lunches on occasions.


You may remember that Christine and I had a Menu Del Dia on our day out in Barcelona last week, the day when Christine used her new Black Book to ensure she did everything she needed to do. No problem with that but what I did find funny was that in the restaurant she ordered her meal very quickly as if she knew what she was ordering while I was still trying to decipher the foreign language. What I discovered later was that the restaurants of The Rambla in Barcelona that deal with tourists from all over the world have their menus printed in many languages, Christine just ‘forgot’ to mention I was also English when they gave her a menu. Mine of course was in Spanish or more probably Catalan, I wouldn’t know.


A few days later Alex, Dave, Christine and I are off across the road to the restaurant at the local gym for our long lunch taking with us our Catalan to English dictionary and phase book. The menu here is 12.50 euros so at the top end of the market so taking our seats we open the menus and our Catalan dictionary and nothing, not a word can be found. This made life very difficult for a young waiter who had only started a few weeks earlier and was struggling with people he understood, with us he was like a rabbit in headlights, he made some sort of apology and disappeared, never to return. Fortunately the man in charge spoke a little English and we managed a little Spanish and we had an excellent meal.


But a couple of days later is the best we are all off to a different restaurant in Gava Mar offering a Menu Del Dia for 7.50 euros including a half a bottle of wine each plus bread and olive oil. We have of course taken the Catalan dictionary so we are prepared.


Again nothing matches. I think this dictionary is going back to the shop tomorrow. We are looking at a menu that none of us can understand, we are not sure it’s even in Spanish we can pick out only the odd word here and there. So we call the waiter over who has no idea what we are is going on about, nobody in this place speaks any English at all but it gets worse. In walks three guys in overalls followed by a crowd of blokes in high vis jackets, workmen in for their lunch break. We have brought Christine to the local ‘greasy spoon’, one up from the caravan in the laybye. I am quite excited, I often stopped at caravans in laybyes when setting of early for a meeting or whatever at work. I am looking round expecting a pile of bacon and sausage sandwiches to appear with maybe a fried egg and some brown sauce. This is getting better by the minute.




But no sausage or bacon sandwiches appeared so we have to order something and I must say it was quite different to order three courses of whatever without any knowledge of what it was. As it turned out everyone had a good meal only I am sure Christine would have been happier with my fish and vegetables and I wouldn’t have minded her meat in a sauce but she was trying to make people believe she knew what she was ordering.


But all in all a good value for money meal but I think Christine was happier in the posh restaurant rather than the workingman’s cafe but for me, what can I say it was 5 Euros per person cheaper. Not that I’m tight with dosh but we are pensioners you know, well I think we are even if Christine claims she is only 51.