Our night out with the kids...and the Packers.

Through a stroke of fate, the Mister and I were in Barcelona for Super Bowl Sunday so we were able to watch the game. Being that we haven't been in the States for a long time and the only means of "watching" NFL games in Saudi is by huddling around a computer listening to the audio broadcast of the live games a la America during the Great Depression, we were stoked to soak up some seriously ridiculous American machismo.

We were well aware that we would probably be surrounded by obnoxious Americans who had bribed their wives into letting them out of the hotel room for the night to watch the Packers beat the Steelers (and Christina Aguilera botch the national anthem). We had steeled ourselves for the onslaught of random obscenities, the possible cheese head and guaranteed rounds of one-upping with stories of favorite NFL games gone by. We were ready for it, and had accepted our fate.

What can I say, there were free wings and trivia before the game.

What we weren't ready for was the onslaught of study-abroaders that were a mix of horny and homesick with a side of Europeans trying to get into the pants of a drunk American study abroad girl who had just come to the bar because there was nothing better to do with her Sunday night. But that's exactly what we got.

We had to reserve our seats ahead of time, and being that it was a small bar and we were only two people, we were put at a table with strangers. We were the first at our table to arrive, so when the strangers stumbled in and saw two old people sitting in the places they'd expected their new BFF of 3 weeks to be, we were front and center for the wave of disappointment that washed over all of their faces.

No matter. We had just as much right to be at that table as they had. Plus I like to think we're pretty interesting people, so all we needed to do was strike up a conversation and they'd realize that their night wasn't totally ruined.

That's where the hitch was. It's literally impossible to start a conversation with a person who sits 2 feet away from you on the shared banquette and then turns his body completely away from you so you just stare awkwardly at the cowlick on the back of his head. And you might as well not try to look past him and make eye contact with the other people in his group, because they're glaring you down and clearly talking about you in hushed tones to the other angry 20 somethings around them.

It was like I had B.O. or something. The Mister wasn't having any luck on this side of the table either. He had the chairs, and the girl next to him didn't even try to angle her chair slightly in his direction.

SERIOUSLY, PEOPLE!?

A word to the wise for all study abroad American college students out there: don't be total pinheads. There are interesting people in places other than America, so engage in conversations with strangers. Just don't go home with them and you'll make your mommy proud.

Eventually, after copious amounts of greasy wings and a few drinks, the kids warmed up to us. That and the fact that our story was way cooler than "we're just on vacation."

A few of the things that only viewers outside the US got to enjoy:

• No American commercials. Biggest. let down. of. the. night. I seriously only watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. Because the game was aired on Sky Sports, a British satellite channel, they couldn't show the American commercials. Instead we got lame Tesco adverts and shots of Brits pretending to know what was going on in the bar they'd stumbled into. Seriously at one point before the halftime show, they interviewed a guy in a Vikings jersey. Too soon, dude. Too soon.

• The creepy Spaniards that either thought they were going to watch a soccer match, or thought they were going to be waking up in a girl's dorm bed the next day. Neither of which became a reality. Hey guys, it doesn't matter how many drinks they've had, American girls don't think it's charming when you ask "What's the name of the team in the green?" or "Why do they call it football when they don't use their feet?" Especially during the Super Bowl.

• The time difference. The game started at midnight, Barcelona time. It didn't end until 4 am. Apparently bars in Barcelona have to close at 2:30, so we got locked into the bar and were told we could not leave. A dream come true for every American college sophomore ever.

All in all, we did end up having a good time, and we got a good dose of Americana to last us at least a few more weeks.

Vicariously yours,

5 Things that make Barcelona Awesome

The people of Barcelona are surrounded by little things that are so European and quaint, and I'm sure they don't even notice it. Just like Americans don't think twice about the prescription drug commercials that come on every two seconds (of which there are absolutely ZERO in other parts of the world), the dwellers of Barcelona probably don't notice when they see some of these things in their day-to-day lives.

1. The fountains. Of course there are the grand fountains in places like Parc Cuitadella and Placa Catalunya, but I'm talking about the art deco drinking fountains you still find on random street corners in Barcelona. They're not just for show, people actually use them. It was like a personal scavenger hunt finding these unique gems randomly placed around the city.

2. The graffiti. While the sample above isn't exactly one of Barcelona's more creative works of urban art, it did give me a laugh. What I thought was very interesting about Barcelona is the placement of the graffiti.

All the stores in the older part of the city have those rolling metal doors that cover the entrances when the store is closed. Without fail, every single one of those doors has some form of graffiti on them.

Sometimes it was the random tagging of bored artists.

Other times the owners of the stores would beat the beatniks to the punch and spray paint a mural on the door themselves. It was almost just as much fun wandering around the city after the stores were closed as when they were open.

I thought it was interesting that you very rarely saw anything of historical worth that was vandalized. There are accounts of vandalism in Parc Guell in 2007, but that has all been cleaned up. Maybe it's because the city's really on top of things and cleans it up before you can see it. Or maybe it's because the penalty of graffiti is so severe no one will take the chance, but the graffiti was pretty much contained to just the metal doors or surfaces that would not be visible during business hours. The walls of the old buildings were totally clean. Statues didn't have new mustaches or ugly tagging. This is unlike any European city I've been in. Well done, Barcelona.

3. Bicing. Community bicycle programs like Bicing are popping up all over Europe. They're the eco-friendly fad du jour and I love it. Community bicycle programs work like this: 1). the city (more likely a government grant) buys a ton of durable bikes 2). the bikes are placed around the city in strategic, populated, flattish areas 3). residents of the city can buy memberships or one-time uses of the bikes on automated rental systems and get to take the bike, use it all day, and then park it at the first bicing docking station they can find when they're finished with the bike.

It's like Zipcar, but with bikes.

The system is designed to reduce carbon emissions by reducing the need for taxis and metros when locals need to run those cross-town errands. In Barcelona, you see bicing stations like the one pictured all over the place. They usually have at least one bike docked, or in some cases, the whole thing is full. And the people of Barcelona actually use the bikes! We regularly saw people whizzing by on bicing bikes.

4. The sidewalks. Like in Saudi where you know which part of town you're in by the design of the lamp posts, Barcelona's districts are roughly identifiable by the paving stones on the sidewalks. I'm sure few people in Barcelona actually notice this little quirk, but I loved it.

Not only are these sidewalks prettier than the typical concrete meh, but they add a little bit of traction in the wet weather and they give sidewalk cracks a lot more character. I also noticed a significant decrease in the amount of gum stuck to the sidewalks as compared to the concrete jungles of some American cities ::cough:: NYC ::cough::

5. The orange trees. I don't know what the story is here with these things, but the hubs and I would see at least one different orange tree a day. I'm sure someone out there knows the significance, and I'm sure the reason why the city has planted so many orange trees will only make me love them even more.

Vicariously yours,

Give the call of the whipper will

One of the first things I like to do when traveling is take a walking tour through whatever city I'm visiting. I know it's touristy and obnoxious, but it gives me a chance to get my bearings of where I am, and I get an idea of where the "safe" parts of town are. In addition, I always see all kinds of places to go back to and investigate.

What I hate about the walking tours is that they're often so dang expensive! But thanks to TripAdvisor, we found a FREE walking tour in Barcelona that was pretty darn good! Judit, our Runner Bean tour guide was so cute and friendly. She was born and raised in Barcelona and her pride in her hometown is very evident.

So we went to Placa Reial to begin our tour, and when we got there we found a little Sunday morning market.

Cute little old men buying and trading anything and everything cute little old men could want to collect: postage stamps, coins, pins, old currency, records, photographs. They were so cute stooping over the books of collectibles and bargaining prices with the cute little old man vendors.

And then there were these guys:

Set up like a ghetto yard sale, the Mister and I assumed that if you get pick-pocketed in Barcelona, chances are these guys will be selling it from a bed sheet the next Sunday. As you can see from the photo, they were hawking a random assortment of ...everything. One guy was working out of a plastic bag selling a bunch of cell phones that had mysteriously lost their chargers and had lots of strangers' phone numbers programmed into them.

The whole thing was very shady. And then while we were strolling between the bedsheets of the shady sellers and the tables of the legit market vendors, the dodgy mcdodgersons started packing up like a thunderstorm was about to ruin their picnic.

"I'll bet the cops are coming," the hubbins said with a chuckle. And wouldn't you know it, just about the time the bedsheets strewn with everything from porn to saucepans were packed up and out of sight....

Barcelona's finest showed up on the scene. It was kind of funny to watch the whole thing unfold.

Anyway, here are a few things we learned and saw on the tour:

See the Hebrew writing on the stone in the middle of the frame? This is a stone in the back wall of the Vice Roy's palace, built in the 1500s. In the late 1400s/ early 1500s, after the Spanish Inquisition had gotten rid of all the Muslims and Jews in the city, the royalty needed some stones for their palace. The Jewish cemetery on Montjuic wasn't getting much use, so it became the city's newest rock quarry!

The ruins of the Roman aqueduct that led into the ancient city of Barcino.

The church of Saint Filipe Neferi. This is the church where Gaudi prayed every day. It's riddled with machine gun bullet holes because anarchists trashed the church during the Civil War.

Cute stooped little old men were all over the place in this city!

This is Saint Eulalia (said kind of like "Aurelia"). She is the patron saint of Barcelona. She's got an alter on this little side street because this is the street where she was tortured (and eventually martyred) in the early 300s under the reign of Diocletian.

These are the steps on which Ferdinand and Isabella welcomed a guy named Christopher Columbus whom they had sponsored on some trip to some place far away from Spain. No big deal.

Vicariously yours,

Where do I even start!?

Barcelona-- tourist-centered town as it is-- is a fantastic vacation location for those seeking an alternative to the revolution-riddled destination they had originally planned. The Mister and I just got back into the Kingdom about 12 hours ago, and we couldn't be more satisfied with the way our vacation turned out. We have so much to share, so we're going to take a few posts away from our typical life-in-Saudi-Arabia fare and tell you about the week we had.

As I mentioned before we left, we found an apartment in El Raval that turned out to be the perfect location for our purposes. El Raval is a part of Barcelona that used to be pretty seedy but it's enjoyed a recent face-lift, and some of the riff-raff are relocating to other parts of the city. The apartment was no more than a 10 minute walk from just about all the sights that make Barcelona so famous, so we saved money by not needing the Metro or taxis. Plus we felt like we were living in Spain when we by-passed the hotels and hostels and unlocked an apartment door instead.

Here are a few shots of our home-away-from-home-away-from-home:

It was a studio apartment, which basically means it was one big room. So this is a shot taken from the "bedroom" into the kitchen.

A shot from the kitchen into the "dining room." Notice the bed is right behind me.

The apartment was at the top of 3 flights of very steep stairs. We certainly worked off all those tapas calories getting home each night!

But without all those stairs, we wouldn't have an awesome balcony like this one!

The bedroom. The bed was super comfortable.

Our thanks to Kim (the owner) and airbnb for helping us snag this chance to live like a local for a week in Barcelona!

Vicariously yours,