Friday 24 Sept 2010

Only one week left to go!

I'm getting very excited to be done on the boat and get a chance to see my family in Italy and do some traveling.

We got into port in Vilanova yesterday at about 11 am. Our arrival attracted quite a crowd to come out and watch us dock. It was kinda funny, there were all these people standing around, snapping pictures. I don't know if they thought we had someone famous on board or were just impressed by the size of the boat but there was a bit of a buzz surrounding our arrival. We are in this kind of secluded section of the marina but we are very close to a little bar with a pool table and cheap beer so that's what matters!

When we finished work yesterday, I went out for a bike ride to explore the town with Sandy, John and Will. We went all over. We started out heading down the promenade along the beach. There is a very small basketball court, with 2 hoops sans rims in the SAND. If that's how Spain plays basketball, Ricky Rubio was a waste of money. Anyway, we turned in toward town and wound up on this little back alley with the huge tomato "farm" or something along it. It was probably about half a mile long with just row after row of these huge tomato plants, with huge, bright red fruit on them. I wanted one so bad!! We then just continued along, looking for promising bars, restaurants and nightlife. At the end of our journey we finally found the main drag (rambla) - which just happened to start at the port but we initially headed in the opposite direction. There are lots of basketball courts around and we saw quite a few pickup games going on. Amazingly, I saw more basketball than soccer here. I also saw my first Lakers jersey. Shoot me.

When we got back to the port, we stopped to have a beer at the little bar Equus, which is literally 20 feet from the boat. A beer turned into 3. The bartender kept bringing us snacks too. First we got pork rinds and a nut mix, then bread topped with cappacola and then bread with some sort of tomato spread and bacon. Oh yeah, and the beers were only 3.50 Euro per pint (about $4.50) which is way cheaper than the 5 Euro half pints in France.

There's a huge festival going on in Barcelona this weekend that I hope to attend. Tonight will probably be a quiet night - I may go explore around on my own. The boat tied up next to us is having a barbeque tonight and has invited us to stop by. We are hosting one tomorrow in observance of the departure of one of the deckhands who has worked on the Odyssey for like 10 years or something. Following the festivities we may head to Barcelona or a small town called Sitges - which is where many people have told us to go for a good night out. My plan is to head to Barcelona on Sunday either with some folks or on my own if need be.