New Year's Appendix

... on december 28th I flew to Barcelona, to meet with friends from my PhD in Dortmund. Except for Joaquin and Raul, who rented themselves a little "love shack", we stayed at Ester's place, more or less, right in the heart of Barcelona.
This city is really amazing ... so lively, so many small pubs, bars, clubs, on the mediterranian coast ... what else could you wish for? You can go barhopping until sunrise, no problem at all.
So on friday we all went out, had pinchos, which is kind of like tapas, with wine and ended up in a club that played ... 80's music. Brrrr ...
Saturday was the big shopping day for New Year's Eve (sunday), so most of us went to 'la Boqueria', an old, traditional market hall, located just of 'las Ramblas'. It is a pretty amazing place, with veggies, spices, fruit, seafood etc. just piling up on the different stands. If you like cooking/shopping, this is definitely the place to see in BCN. Exhausted from the shopping trip and trying to recharge for the 'big night out' on sunday we just went out for dinner that night.

Bunches of chili in 'la Boqueria'.

A truckload of gambas, crabs, etc.

Pitahayas ...

Frank makes Mousse au Chocolat (well, he supervises his minions ^^).

Sunday was spent with cooking and preparing for the evening ... then we all had a big meal at Ester's place, waited for 12 o'clock and went out to party. It all started off at a small private party, were we only stayed for one drink and then around 2 am moved on to the Razzmatazz, a big multi-level, multi-dancefloor club situated in an old industrial building. While it could have been really cool, it was just a bit too packed for my taste. Always, somebody was bumping into you, you were bumping into somebody, etc. Anyway, around 6 am we had been bumped around enough and decided to call it a day ...
While all the others left on january 1st already, I stayed until the 3rd and the flew back to Germany, were I learned that since the 2nd friends of mine were parents. On the 5th, I barely just caught the plane from Frankfurt to Cincinnati, from where I travelled on the Madison and after enjoying another full 24h hours of travelling, finally fell into my bed a slept like a stone.

Ester's Schokoladenseite (Parc Güell).