1. The Letter X: I knew before we left that people in Barcelona speak Catalan, a Romance language closely related to Spanish. In the Catalonia region of Spain, they call what we know as the Spanish language castellano, or Castilian. I wasn't aware how widely Catalan is spoken in Barcelona or that all official street signs, menus, and tourist information would be in Catalan first, then Castellano (Spanish), and sometimes English. There are some really long signs there and when they needed to make announcements in the Barcelona airport that got very lengthy as well. Nor was I aware that the letter X is apparently their favorite letter. There are words like xocolata (chocolate), peix (fish), deixar (left), xoc (shock), orxata (chufa nut milk drink) , and xato (a type of salad). If you've ever felt like the letter X doesn't get enough play in English, rest assured that it is alive and well in Barcelona. This is the Catalan flag, which you see flying all over the place. 
2. The Four Food Groups: Here is what you are absolutely required to eat in Barcelona. You can not get away from these foods. It is not a hardship. Ham -- thinly sliced on bread for breakfast, in tapas at dinner, bacon in your soup, ham with fruit. Ham in all its glorious forms. Chocolate -- many bars and cafes sell homemade hot chocolate, which they serve in a tiny demitasse cup. It is so strong and thick it will knock your socks off. Many of the breakfast pastries and of course desserts also involved chocolate, or xocolata. Bread -- similar to the French baguette, we had mini-baguette sized sandwiches for breakfast, pan con tomate for tapas at dinner or lunch, bread everywhere you look. Wine -- I am not really a wine drinker but it almost seemed rude not to drink it with meals so we got used to it. This is a shared characteristic with France. Again, not a hardship. In this photo, you can see several of the Barcelona food groups mentioned. If I look nonplussed, it is because I am stuffed from eating ham, bread, chocolate, etc.
3. Late, Later, Latest: The rumors are true. Everything starts later in Barcelona. Many businesses close between 2 and 4 for siesta and restaurants don't start serving dinner until 9 p.m. For some reason, Gerard and I kept walking around all afternoon and missing the siesta. By the time we decided where to go for dinner and made it there, it was 11 o'clock and there was often a wait to be seated at that hour. I'm not sure how everyone makes up on sleep, since the natives seemed to be up and going to work when we rolled out of the hotel at 10 or so the next day. The kicker came when we went dancing after dinner one night, arriving at what we thought was the respectable hour of 12:30 a.m. or so, only to find the clubs next to empty as the night hadn't really started yet. We valiantly danced on until the clubs started to fill up at around 2:30 a.m. As you can see in this fuzzy photo, I am happily disregarding the fact that everyone in the club is at least 10 years younger than me and it is way later than I have been out in about the last 6 years or so. 
4. FC Barcelona is More than a Club: That's right, people. It's more than a club. It's a way of life. At my dad's suggestion, Gerard and I toured Camp Nou, the name of the stadium where the FC Barcelona soccer team plays. The tour is called the Camp Nou Experience and you tour parts of the stadium and there is also an exhaustive (and exhausting) museum of Barca's history, players, theme songs, and trophies. There is even a small chapel for pre-match worship located in the tunnel leading from the player locker rooms out onto the field. What I found surprising about this place was how happy the male visitors were there. There were old men, teenage guys, little boys, grandfathers, fathers, and sons traveling together from all over the world. Almost all of them had silly grins on their faces. Just being in the presence of so much FC Barcelona paraphernalia gave them a contact high. I saw guys slapping each other on the back, pointing at various trophies, and posing for photos in front of life-sized photos of their favorite players. See, here's Gerard next to Messi and his golden shoe. For us non-soccer lovers, there were a few benches where you could sit and wait for your man to be finished with his adoration. An Indian grandma in a sari and I shared a bench for a while. I'm with you, Indian granny -- seen one soccer trophy, seen em all. Now Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame -- that's a different story.So those are my top 4 surprising things about Barcelona. The Gaudi architecture we saw was amazing but I have too many photos of it to post here and mine probably wouldn't do it justice anyway. Anyone out there go anywhere interesting this summer?
