I arrived in Barcelona late last night at almost midnight so by the time I got checked in and did all the computer stuff it was time for bed.

One note about the check-in – when I arrived the man at the front desk, Angel, asked if I was hungry.   Of course I was and so he fixed me up a plate of pasta to eat.   Apparently the staff cooks a communal meal every night at 8pm and they knew people were checking in late so they left some food for us when we came in – pretty nice way to start!

Ironically when I woke up there was no free breakfast as I’ve grown accustomed to and had to pay 2.50€ for some toast, pastries, cereal and oj.   Haven’t got that quite figured out – free dinner but pay for breakfast.   Oh well, whatever.

I went on the free walking tour again as I’ve been doing when I hit a new city.   The tour didn’t really hold my interest and there was no one to really talk to so after a half hour or so I broke off from the group and headed back to the hostel.

Once back I met a couple fellow Canadians who had just checked in – Rachelle and Janie.   Both are working as tour guides in a WWI museum in France for a few months and are on a short vacation from it.

We ended up going out to the beach on the southern part of the city overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.   We went just at the right time as we were able to see it in daylight and then the sun set and it was even more beautiful in the twilight.

By then it was heading towards 8pm so we headed back to the hostel for free dinner.   On the way we also discovered that Barcelona does indeed have transit cops as they were checking our tickets on our way off the train.   The girls got caught and were given a ticket for 100 euros – yikes!

Dinner was another pasta with some potatoes.   Don’t get me wrong – I’m very thankful for a free dinner but I miss my tapas and sangria.   Yesterday was the first day in Spain that I didn’t have either and it felt weird.   I would unfortunately not have tapas yet again today however I did manage to squeeze one sangria in later on (more on that later).

After dinner I sat with some people playing cards – something, outside of poker a couple of nights ago in Granada, that I hadn’t seen yet on my trip.   Of course, I dominated cause, well, I’m just that good, thank you very much!

Our 10:30pm Ghost tour (a walking tour at night detailing the more morbid details of Barcelonian history) was delayed because of a football match but once that was done we were off around 11:30pm.

The walking tour had about 20 of us from the hostel and lasted a couple of hours.   During the tours I like to chat with someone new each time we walk from one place to the next and met some great people.

Once the tour ended it was 1am and they all decided to hit a bar because apparently I’m at a party hostel.   This isn’t really what I’m interested in as I’m really not into that scene at all so when they all hit a small and crowded hot bar, I slipped out to return to the hostel.

On my way back I stopped in a little restaurant and finally had my sangria with, of all things, a breakfast platter of sausage, bacon, fries and egg – not quite what I was expecting when I ordered it but I didn’t care.

And there you have it… a pretty do nothing day.   Met some cool people and saw a great sunset at the beach.   Better than working…