LAUREN WALDSTEIN

Our first night in Barcelona, we got dressed up and went out for tapas at a great restaurant called Tapas Gaudi.  We ordered a pitcher of Sangria, which tastes like juice in a good way and is pretty much the best beverage ever.  Jess and I split garlic mushroom tapas which were delicious.  All three of us split an appetizer plate of grilled vegetables which were slightly charred and salty - I especially loved the grilled tomato and artichoke. 

Then we all split chicken paella, which is a Spanish specialty and rightly so.  It's chicken cooked so tenderly that it falls off the bone - gedempte (yiddish spelling?) as the Waldsteins would say - in sort of a stew, but without the liquid, of rice and vegetables.  Traditionally it's made with seafood, but the chicken was amazing.  We also got a cooked half chicken with potatoes, which ended up tasting like barbecue chicken with french fries.  I cannot even describe how nice it was to order chicken and vegetables and potatoes - no pasta, no tomato sauce, no starchy bread. 

For dessert we each got something different to share.  I got a chocolate ice cream in a hard chocolate shell, so something my mom would love, Hallie got the same idea with coconut ice cream that was soooooo good, and Jess got an apple tart.  All good choices.  I love when that happens.

After dinner, Hallie and I met up with some friends from school who are studying in Barcelona this semester.  It was so much fun because they were both in Rome the week before Spring Break visiting us and our city, and now here we were in their city just a few week later!  They took us to this famous shot bar called Chupitos, which means "shots" in Spanish but the line was so long that we ended up going around the corner to another bar where Chupitos was guest bartending. 

The place we went to was a club but it was empty except for the four of us, the bartender, and two other people.  So we each got a seat at the bar and a beautiful Spanish woman made us shots.  If I was a 20 or 21 year old college boy and this girl was my bartender I would order every single drink I could think of just so I could keep looking at her.  She was so cute.  Anyway, we started with a shot called the "Boy Scout" - she pours vodka into a shot glass, then a little on the table, then lights the table on fire, then hands you a marshmallow on a skewer which you toast in the vodka fire, then extinguish the marshmallow flame in the shot, then take the shot and taste with the toasty marshmallow.  YUM.  Oh my god, yum. 

The next one was called the "Harry Potter."  Given my latest literary obsession was Mr. Potter and his friends, I was beyond excited to see what this one had in store for us.  Here's the magic potion: shot of vodka, orange slice over the top, she sprinkles the orange with some sugar, and then begins shpritzing (that's the official, magical term) it with water, then OBVIOUSLY lights the whole thing on fire, and while it's flaming she sprinkles cinnamon in the flame, which crackles and pops like the most whimsical, magical display of enchanting sparks. Then, you take the shot and chase with the deliciously doused orange. 

There were a bunch of other ones that consisted mainly of flames and whipped cream, including one called the "Emme Elle" or the "Monica Lewinksy" and I think it's best for me and everyone else if I don't go into detail about the performance involved in this case.  After about an hour and a half we called it a night and headed home from the still mostly empty bar, already feeling settled into the Barcelona lifestyle after a chill day, a great meal, and a fun night out with the girls.