Everyday life in Barcelona

 

This is what the office building looks like, just on the Diagonal. To the right one of the insight meetings.

Some after work ham with my colleague Ric, acting like he’s got some important call. Probably his girlfriend calling about the cat.

Shopping for dinner at the local market

The best cola I ever tasted this far. At a vietnamese restaurant. If you find this one, buy it!

Joans grand dad had a brewery back in the day. Pretty cool retro bottle

Joan invited me to a calcotada, some sort of spring onions that you barbecue over fire and eat together with a special sauce. A local delicacy. Reeeally nice!

Here they are. You hold the bottom end of the onion and pull, then you get out the part you can eat.

Coffee break at work. There’s a really good barista right under the office, sadly they’re going to close down and leave, so we all have to look for good coffee elsewhere.

Found this pizza in the local supermarket. Ingredients chosen by votes on Facebook. Really? Looks pretty disgusting to me.

 

The company scooter gang, haha!

The last day of Ricardo in the office we went for some Japanese food for lunch.. and then some sushi for dinner! Amazing.

Weekend trip to Sweden

I had the luck of going on a business trip to Denmark and was able to spend the weekend in Sweden.

Magnus and Magnus. I think I know about 7 by now that I have more or less regular contact with, if I count them all. We went on a bar hopping in Lund. That’s something that you can do really quickly if you like, as there’s practically no bars to chose from. :-)

Claudio tagged along as well.

Saturday we went to Malmö to meet up with some other friends. Here’s Tobias, Marcus, Henrik, Erik and me.

It turned out to be an excellent night!

El delta del Ebro

About a month ago, I had a really excellent session down at the delta. This Sunday the forecast looked really really promising so me and Joan decided to go down to spend the day.

After two hours of driving and 20€ in road tolls we arrived in the delta to have some proper breakfast. Joan picked me up at 8, which I consider pretty early for a Sunday, so I was really hungry!

This is what it looks like. A vast landscape of sand and small lagoons

Bohoo! No wind! We decided to wait it out for a while.

After 3 hours on the beach we started to get anxious and drove off to a restaurant some of the locals recommended for us that make great paella. There’s a lot of rice paddies in the delta, so there’s plenty of rice around

In the end, some really great Paella!

And that was it. That is just how the sport is. Sometimes you just can’t get what you want, even though the promises are there. The funny part was that when we started to drive home, when it was getting dark, the wind kicked in. It got delayed about 8-10 hours.

The Mini Kitesurf tour Europe in Castelldefels

The last day before Michael went back to Sweden we were lucky enough to get some wind. AND the Mini kitesurf tour came to town!

Waaah… Michael and me got up the day after a night out, dragged ourselves and the gear down the street and to a café to get some breakfast. Because the whimsical weather gods of Barcelona finally decided to deliver, and on top of it the Mini kitesurf tour was coming!

Quite a lot of people there that day. I managed to meet up with Joan and David from Madrid as well, but didn’t catch them on film :-)

I went out on my 8m first as the wind was super gusty, not a very good idea.

Look at those hills in the background. There you have it. That’s why the wind is so gusty when it is blowing straight easterly in this spot.

Some really nice colors in this shot. Michaels camera is simply fantastic!

Last try on the 8 before giving in and pumping up the 12

I really like the angle of this shot.

The wind actually went down quite a bit and it was just enough for some lazy riding on the 12.

 

Can’t complain about the weather that day, it was just great!

Kite parked, and sun going down…

Michael was too lazy and had a cold that day, so in the end it was just me riding. Nevertheless I can’t thank enough for the wonderful shots! I need to get that camera too!
 

In the evening we went to the probably best Asian restaurant I ever tried in Barcelona. Not a bad wrap-up of the day.

Back in Barcelona

I left Barcelona in May this year, but the last time I actually lived in the city was in 2001. Geez… Anyhow, I managed to set myself up from Sweden with a room in a shared apartment from a (hold on now) friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. Hehe :-) Or I can just state it this way, I got introduced to quite a lot of people back in May, who in turn introduced me to others. Two days after I arrived, giving me plenty of time to assimilate, I started at work, which turned out to be really great. Here’s some pictures and stories from my first two months in Barcelona.

 

How ever unlikely it may seem, I met with Richard, almost exactly on the spot where he was living back in 2001. Barcelona is also the place I got to know him, so it was a great start of the stay. Richard was there for a wedding so it was a pure coincidence.

Pancake brunch together with my flat mates Alejandro and Cara.

Checking out the waves at Badalona beach. Hmmm… Maybe this place isn’t that bad after all..

I got to know some of my new colleagues

Took a stroll downtown at the national day of Catalunya

Celebrated Ric’s birthday, and no, I didn’t take any drink to the pool, even though it was really tempting.

Marcus came down to visit again, what a great time we had!! Come back any time man!

Juan Carlos came up from Valencia to visit. This is from el Masnou, a short ride on the rodalies from Barcelona.

We went out celebrating birthdays :-)

Took the chance to visit the last Piknic Electronik in Montjuic for the season.

We got the opportunity to see some pretty awesome Castellers

Niklas has been showing me how it’s done on the court quite a few times. Though if the maths add up I should be able to beat him next year. Let’s see.. :-) The club we’re playing at is just fantastic though. I can’t wait to get back there again, especially when the weather gets a bit warmer.

Veronica and Sira took me to a awesome fish restaurant. I haven’t had that good (and that much) fish in quite a while.

I went down to the delta to kite with Joan and Neus

I had some pretty great kiteing in Castelldefels, just 20km from Barcelona. This is my new favorite spot!

I bought a “Barcelona” scooter. Honda Scoopy 125i. Yeeeh, hahaha. Back in Sweden it’s considered nerdy to have a scooter, if you’re over 15 years old that is. I did my best bad-boy “moppe” pose, great, don’t you think?

As part of my assimilation I project managed my first mobile application for Golden Gekko, the company I now work for. It was for Budweiser China, and this far have managed to get over 1.000.000 downloads.

Kim, one of my colleges invited one of his band members to the office to play. Excellent idea! Thanks Kim!

Joan and me went to Cabrera, pretty close to where he lives. Some GREAT kiteing there, I wish I had my waveboard…

Not bad with these colors, eh? It was great fun riding out against the waves, jumping and bumping.

Michael came to visit. I took him to “el rey de la gamba” and bought him some ham. This is the result.

Outside the Sagrada Familia I tried to spot those green birds that squeek in the trees, so that Micke could take a photo, but apparently he thought it was more funny to take pictures of me.

After doing Barcelona we rented a car and took a trip to Andorra and the south of France.

We stayed the night in Andorra. Nothing special really, and then passed over the mountains through a blizzard to France. We could hold the mind twisting speed of 20km/h as visibility was absolutely zero. Well over on the other side of the mountains in France we took a café au lait for breakfast. 
Before making our way back to the north of Spain and costa brava we had to have a taste of “le baugette” haha, some snacks on the way… Check out the regular with the funny hat :-)

After a 2 hours of heated discussions in Danish (yes, it was a long drive, and we had nothing better to do. Helt motherfucking-ass backwörds) we arrived Port de la Selva, a wave spot up in the north of the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Yes! We’re here!! Let’s rip!! :-D

Michael having a look of the scenery

Some preeeety nice waves rolling in, but it just wouldn’t give up raining, and we were 250km from Barcelona.. Not really up for driving all the way back soaked. Crap. Next time.

We went out with Joan one night. He took us to a place named “Bikini”, and it was nothing like a beach club, I’ll tell you..

And one night we went to Luz de Gas with Marta. We all survived.

To revenge that I.… I don’t know what. Ask Michael. Never mind. Michael tried to put his fingers up my nose. It’s not really clear who won or lost from that act.

After a heavy session of walking around, Michael just gave up and went on strike. I’m not moving! I’m not moving!! Hehe. Ok, luckily enough there’s lots of cabs in the city that could save us from spending the night out in Montjuic.