Barcelona to Munich

For my last night in Barcelona I ventured out in search of the first place I went to for tapas. I found it! It's called Bilbao Berria. I liked this place a lot because it was self-service: this is the place with the long toothpicks that you collect as you eat the tapas and at the end just hand in your toothpics and they count them up for you. They keep bringing out new things to try so you can keep on munching. There was a third place we went to on my first night there where they would also announce the latest tray of tapas coming out. It also had a similar fun atmosphere (sort of like a conference reception but with good finger food!) but I couldn't find that place...maybe next time.

Hey, look at the screen! Boarding a flight to Menorca? Yup, this was a flight you'd kind of expect to see on some sitcom composed of a comedy of errors. The Menorca screen was the first. Several people ran up to notify the Air Berlin personnel. They eventually got it reverted to Munich. Then they couldn't get a bus to transport everyone to the plane (this was at the Palma di Mallorca, or PMI airport, one of those airports where the planes sit out there on the tarmac and you get bussed out to them). Then it turns out they overbooked by two people. Here's the string of comedic errors that happened to me: (1) one of the people that had to get off was this lady sitting right next to me; (2) the guy who took her spot couldn't sit still and after our snack had to get up and stand up by the cockpit (stretching his legs?); (3) the seat of the guy right in front of me was broken, in a permanently reclined position. I lost track of the number of times I had to get up out of my seat! It was a trifecta of errors! Of course after they offloaded the unfortunate mother and daughter pair, they kept us sitting on the tarmac for an hour while they searched for their luggage. Result: two-hour delay.

By the time I got myself into my hotel and unpacked, I was starving! It was around 9pm or so and so I had to hustle out to find something to eat, fearing that all kitchens would close at 10pm. It was Sunday night and Kaufingstr. looked desserted. I thought "pub" would be the best: a beer and a plate of sausages would be ideal. So off I went in search of an Irish pub, what else? I knew there was one around here but couldn't find it. I walked up and down this pedestrian street and nothing. Found a McDonald's, Burger King, but no Irish pub. Eventually I found a decent German place which served the purpose. On the first page I found my sausage plate, along with mashed potatoes, pretty much the bangers and mash that I was looking for. Added to that a glass of weissbier (what beer) and it hit the spot.