New Year in Barcelona Posted by Tibor on Jan 4, 2011 in Culture
Happy New Year everyone! Greetings from Catalonia, Spain.
I will make this post short and let the pictures talk. I have to mention it though in brackets… that the city is full of Swedes. I don´t know if you know it but there is a website for Swedish expats in Barcelona. Well, it is basically for everyone who is a foreigner in Barcelona. www.internations.org . They can help you with lots of things when moving here. I have also heard from other Swedes that there are local Swedish newspapers/magazines and Swedish speaking colonies with own private schools in some areas like Mallorca, Marbella, Costa Blanca, Gran Canaria or Fuengirola where the first ever Swedish school in Spain was established already in 1969 and had over 210 pupils. If you miss meatballs and Swedish tastes you can visit Pappa Sven´s restaurant in Eixample district. They have offers for 1 euro/tapas from 20.30 to 24.00. I have to point out that I did not visit the place but I have visited many other Catalonian restaurants. I would absolutlely recommend the tapas bar Sagardi on Carrer de Basea. One tapas is 1.8 euros but they are very delicious. The bites are too big so you might need to buy a bottle of local cava to swallow them. You will pay after the amount of toothpicks on your plate.
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Comments:
Marta:
Hej! You’re right! There are many, many Swedes here. Some of them were Erasmus students who married someone from Barcelona. There’s even this Swedish band called I’m from Barcelona 🙂
¡Hasta luego!
Marta
Tibor:
So you live there? Then you could also recommend some places for everyone who is visiting Barca. Hehe I´ll will check them out!
Sergi:
Barcelona is also full of lovers of Sweden. 😉
Sagardi is a Basque tavern. Good food, but as Catalan as a Chinese restaurant. 🙂
Tibor:
Hehe it is good to know! Me stupid tourist 😉
Sergi:
A stupid tourist doesn’t go to the best place to eat tapas, as you did (regardless of whether it is Catalan gastronomy or not). 😉
About the Catalan gastronomy, I recomend you the “pa amb tomàquet” (bread with smeared tomato, salt and olive oil) accompanied with sausages, anchovies or ham; the escalivada (grilled vegetables), the “botifarra amb mongetes” (a big pork sausage with beans), the “trinxat de la Cerdanya” (a winter dish of the Pyrenees that consists of mashed cabbage and potatoes with bacon) or the calçots (grilled tender onions with a tasty sauce of almonds, garlic, tomato and dried peppers) or the rices (“arròs a banda”, “arròs negre”…) that we borrowed from the gastronomy of Valencia.
Tibor:
Hehe, I have tried some of these. They had the bread with tomatoes basically everywhere. Is there a special way to make them or just mix it? I loved the small sausages.
Sergi:
True, it is very common here. Once, a foreigner told me “I think that when you buy bread, it comes already with the tomato!”.
The only thing to take into account is that the tomatoes must be fully ripe and juicy. Small round canary tomatoes are perfect for it. Rub it over the bread, usually toasted, add a pinch of salt and a splash of olive oil. Sometimes, before the tomato we rub a garlic over the bread (never kiss a Mediterranean after eating, because we love garlic :-)).