I finally realized that I needed to eat well in order to fight off my cold. The vegetarian food in Barcelona is quite unappetizing and as I took stock, it became quite apparent that I had been living on juice over the past 2.5 days. In order to remedy the situation, I convinced Manish to have Indian food for dinner tonight. He agreed and even searched Google Local to find the closest, best recommended Indian place. Off we went, and I finally ate a full meal.
The wait staff was all from India, and I ended up speaking to them in Hindi. This got me thinking about all the random Indian people we have seen on our trip (not the Indian tourists, who are outnumbered only by the American ones). In Paris, on the Champs de Mars, right by the Eiffel Tower, there are several young Indian men selling all sorts of alcohol. As Manish took a million pictures of the Eiffel Tower, I started to eavesdrop. There was a tourist uncle who was drinking a Heineken, and asking one of the Indian alcohol sellers (in Hindi), how much a bottle of champagne sold for. The seller answered - 15-20 Euro, except for "our people" who get it for 8-10 Euro. Similarly, there are Indian alcohol sellers on Las Ramblas in Barcelona - and one of these had a conversation with me in Hindi yesterday.
At the end of our meal today, we visited my favorite juice bar (yes, I've had enough orange juice to know the good places). There, we were once again served by an Indian man from India. He and I struck up a conversation in Hindi, and when I expressed my amazement at finding so many Indian people in Spain, he responded that there are as many Indians in Barcelona as there are dogs on the street in India! Of course, he followed that up by letting me know that several of these are successful businessmen.
As our time in Barcelona comes to an end, I have to admit that Barcelona reminds me a lot of Bangalore. There are old buildings alongside the new, middle class neighborhoods with clothes hung to dry on balconies, pavements with hawkers selling their wares, stores closed shut with metal shutters rather than fancy glass displays, a large number of people with dark skin, and a lot of energy in the air :) Anyway, next stop is Nice and then Cinque Terre - my guess is that we will not have Internet in those places, so no posts for the next few days :(
2 comments:
Hey Sweetie!
Great blog and pictures - keep up the good work! Looking forward to experiencing a lot more of the european world and your adventures through this blog!
Love,
Prachi
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