Hit the Dusty Trail

Hiking is one of those things that in theory I like but in practice I rarely do. I went today, and it was really fun. We didn't get too far out of Barcelona--there were power lines and various other signs of urbanism along the way. Still, it was nice to get out of the city--the air was noticeably cleaner and it was quiet and peaceful. I went with this group called Active Barcelona, and I liked the group as much as I did the actual hike. This Dutch woman recently started the group just because she likes hiking; she's done it enough around here so that she doesn't need a map and can act as a guide. For 15 euros she did the planning/guiding, bought train tickets, and bought us a beer at the end. I'd probably never have the gumption to go out on my own with a map, so I was happy to pay for her guidance. And I'm all about people earning money doing things they enjoy, so I was happy to contribute to that. And everyone spoke English but I was the only American (the others were Dutch, English, and Australian), so it felt all international but without any language issues. (Kind of cheating on the international thing, I know... I'll learn Spanish; I really will.)

A good trick for making crappy light beer more tolerable is to squeeze some lemon juice into it. If you order cerveza con limón like I did today, though, you get this concoction of half beer, half lemonade. I had heard that they drink lemonade + beer here, but I never had any intentions of trying it. It was surprisingly not bad, although the next time I just want beer with a lemon in it I guess I'll have to do some explaining.

And in other news, after over two months of living here, I finally bought salt and pepper today.