Not a complete Garden of Eden

I was going to write a post about our trip to the beach yesterday. That's right, an April trip to the beach. While most of the Southeast US was dealing with storms and heavy rain, we headed off on our 20 minute trip to the nearest beach. Or what I thought was the nearest beach. We reached the Meditterranean Sea but the shoreline was very rocky at that location. We walked along the coast for about 600 meters but never did get to sand. But we saw several interesting things (a huge swimmming area, a carnival setting up, several play areas, a ferris wheel car getting attached, a mall) so it was still an enjoyable journey.

On the way to the beach rocky coastline

But lest people get the impression that everything is perfect in Barcelona, there are problems. The biggest problem is the pickpockets. Thankfully, we have not had any problems with the thieves but I have talked to three American families directly who have had things stolen. Related to the thieves problem, I have noticed that people at the university always lock their offices - even when they are just going down the hall to fill their water bottle or get something from the printer.

The second problem, for me, is the co-mingling of languages. Some signs are in Catalan and some are in Spanish. But Catalan and Spanish have the same alphabet and many similar words so at times I can not tell whether the sign is Catalan or Spanish. Most restaurant menus seem to be in Catalan, which makes ordering difficult. (Menus with pictures help but what exactly is that mystery meat on that sandwich?) We do not know any Catalan so we try to communicate in Spanish (thanks for the help Josiah and Kathryn). But I am not fooling anybody - two or three times recently I have asked for something in broken Spanish and had the server respond in English.