June 20, 2000:
Police station Because the thieves had unfortunately stolen my identity card, I had to report a theft in the police station. The next station was located some streets distant. I had to fill in a form, but our visit in the police station was relatively short, in Barcelona are this sort of incidents are frequent. The policeman handed a copy of the report with some stamps out to me and told me, that I would not have any problems on the airpoirt with this copy as a replacement for my missing identity card.
The embassy
Because my worried friends thought, that it may be better to make also inquiries about this paper in the German embassy, I tried to call there. This time I had great problems with the Spanish phone cards, though I had not to dial so many numbers for a local call, than for a call to Germany (in order to call at home I had to dial about 33 numbers, maybe even some more) My first try failed because of a nearly used up card and then the line seemed to be constantly busy.
So we went personally to the Passeig de Gracia, where the German Embassy was located. To our mishap we discovered that the embassy had closed shortly before and had only open in the morning. When a group of people, obviously the employees of the embassy, left the building, I asked a rather German looking lady, if I would not have any problems with my paper at the airport. She was willing to give me the information even outside the business hours, which was in my opinion very nice.
Casa Milá - La Pedrera
The Passeig de Gràcia in the so-called Quadrat d’Or is a very popular shopping mall. The tags in the displays were attached rather hidden, which filled me definitely in, that the Gotic district or the department stores were the more suitable places for me to go shopping. Besides of this you can find a lot of Modernisme buildings by Gaudi and other famous architects of the past there. We decided to visit the Casa Milá and one of the appartements, inside the building, which was accessible for the public. The appartement was completely furnished in the style of the beginning 20th century. The Passeig de Gracia seemed to be always a distinguished area, the residents of the appartement had been sure well-off.
In the attic of the building is an exhibition with models by Gaudi. The roof garden with the tiled floor, the peculiar chimneys, the ornaments and the small towers, as well as the view over Eixample(the name of this district) is just as impressive as the appartement.
Jo-Ann was deeply sorry that she had not got her camera with her and I, because of the incident with the thieves, had left my photo camera in the hotel, too.
Greetings to Canada and Great Britain
I knew, that our friends at home were already yearning for a message from us and so I visited for a third time the internet café in our street in order to send them an exact as possible report about our experiences from the day before. Just as expected was their pleasure because of our, not just according to our plans, but finally even more up to our expectations, June 19th was huge and sincere.
I’m deeply sorry, that they could not be with us in Barcelona.
Shopping
The rest of the day, we spent mostly with buying some little presents and souvenirs for our families. Of course we thought of ourselves, too and visited some CD-shops in one of the narrow side streets of the Rambla There are small shops, which partly offer an astonishing assortment of classical recordings and videos. Many of these recordings are not available in our shops and even not in our online shops. I made up my mind for a video, of course with Carreras. The salesperson showed me the „Sly“ recording from Zürich, but I told him, that I own this recording already and that I wasn’t just happy about the sound quality.
The last evening
The last evening of our stay had come. Our mood changed into a farewell mood.A last dinner, then packing the suitcase. I repaired my denim shirt, which ripped a bit during the incident with the pickpockets, of course I wanted to wear the signed shirt on my return journey.
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