Recently on a visit to Barcelona, I noticed a strange new phenomenon. There seemed to be uniformed bicycles placed at various points throughout the city center. As it turns out, Barcelona has implemented a great bicycle renting service. You can rent bicycles throughout the city for a really cheap price and then just drop them off at another station and go on your merry way.

This idea is so fantastic and reminds me a lot of Amsterdam. One of the things that I love about Amsterdam is the fact that virtually everyone rides a bicycle (and all of the bikes look the same so they don’t get stolen so much).

Not only is this a totally convienient method of transport for a city like Barcelona, but it is a huge step towards making a “green” contribution. It is great for tourists (but seems almost impossible for them to rent), but also the general population. Also helps that the climate of Barcelona makes this great for year round usage.

I applaud the city for being organised enough to get the logistics of this up and running - god knows that London wouldn’t be able to do it!

More information on how the service works:

To get a weekly pass: €1
For the first 30 minutes and up to 2 hours you pay €0,30 (each fraction is in 30 minute slots)
After you go above 2 hours - you pay €3/hour (or fraction of an hour)

For an annual pass: €24 + the same rates as above

To register for the service you have two options:

1) Go to http://www.bicing.com and register, plus it will take up to 10 days to receive an activation code and welcome pack in the mail (you will need to know Spanish to get anywhere on there)

2) Go in person to the office: Atención al Usuario ubicada en Pl. Carles Pi i Sunyer, 8-10 en el código postal 08002 de Barcelona which is open from 8:30 a 17:30 Monday through Friday. You will need to register and then wait again up to 10 days for your welcome pack and then activate your account online.

Click here for a map of stations

Seeing as how I am half Japanese and one of the biggest sushi fans that you have ever met, you’d probably be surprised to find that I have never actually visited Japan. Yes, I am a faker. In fact, I can’t speak a lick of Japanese this owing to the fact that I am sansei (third generation). My Grandma Yamakawa and my Grandfather had an arranged marriage and moved over to central California where my mother and her sisters were born. With two Japanese speaking parents, my mother did speak as a child and can still understand a pigeony dialect that is more Californian than anything traditional.

The fact is that the only thing really Japanese about me are my eyes and my appetite. I eat a lot of Japanese food and was raised on lots of traditional things including sushi and sashimi. I was practically born with chopsticks in my hands. Mama Fujie was always cooking rice with everything we ate including steak and spaghetti. Rice was a normal staple of the Robesky household.

I will even go so far as to deem myself a pretty damned good judge of Japanese food plus I am an adventurous eater.

Which leads me to the point of this story…

Last night I went to my favourite Japanese restaurant in London - Ikeda. Ikeda in itself deserves its own post, but just know that it is quite traditional and amazingly good. The kind of melt in your mouth sushi that makes you want to cry or run off to Tokyo.

I decided for my appetiser to try something different than the usual miso soup or wakame (seaweed) salad. I had always heard people refer to nattō. But refer to it in a negative way.

Natto is basically fermented soybeans. Fermented to the point that it ends up in a sticky, smelly mess. The smell is something between a cross of dirty socks and funky cheese. This description didn’t really bother me because I love funky cheese and I love soybeans. Plus fermented food can be pretty damned good (think kimchi).

In Japan, nattō is most popular in the eastern regions including Kantō and Tohoku. Nattō is most commonly eaten at breakfast to accompany rice, possibly with some other ingredients, for example soy sauce, tsuyu broth, mustard, scallions, grated daikon, okra, or a raw quail egg.

I decided to go for it and ordered nattō for my appetiser. It was served in a bowl with a raw quail egg on the top. After I added some soy sauce, I used my chopsticks to mix up this gloppy mess.

Now onto the eating. This was another trick… The mixture had now taken on a colour that I can only describe as milk coffee meets sewer. I dipped my chopstick in the gluey, slimy mess and pulled it up to my mouth (which was not an easy task by the way). Insert goo and the strong flavour hit me that along with the slime. I did my best to chew / swallow this mucousy concoction. The best way to imagine the consistency would be raw egg yolk slime added to baked beans. The flavour is pretty much indescribable. Pretty much tasted like licking someone’s dirty sock (not that I’ve ever done that).

Despite the fact that I was quite obviously unimpressed with nattō, I did manage to get at least half the bowl down. At that point I felt pretty queasy to my stomach and ended up having to push the rest of it across the bar to underneath someone else’s nose (much to the chef’s amusement).

So, would I recommend this dish to anyone? Perhaps… If I really didn’t like them. Would I try this dish again? I am a glutton for punishment, so I might actually attempt it again. Probably much to the same results.

In addition to the 43 Places, you also can create lists for 43 Things you’d like to do in your life and 43 People that you’d like to meet. Thusfar I have a list of 36 things to do and only 8 people that I’d like to meet.

Go ahead and try it out for yourself!

I have many reasons for despising public holidays such as 4th of July, New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, etc… but I do have specific reasons for choosing to forgo my 4th’s celebrations…

They start with the fact that in the States it seems that the 4th of July gives every idiot, non-partier the license to ill. Yipee! Don a tank top, buy a shitload of Keystone Ice, fire up the boat and get tanked. Oh and buy tons of fireworks and start firing them at least 5 days BEFORE the 4th of July.

You might be wondering why I am so annoyed at the 4th of July - especially given the fact that I haven’t lived in the US for the last 6 years to even notice that it has come and gone…

Well - every country has its own version of the 4th of July. And every country is filled with the same amount of dumbasses (and fireworks) that remind me just enough of the 4th of July to make me cringe at the very thought of them.

Take Spain for example. In Spain you have Sant Juan day. You make sure that you buy at least a stick of dynamite (petardos) for every day in the month before the date and then light it in the streets. On the day of San Juan you get to throw firecrackers at people and moving vehicles, in addition to shooting off bottle rockets to insure that you burn down your neighbours rooftop. All of this is extremely fun, trust me. Especially if you like being waken up repeatedly every night by jackass teenagers in the streets blowing things up.

In the UK you have Guy Fawkes day and the same amount of shenanigans take place. The drunks. The fireworks.

And my reasons continue from there. Mainly having to do with scars of 4th of July’s past. The overcrowding, the driving, the over-Americanisms, hot dogs, being left in Bass Lake with no money or way to get home…

So this year, yet again, I will celebrate 4th of July minus the fanfare, fireworks and public holiday off. I wish all of you Americans a great day off and a 5th of July sans a Keystone Ice hangover.

Here is a quick list that is partially plagerised and partially written up for friends that visit Barcelona. Note that all the touristy siteseeing has been left off of this list, you can find any old guide to tell you that stuff.

Restaurants

Abac

C/Rec 79-89 (93 319 66 00)

Open 8.30-10.30pm Mon; 1.30-3.30pm, 8.30-10.30pm Tue-Sat. Closed 2wks Aug.

Average €€€€.

Credit AmEx, DC, MC, V.

Blond wood, bare walls and unfussy furniture provide the perfect backdrop to elaborate dishes and impeccable service. The set menu is an absurdly indulgent series of dishes such as tuna with broccoli cream and caviar; langoustines on a bed of couscous with artichoke crisps, or scallops with braised endive and wild mushroom sauce. Puddings hit the only duff note: a rather bland selection of milk-based desserts not greatly suited to rounding off a heavy meal. Better to sample some of the superb cheeses and hold out for the fantastic petits fours.

Agut

C/Gignàs 16 (93 315 17 09)

Open 1.30-4pm, 9pm-midnight Tue-Sat; 1.30-4pm Sun. Closed Aug.

Average €€.

Credit MC, V.

Agut has the air of a restaurant that’s seen it all, and the combination of its location on a slightly insalubrious street and its well-heeled clientele means that it probably has. Fresh pasta, meat and fish dishes are consistently excellent, and puddings are light and creative. The many oil paintings hung around the walls serve as reminders of Agut’s time as a meeting place for artists and writers.

Agua

Passeig Maritim 30 (93 225 12 72)

Open 1.30-4pm, 8.30pm-midnight Mon-Thur; 1.30-4pm, 8.30pm-1am Fri; 1.30-5pm, 8.30pm-1am Sat; 1.30-5pm, 8.30pm-midnight Sun.

Average €€.

Credit AmEx, MC, V.

The relaxed and sunny interior, good food reasonably priced, and large terrace on the beach, all mean one thing: book ahead. There are colourful prints on the walls, squidgy sofas and newspapers to amuse you while you wait amid a young and informal crowd. The menu rarely changes (if it ain’t broke…); specialties include grilled turbot with noodles cut from squid, a thick steak with red wine gravy, salmon tartare with leeks, and scrummy puddings like marron glacé mousse and apricot crumble.

Torre de Altamar

Passeig Joan de Borbó 88 (93 221 0007)

Open 8.30-11.30pm Mon; 1-3.30pm, 8.30-11.30pm Tue-Sat.

Average €€€€.

Credit AmEx, MC, V.

Spiked on the top of the cablecar tower, at the top of a dizzying 75-metre lift ride, this wildly fashionable restaurant has spectacular views and assimilates all that is currently hip (Shanghai Lil and Twiggy do Blade Runner) but the steeply priced food - a fairly limited selection of fish and seafood - is less impressive. The average customer, a mobile-wielding uptowner, notices neither that the food could be better nor that the view could not.

Alkimia

C/Ind’a 70 (93 207 61 15)

Open 1.30-3.30pm, 9-11pm Mon-Fri; 9-11pm Sat. Closed 2wks Aug.

Average €€€.

Credit AmEx, DC, MC, V.

An excellent wine cellar and richly diverse menu comprising creative collages of taste and colour spun off from Catalan and Provençal standards make this a restaurant on the rise. Start with a salad of luxury lettuces, beetroot purée and warm sliced squid, and then expect main courses involving game, wild rice or baked fish in unexpected combinations. A great way to explore is the gourmet menu, with four savoury courses and a couple of desserts.

Cinc Sentits

C/Aribau 58 (93 323 94 90)

Open 1:30-3:30, 8:30-23:30 Tues-Sat

Average €€€

Credit MC, V.

Cinc Sentits recently opened its doors to showers of praise from the culinary geeks. The restaurant’s chef is an escapee from Silicon Valley that returned to his Catalan roots alongside his sister (former Tech Writer from Netscape). There are several dining options, but the popular choice is to have the set menu that ranges from 4-8 small courses. Highly recommend this restaurant. If you are booking, be sure to tell them that Stephanie sent you (or better yet, take me along!).

Commerc 24

C/Comerç 24 (93 319 21 02)

Open 1.30-3.30pm, 8.30pm-12.30am Tue-Fri. Closed 3wks Aug.

Average €€€.

Credit MC, V.

Chef Carles Abellan has created his own version of Ferran Adrià’s famous tasting menu , playing with flavours and deconstructing traditional favourites (DIY tortilla: just dip the ingredients into a warm egg-yolk spume). A selection of tiny dishes roams the globe: tuna sashimi and seaweed on a wafer-thin pizza crust; Puy lentils with bacon and foie gras; or squid stuffed with botifarra and anise. Steel girders and jailhouse-grey paint punctuated with bursts of yellow and red provide some industrial chic.

Pla

C/Bellafila 5 (93 412 65 52)

Open 9pm-midnight Mon-Thur, Sun; 9pm-1am Fri, Sat.

Average €€.

Credit MC, V.

Pla fills a baffling vacuum in the city’s dining scene, in that it manages to strike a perfect balance between a consummately cool ambience and excellent food. The menu is a modish mix of Mediterranean and oriental dishes; curries and sushi all figure, accompanied by fabulous salads and rich, creative sauces. Not a place for stuffy diners; music is at a level which very nearly inhibits conversation and waiters are of the school which pulls up a chair.

Hofmann

C/Argenteria 74-78 (93 319 58 89)

Open 1.30-3.15pm, 9-11.15pm Mon-Fri. Closed Aug.

Average €€€€

Credit AmEx, V.

www.hofmann-bcn.com

Said to be the best cookery school in the world after the Cordon Bleu, Hofmann puts its pupils to good use in its top-class restaurant. A succession of small dining rooms include a light-filled atrium, and another decorated in deep reds, orange and green - all adorned with plants and dramatic flower arrangements. An affordable set lunch menu (32 euros) might start with a truffle salad, followed by bream wrapped in bacon or carre of lamb with mustard sauce, but the puddings are the real high point. Artful constructions such as a jam jar and lid made of sugar and filled with red fruits, or a tarte tatin in a spun-sugar ‘cage’ are as delicious as they are clever.

Shunka

C/Sagristans 5 (93 4124991)

When Ferran Adria – the lauded genius behind El Bulli - is in town, it is rumoured that this is his favourite restaurant. Need we say more’ Traditional Japanese sushi with the freshest fish you are likely to get your teeth into in Barcelona. Book ahead as they are filled to capacity nearly every night of the week.

Moo

C/Rosselló 265 (93 934 454 000)

Open daily

Average €€€€

Credit MC, V.

[WWW] http://www.hotelomm.es/

Located inside the new hip designer hotel, Omm, Moo is supervised by the Roca brothers, proprietors of the Celier de Can Roca, a two-Michelin-star restaurant in Girona. Nouvell-cuisine sized portions of modern Mediterranean cooking. The set menu is inventive and tasty. Great wine menu. The bar located inside the hotel is also a cool, chill out style trendy spot.

Espai Sucre

C/Princesa 53 (93 268 16 30)

Open 9-11.30pm Tue-Sat. Closed Aug.

Average €€€.

Credit MC, V.

Have you ever had a dessert that you wish you could eat as a meal’ Well, now you can. Espai Sucre is possibly the only restaurant in the world that serves up a menu of only desserts. Starting out with a palate preparation of something like grilled foie gras before moving on to the other courses such as soup of shredded lychee, infused with apple. Definitely an experience that you can get no one else in the world. Great dessert wine list (obviously)!

Pucca

Passeig Picasso 32 (93 268 72 36). Metro Arc de Triomf.

Open 1.30-4.30pm, 9pm-midnight. Tue-Sat; 1.30-4.30pm Sun.

Average €€.

Credit MC, V.

Great selection of cocktails including Cosmopolitans and classic martinis (note that cranberry juice is NOT an easy thing to come by in Spain). Décor is minimalist and overall atmosphere is young and trendy. The menu is a mix of influences from Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico and elsewhere. Try the asparagus and crab soup or baby lamb chops. Be sure to save room for dessert. The brownie cheesecake is to die for and the baby pineapple with ice cream is just as good.

Clubs and bars

Dos Trece

C/Carme 40

Great cocktails for after dinner drink. Usually packed on the weekends with a more real crowd. Good music.

CDLC (Carpe Diem Lounge Club)

Passeig Maritim (93 224 0470)

Funded by Patrick Kluivert. Usually a good enough, good looking crowd. Food is basic, but after dinner drinks (till 3) are usually filled with lots of bottles and nice DJs. Call ahead to book a bed in the VIP..

Shoko

Located next door to CDLC. Virtually the same crowd as CDLC, but a little less cramped (read: no star pulling power like Kluivert backed with the investment). If you need entradas, phone Oli - PR (605 923 957) and tell him Stephanie told you to bother him.

Budha Bar

C/Roger de Lluria

Model safari – where you go to view the models in their natural habitat. Always packed with the elite and beautiful on the Barcelona scene. Best bet is to arrange bottles in the VIP room once the early evening diners have been kicked out.

Danzarama

C/Gran Via 604 (93 301 94 43)

[WWW] http://www.gruposalsitas.com/

A new club that is open 20 hours a day. Brought to you by the same people that created the famed Salsitas. You can go and dance, chill out, eat some pancakes (I’m not lying). They even serve up dinner and cocktails. Ole!

Ottozutz VIP

C/Lincoln 15 (93 238 07 22)

The after 3AM\+ party crowd of Barcelona always end up at Ottozutz. Be sure to take an experienced traveler along to insure that you don’t get stuck downstairs with the dregs of young Spaniards on pills. Or you can cheese the one fingered bouncer that guards the upstairs door.

Elephant

Ptge del Til lers, 1

[WWW] http://www.elephantbcn.com/

Located in Pedralbes this club is a beautiful old mansion that has been recently converted. Features an outdoor lounge area. Fashionable crowd that regularly valet park their Ferraris in the front. Open until 3AM (the precursor to Ottozutz VIP).

Discotheque

Plaza Espanyol (93 272 249 80)

Good international DJs. Call ahead to book a table in the VIP.

Catalan Phrases

A few choice phrases to make any Catalan pleased with your grasp of their culture and language:

Bon dia / tarda / nit – Good morning, evening, night.

Adeu – Good bye

Perdona – Sorry, excuse me.

Una cervesa si us plau – One beer please

Un altra – Another beer

Salut – Cheers

Tens foc (pronounced almost like fuck) – Got a light’

Escolti – Pardon me. Useful when those waiters aren’t paying enough attention to getting you the bill

Merci – Thank you

Si us plau – Please

First off, I always hate to fly Easy Jet, but I sometimes end up taking a flight with them due to the fact that they have a good timetable out of London to Barcelona and the prices are usually better than British Airways. With that said, I still always end up coming out of the experience saying at least one time - “I hate Easy Jet and I will never fly with them again”.

This time was no different. We had the typical 2 hour delay on departure from Gatwick. With the explanation being the usual some technical glitch blah blah. My favourite excuse is the “French air traffic controllers on strike” bit. I find that one amusing only because this excuse gives the British yet another reason to hate the French so it is somehow accepted.

My way home was the same crap. Delay. The only thing that made it much worse was that it was delayed until about 1 am which meant getting into Gatwick at 3 am. The Gatwick Express stops running at around 12.30 so I was thrilled to have to try to deal with getting in that late on a Sunday night.

Yes - so you must be asking yourself what the hell it is that I am bitching about. I know that Easy Jet sucks, yet I take it and this is the price I pay (so shut up and stop complaining).

And I agree on that point. I knew what I was getting myself into and I accept responsibility for my stupidity.

Which brings me to the actual rant of this piece…

It isn’t about Easy Jet service being the same crappy, cattle call, white trash service.

It is about the fact that when I purchased a ticket with Easy Jet they did something that I find completely unexcusable and downright deceitful.

I purchased my ticket for whatever fare I was quoted, but then a strange thing happened a day later… I received an email with my insurance policy and a PDF attachment detailing what I was covered for.

This is all fine and great. Except when the hell did I purchase insurance for my flight to Barcelona?

I went back into the site and started to click around to find out what happened. Turns out that they automatically add this policy to your ticket and you have to look really hard for that tiny orange Remove button to get it out. OR you have the option of cancelling this after you purchase it.

Tricky bastards. If you are like me and you click through things really fast and have used the Easy Jet site before without this happening, then you might be surprised when you receive your travel insurance policy. I actually ended up having a conversation in Barcelona with a friend of mine who pointed out the same exact issue even!

OK, it only cost £8.50 - not exactly breaking the bank and I guess I could have taken the time to cancel it, but it just seemed like too much hassle.

Bottom line - Easy Jet shouldn’t add this travel insurance to your ticket automatically. It should definitely be an opt-in purchase.

Keep up the good work guys!

My most recent meal there was phenomenal (as usual)

For a restaurant whose name means “five senses” in Catalan, Cinc Sentits, in Barcelona’s fashionable Eixample neighborhood, is physically spare, with a bichrome scheme of cream-colored walls and intimate black banquettes. But when the food arrives, the senses kick in.

The Fat Duck, where Heston Blumenthal serves snail porridge and sardine-on-toast sorbet, dropped to second place in the annual list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, chosen by 560 chefs, critics and restaurateurs. El Bulli was second last year.

The French Laundry, in California’s Napa Valley, finished top in the Americas, while Tetsuya’s, in Sydney, was the leader in Australasia. France dominates the Top 50 list, with 10 restaurants included and a total of 24 serving French food.

Arrived at the airport 2 hours in advance. Went to check-in. Amazingly, no queue. Granted this is Tallinn airport, not exactly Heathrow. The woman at the check-in desk started to do her magic. Then looked up slightly confused and started speaking Estonian to her fellow deskclerk. Uh-oh, I think. My bags are definitely going to end up in Thailand or something. But after a few minutes of consultation things started to go fairly smoothly. I was given my boarding pass and sent on my merry little way.

Went up to the restaurant upstairs and plugged myself into a wall socket while munching down on a surprisingly good blintz with red caviar, onion and sour creme. Sent a text message to the wifi provider and received my 24 hour pass for only 50EEK (roughly $4.00 - BARGAIN). Things were looking really good as the rest of my waiting time passed.

Finally the flight was due to board so shuffled my butt through the security and passport control. Again, no problems.

Arrived at the gate. No one was boarding. Flight was delayed for about 20 minutes, but that was OK because my wireless still worked at the gate.

Flight starts to board. I get into the queue. I manage my way to the front shoving off over ambitious first time Russian travellers. I hand over my boarding pass.

The agent looks at my boarding pass and asks where my ticket is.

I have no ticket. My travel agency booked ticketless travel.

I am asked to wait while the rest of the plane boards. I’m still OK at this point assuming that the newbie ticketing agent just pushed some wrong button hence all the confusion at the frontdesk. I sit down and continue enjoying my wireless connection.

The agent calls to the ticketing desk. Then informs me that I haven’t actually paid for my ticket. Which prompts me to ask - why the hell did yo give me a boarding pass then???

Turns out that P & O travel somehow ignored my request to issue my ticket yet still sent me a confirmation of my flight and reservation number. When I phone them, they admit their mistake but somehow try to pass the blame back to the airline by asking the same question that I had. Why the hell did they give me a boarding pass?

In the midst of all this confusion and telephone calling, the agent REFUSES to speak to the travel agency by stating “I don’t talk to travel agents”. Then proceeds to call someone and tell them to offload my bags. At the same time, the travel agent is saying “I can issue your ticket right now, it will only take me 1 second, please tell them to hold on”.

I look out the window. I see a little yellow luggage cart drive up the aircraft. I see them open the cargo hold and disappear inside.

My suitcase magically appears and all of a sudden the entire plane is gone.

And I am still sitting at the gate with nothing but my wireless connection and my hopes of arriving in Barcelona squashed.

So whose fault was it? Amazingly, both parties managed to blame each other thereby deflecting any actually responsibility. Gotta love a scapegoat…