"Ha ha ha, dick..."

...I say to our waiter when he tells me in Spanish I should get a boyfriend to fix me from being so demanding. 

What's better than a Dracula themed restaurant? NOTHING.

September 16, Saturday

Today is our free day! The weather is perfect, compared to yesterday. Stella had the excellent idea to ride the metro to the end of the line and just explore wherever we happened to find ourselves, and one of my friends suggested Parque del Laberint d'Horta- know what that translates to?? LABYRINTH PARK. Both ideas win. 

Once out of the metro, we discover the park is closer than we anticipated, and? Next door to Vélodrom del Horta, a cycling track. There are cheers as we walk past. Stella veers towards the sound, "Let's see what that is!" 

I would die doing this

"That" are cycling races between the baddest chicks with the strongest legs riding the thinnest bikes on a banked track. I didn't even know paper-thin bikes were a thing. We cheer and place bets and chair-dance to the 80's soundtrack the venue is playing. Barely anyone is there watching, which is a shame because it's a great time. What an awesome surprise!

Another wonderful surprise? Parque del Laberint d'Horta. The grounds are the perfect mix of lush greenery and trees and ruined fountains and gazebo-type places. The first thing I see after the broken down palace is a fountain topped by a stone demon, and I know this park is pure magic. I imagine the now-decrepit palace used to belong to someone like Mr. Darcy and he'd use the gardens to walk and talk and fall in love with someone like Elizabeth Bennet. 

We find the labyrinth and Stella challenges me to a race to see who can find their way out of the maze first. Long story short, I lose. I lose my way endlessly, I lose the competition, I lose my mind after what feels like half an hour of dead end hedges. I feel sorry for the mice I used to put in mazes for the science fair (guaranteed win every time, FYI) when I was in elementary school. 

Parque del Laberint d'Horta

We get back on the metro and ride to the end of the line to see what kind of fairytale fantasy perfect place we will discover for lunch. Things we learn by doing this experiment:

-The end of the metro line is as far as you can get from tourists, which is totally cool. 

-The further you are from tourists, the more traditional the area is. Which means, mid-afternoon feels like a ghost town because everything is closed. 

-Tapas are as popular here as they are in the city center. (PS We're both tired of tapas. Sacrilege, I know.)

Little fountain demon cutie

We have to use Yelp to find someplace open that serves anything but tapas. We're en route to a Mediterranean restaurant a mile away when Stella says- "That looks like something." There are tables and chairs set up in the promenade outside a large cafe. We're still too far away to see the name clearly, but I joke, "That looks like it says Dracula..."

The restaurant is actually named Count Dracula (Cerveceria Conde Dracula)! I'm so psyched, there is no question we are eating here, even though it's tapas, even though the food looks mundane, even though/especially because it's a Dracula restaurant! Stella isn't nearly as excited about eating at Count Dracula but she's says nothing, bless her. 

The menu is in Spanish & Catalan, no English. We order a few things to share that are predictably mediocre (to be fair, our croquettes are good) and drink warmish beer. I don't care. This place is Dracula themed!!

Our waiter is a handful. Once he knows I can speak Spanish, he starts teasing me. I love it because it's in Spanish, I'm able to hold my own, and this place is Dracula themed! Nothing can be bad in a restaurant named Count Dracula!

Making wishes in the garden

I go inside. The walls are covered in ravaged women, naked women, dead women and I can't even be mad about it. I feel terrible as I write this because I thought I was a better feminist, but I was so jazzed at the Draculaness of it all, that I loved the stupid murals. Sincerely, this is probably my favorite themed restaurant in the whole world. 

We take the rest of the evening off to chill on our terrace - we see fireworks! - and watch Phoebe Waller-Bridge's sublime Crashing and Freaks and Geeks. It's pretty perfect.

"You have to say it was a good day again, because I decided thats how I want to end all my blog posts," I call across the room to Stella in our dark flat at bedtime. 

"Yeah, good day," Stella says as we each drift to sleep. "Yes," I agree.

Stella captures cyclists

My fantasy home

Still goddamn lost

So wonderful