Left the hotel and headed for coordinates given as the meeting spot. Even with the coordinates, three groups of us managed to wait in totally separate places, until Koyan appeared with a few people which coalesced everyone into a group of 13 (representing several different countries). \u00a0Luckily one of these was somewhat local (even if he does live abroad). So we dully followed the local to a tapas bar, down a small side alley off La Rambla.<\/p>\n
Went into what looked like a fairly empty little restaurant, where we followed the waiter into a expanding space – it felt like we kept turning corners to find even more restaurant – and eventually a small room which we had to ourselves (another party came in later, but we had finished and were getting to leave by that point). The room was full of old bull fighting memorabilia, including a large bull head on the wall. Of course, being a bit of leftover IT geeks, the first thing we asked for was the wifi password (K – I think I was the only one not with a phone\/device!) The place obviously catered for large groups as the menu had a per person group selection, which included a set of dishes and a litre of drink between 2 people (so a litre of beer or wine or sangria or water or soft drink – just guess what the IT people went for. No not beer, sangria). So large pitchers of sangria on the table. And following that a large plate of bread with tomato. Then a few other tapas and we started eating. Then a few more tapas. And a few more. And more. Then a couple more. Until we were playing plate tetris just to find space on the table. And the tetris music just kept speeding up. In the end we were just combining tapas onto the same plates to make space. At some later point, the tapas were gone, the sangria jugs were empty, and the plates had disappeared.<\/p>\n
Then someone said ‘ice cream!’ and hands went up. But one person said ‘no wait! There’s a really good ice cream place back on La Rambla. We should go there.’ So the bill arrived and was settled – everyone over paid slightly so it was decided that this was ice cream money and off we headed on the ice cream hunt.<\/p>\n
So we were lead to the little ice cream parlour, and this one was little (and empty when we got there, not so much after). We all looked at the ice cream until it was figured out that you queue in the centre to order and pay, then queue at one of the coolers to choose your flavour, and this group of 13 had not only filled the space but mucked up the system. So we got ourselves sorted, more or less, with one of us to order and pay and rest to queue up to chose our flavour. So hands up for cups? and hands up for cones? And then do it again because some of us didn’t pay attention the first time. And there was an extra cup – a man on the end of our group had joined in. So sure say we – join in! And he introduced himself, German on holiday, and we said ‘oh we don’t have a German in the party, perfect!’ And that’s how there were 15 for ice cream. Which was very good indeed (ice cream and company).<\/p>\n
So we ate the ice cream, then started fading away as people called it a night. So headed down La Rambla losing people all the way until it was just the two of us. Went past our metro stop so backed up and found it (with loads of people heading out for a Port Vell night run) and headed for the hotel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Left the hotel and headed for coordinates given as the meeting spot. Even with the coordinates, three groups of us managed to wait in totally separate places, until Koyan appeared with a few people which coalesced everyone into a group of 13 (representing several different countries). \u00a0Luckily one of these was somewhat local (even if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4T97-gR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4012,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/09\/sorting-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":1045,"position":0},"title":"Sorting day","date":"Sunday, 9 July 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"So were thinking of what to do when we discovered the laptop didn't charge. So Joe did troubleshooting and figured out it was the plug. So off we went to find a new cable and nope, couldn't find it. So our friend offered a cable and we can get charged\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1685,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/21\/1685\/","url_meta":{"origin":1045,"position":1},"title":"Last day in Madrid","date":"Saturday, 21 June 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"So, Friday. We got up a bit later and headed out to shop. Didn't actually do much shopping, but did do a lot of walking, again. Saw some bits we hadn't seen before. Later that evening we met up with the IT person from the Spanish office and had drinks,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4148,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/13\/last-day-in-sydney\/","url_meta":{"origin":1045,"position":2},"title":"Last day in Sydney","date":"Friday, 13 December 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Went to work, tried to make it a short day, but as usual on a last day everyone wants you before you go. Meat up with Kathlenn at the library (I think she has done Sydney). I wanted a last look at Darling Harbour and suggested an early lunch overlooking\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4283,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2025\/12\/07\/seville-cathedral\/","url_meta":{"origin":1045,"position":3},"title":"Seville Cathedral","date":"Sunday, 7 December 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"We ended up sleeping for nearly 12 hours and then took a long slow start to the day. We had tickets for the Cathedral for 14:35 so had plenty of time. We had coffee in the room, sorted our bags and clothes, put stuff in the safe, and gathered together\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4199,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2020\/01\/02\/4199\/","url_meta":{"origin":1045,"position":4},"title":"Road Trip continued","date":"Thursday, 2 January 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Set the alarm and packed up the evening before. The idea was to get out of Melbourne as early as we could, avoiding traffic. We managed fairly well even though Google threw a few curve balls again. We left Melbourne by a different bridge with some interesting architectural bits. We\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2225,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/03\/otters\/","url_meta":{"origin":1045,"position":5},"title":"Otters","date":"Wednesday, 3 June 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"So, long update ahead! On Sunday got together for breakfast with family - large amount of food at Cracker Barrel (this is a tradition with Joe, must have at least one Cracker Barrel breakfast in Kentucky). Then we got on the road. I64 to Blue Ridge Parkway. Got to Peaks\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1045"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1165,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions\/1165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}