In 2008 David and I went on an amazing six week driving tour of Europe, staying in Paris, Saint Paul-de-Vence, Puligny-Montrachet, Ludes, Siena, Piemonte, Ancient Korinth, Athens, Huesca, San Sebastian, Hondarribia, Zamora, Badajoz, Marbella, Alicante and Barcelona. This was pre-smartphone days so all our google map directions were printed on reams of A4 paper, which I valiantly tried to keep in some semblance of order. But by the time we reached Barcelona’s ring-road at around midnight I realised that I’d lost the relevant pages somewhere along the way. If you’ve ever driven in Barcelona, you know that the city is a curious mix of perfectly laid out grid-like roads, magically interwoven with streets that wind and curve, in infuriatingly unpredictable ways. And if you’ve ever met me, you might know that being a navigator without a map is one of the most stressful situations you could ever put me in. So yeah, basically I was freaking out. But you know what happened? Navigating around prominent landmarks, doing my best to work from memory, and invoking Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, we somehow, somehow managed to find our accommodation in the dense warren of Barri Gòtic, one of Barcelona’s oldest and most labyrinthine suburbs. It was, ladies and gents, a stone-cold miracle.
We stayed in the city of Barcelona for three days and totally fell in love with it, so we went back for five days in 2011, four more days in 2013, and then another three days in 2014. But for some reason, in the ensuing years, Barcelona sadly fell off the travel radar. Shame on us. So when my old friend Ben told me in December of last year that he and his parents, Ellen and Greg, would be travelling to Barcelona in March 2024, and would we like to join them for a couple of days, the answer was a resounding hell yes!
David and I finished working our night shifts at 6am and, as is our wont, jumped straight on a plane to Barcelona, getting to our cute little apartment at around 3pm. We immediately jumped into bed for a 20 minute coffee nap to perk up before meeting with Ben and Greg for a bite to eat (Ellen was recovering from a painful and, unfortunately timed, foot surgery a couple of days before their trip, and was laid up at their hotel, resting). Naturally I had compiled a map of all the cool restaurants, cafes and bars I wanted to check out while we were in town (as well as a few old favourites that David and I really wanted to return to), but there was nothing in the immediate vicinity and I didn’t want to drag everyone around the city looking for places that fussy little Miss Chryss approved of – I didn’t want to be that person. So instead I dragged everyone around the neighbourhood and did something which I hate doing, which is randomly choose a restaurant that looks like it serves nice, traditional food and just roll the culinary dice. Don’t ever let anyone tell you I don’t live on the edge.
As expected our meal was OK, but nothing special. It might (or might not) shock you to learn that I have a real phobia of eating mediocre meals when I travel. It’s something that I really hate, because when you’re in a new country or a new city, you only have a finite number of meals with which to sample all the delicious and glorious cuisine of that location. And wasting even one of those meals on shitty food is a tragedy of epic proportions. I am not the type of person who eats to live. So I will never be the type of person that just grabs a bite for sustenance. For me, the food is the main event. It is the reason I travel. And after enough bad experiences, I am no longer the type of person who optimistically wanders around town hoping to just serendipitously stumble upon the perfect restaurant. The idea gives me hives. Sure it’s possible, but it’s also possible that you’re going to eat a really shitty meal. Which is what happened to David and me in Madrid, 2013 on our seventh wedding anniversary. We’d booked a fancy dinner, but decided to leave lunch to fate. And fate did not treat us kindly. Lamentably, we ended up at a place that served soggy croquettes, rubbery Jamón and sickly sweet sangria. I got really angry with myself, and then I got really sad that we’d eaten such sub-standard food on such a special day, in a city known for its extraordinary gastronomy. And, with my fist raised towards the sky, I vowed on that day to never let it happen again. Which is why, over the years, I’ve developed a system of google mapping a location, doing a bunch of research and locating some great places to visit. I don’t necessarily make bookings at all the restaurants I like, but if I happen to find myself in an area and feel peckish, I can just open my map, and I have a number of options that I know are going to hit the spot (with recommendations for what to try on the menu and what to avoid). This system works well, and I currently have active maps for 34 cities around the world. Yes, I am a freak!
So, feeling a little triggered by the fact that I was responsible for our lacklustre snacks the previous day, the next morning I suggested we go to the local market and have an early lunch at El Quim de la Boqueria, an institution in Barcelona despite only being around since 1987. Located smack bang in the middle of a bustling market filled with locals shopping for groceries and meat and fish, I knew right away that it was my kind of place. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, any city worth its salt has a great foodie market-hall. It may only have been 10am but, taking our cue from several older Spaniards who were enjoying breakfast beers with their food, we decided to order a bottle of cava to share, coz why not! When in Barcelona, bitches!
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After lunch Ellen and Greg headed back to their hotel while David, Ben and I went in search of some culture. Being familiar with Moco Museum in Amsterdam, we decided to check out their new outpost in Barcelona. Specialising in modern and contemporary art, it was fun to spend an hour checking out artworks by prominent masters such as Warhol, Haring, Basquiat and Kusama as well as exciting contemporary street artists like Banksy and KAWS. And they even had a section highlighting NFTs!
Afterwards we took a walk along the harbour looking for somewhere to quench our thirst, stopping at a couple of places that don’t really warrant mentioning, but I’mma mention them anyway, just for laughs. The first offered a rooftop bar, and we were all keen to check out a nice view of the city so we made our way there and were offered a large table in the shade. Perfect! Two minutes later, an abrasive young server sporting an impertinent ponytail and holding onto a clipboard for dear life strutted over to our table and told us we’d have to move, as it was reserved only for large groups. I asked if there was a large group waiting to be seated and she said no, but one might come along at any moment. I blinked at her and offered to move should that situation eventuate, but she insisted that the table was only for large groups. I pointed out that we hadn’t even chosen to sit there, we’d been offered the table by one of her colleagues. She took a deep breath to argue with me again, which is when Ben picked up what I was throwing down and ran with it, pointedly said to her, “Are you throwing us out?” I stifled a laugh and looked at him in awe. Sassy as fuck!! Flustered, she stormed off, whipping her ponytail into a frenzy behind her, and moments later our drinks were served. We considered hanging around for another round just to piss her off but decided to move on and try one of the places downstairs (which we shouldn’t have, because the cocktails were literally undrinkable).
We got a text from Greg saying he’d like to join us while Ellen rested, so I suggested we meet at Paradiso, which was about a ten minute walk away. My colleague Mark recommended this place to me, and the fact that it was voted #1 of The World’s 50 Best Bars in 2022 didn’t hurt either! We figured getting there at opening time would help us secure a table, and avoid the long lines that famously snake around the block, and we were in luck. Ushered into a tiny pastrami shop through red velvet ropes, the four of us looked for the entrance to the speakeasy, spinning around and bumping into each other, baffled about where it could possibly be. And then they showed us! And we laughed, and we nodded appreciatively. I may have clapped. Trust me, it’s very cool. You’ve gotta go and check it out for yourself. Once inside we were blown away by the décor, the friendliness of the staff and the delicious, inventive cocktails.
During our afternoon stroll through the streets of El Born, we came across a great looking seafood restaurant called Cadaqués and spontaneously decided to make a booking for dinner that night (DON’T EVER LET ANYONE TELL YOU I DON’T LIVE ON THE EDGE). I found out later that Cadaqués is a very picturesque fishing village in north-eastern Spain, home to none other than visionary artist Salvador Dalí. And our evening did kind of kick off in a surreal way when our two groups somehow ended up at two restaurants with the same name, and two very different google ratings. Just as David and I were being seated (at the good Cadaqués) we got a few alarmed messages from Ben (whose Uber was taking them to the bad Cadaqués) saying that the reviews were terrible and we should bail and find somewhere else for dinner. Eek! The confusion was quickly cleared up though, and when our friends got to the good Cadaqués we had a wonderful dinner, with delicious Catalan food and wine and dessert. It was a very fun night and I think you should go next time you’re in Barcelona (just make sure you go to the right one).
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I’ve mentioned my friend Ben in my essays before, but I’ll give you all a quick recap in case you missed it. We met online in 1996 (pshhh-kkkkkkrrrr-tshchchchchchchch-cheeeeeeeeeeeeee-oooooo-eeeeee), bonding over our shared admiration of Gwyneth Paltrow. After a few months of getting to know each other over dial-up modem, we decided that it would be a fabulous idea to meet in real life. So, at the tender age of 25, I threw all caution to the wind and sparked what would later become an insatiable thirst for travel and adventure. I took two months leave-without-pay from my dead-end government job and (rather insanely) got onto an aeroplane and flew to California to meet my digital pen friend, who could, quite plausibly, have been a psycho serial killer. Fucking wild, right?
In the couple of months I spent squatting in an empty Avery House dorm room at Caltech, Ben and I developed a kind of routine, where he would go to class and I would fill my days exploring and writing, and then at the end of the school day we’d hang out together. My heart fills with fondness when I think of that time, and I have so many fun memories of it.
Since I was an interloper at the university, and had no rights to eat in the school cafeteria, Ben helped himself to extra food for me every night using his meal card, loading his tray with double serves of everything. We’d claim our beanbag spots in front of one of the TVs in the dining hall, hoping to catch the latest episode of The Simpsons (Season 8, bitches) but sometimes having to suffer through Home Improvements instead (the worst!). Sometimes we’d follow dinner with a couple of tablespoons of the coffee flavoured Häagen-Dazs we kept in the dorm freezer, as a treat. One time we found ourselves in possession of a big fat cigar that we shared sitting on the steps near the dorm. I can’t remember where we got the cigar, but I remember it hurting my throat, and becoming lightheaded as I looked up at the twinkling Californian stars.
We went to movies (so many movies) and always sat in the front row, cricking our necks to gaze up at the big screen in unison. Ben introduced me to the music of Tool and Korn, and inspired me to write poetry at the desk underneath his bunk bed while he was in class. We played Quake in the communal computer room (where Molly, a girl that had a crush on Ben would alternately shoot daggers at me or pretend I didn’t exist), and I remember the day some kid burst in with a bootleg copy of the pilot episode of South Park. We stopped shooting each other long enough to gather around one of the computers to watch it, and afterwards the room erupted into an excited frenzy. I remember the sense of it being a profound moment, and I soaked it all in.
We rode around Pasadena on Ben’s bicycle, me dinking a ride on the back wheel pegs, the wind blowing in my hair, feeling carefree and wild, wishing I could stay forever. Wishing I never had to go home. I still get that feeling when I travel. We’d ride to Tower Records down the road to rent videos, and then sneak into a Caltech auditorium to play them on the massive, lecture room projector screen. Nothing beats the feeling of two people sitting in an otherwise empty auditorium, eating popcorn and watching Trainspotting. Nothing.
Ben heroically tried to teach me how to play guitar, and showed me pictures of the girl that he was in love with. I wasn’t to know at the time, but a couple of years later I would meet her, and she would become one of my best friends. One time, riding Ben’s bike at night, I lost my balance and fell into a hedge. I still proudly sport the scar on my finger. We drank gallons of pink grapefruit juice and ate way too much McDonalds. We ate at Burger Continental, a place we decided was run by Greek mobsters, where the salad I ordered was literally the size of a basketball and Ben joked about how I’d better fucken finish it, or Stavros would organise a hit on me. One night we drove a couple of hours south to San Diego to see his parents, and then drove all the way back again when we figured out it was too late to visit. We stopped at Taco Bell for midnight snacks on the way home, and laughed and laughed when the cashier couldn’t understand my Australian accent when I tried ordering a Coke. I just kept saying Coke, Coke, Coke, as the cashier leaned closer and closer towards me looking more and more puzzled, and in the end Ben had to order my drink for me.
Ben took me on an illicit tour of Caltech’s (not so) secret tunnel system to look at some of the haunting 70s era graffiti scrawled on the walls, and I remember feeling pretty scared as we got lost and the tunnels got darker and smaller and more cobwebby, until we were eventually chased out by a grumpy security guard with a flashlight. I still remember the feeling of exhilaration when I took that first, deep breath of fresh air on the outside. Another time we took a road trip to the Anza Borrego desert, spending the night in a motel close to the Mexican border, and eating at a local Mexican restaurant. The place was so jam-packed, that after nearly an hour of trying to pay the bill we just gave up and did a runner. We spent the rest of the sleepless night worrying about Mexican hit men storming our room and demanding retribution. One Saturday night we walked around the Avery House dorm rooms, just saying hi to all these random, drunk kids. We sat chatting with one guy for a little while, but decided to beat it when he casually mentioned that he’d taken a pretty big hit of acid and oh man, was it starting to come on!!! We attended Ben’s step-great-grandmother Frieda’s 100th birthday party at her nursing home, and stayed at Ben’s parents’ house afterwards. Which gave me a chance to get to know them better. And vice versa.
I love Ben, and I love Ellen and Greg. When I first met them they were understandably dubious of me. A strange, foreign woman (psycho serial killer?) in her mid-twenties, hanging out with their 19 year old son at his university. What the fuck? But over the years our relationship has blossomed into something special, independent of Ben. So it was truly beautiful to spend a couple of days with all three of them in Barcelona recently. Sadly, it was over way too soon, and after our wonderful dinner at Cadaqués we said our goodbyes, as the three of them were travelling on to Nice, France the following morning.
David and I had another two days of cavorting planned in Barcelona and the next morning we started in earnest by having Bloody Mary’s at Milk Bar & Bistro. So many vitamins and minerals, what a nutritious way to start the day! Afterwards we walked to our favourite tapas bar, the iconic El Xampanyet. The place was, as always, raucously packed full of locals and tourists alike and with no seating available David and I parked ourselves at the stand-up bar (which I actually think is the perfect place from which to enjoy all the tasty morsels on offer). Being in prime position to observe all the amazing array of tapas dishes being prepared, all we had to do was point at something we liked the look of and say, “Esto, por favor!” This worked a treat and we were served plate after plate of incredibly delicious tapas, including chorizo, marinated sardines, tortilla de patatas, Galician pulpo, braised pork with Padron peppers, and stewed snails all washed down with glass after glass of the house cava. I was in heaven.
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The next morning, being the culture vultures that we are, David and I just had to squeeze in a visit to another art museum, this time visiting Fundació Joan Miró, a museum established by, and dedicated to, the renowned Catalan artist, to peruse a few of his modern masterpieces. And being the booze hounds that we are, doing so made us extremely thirsty, so afterwards we went off in search of a vermutería, or old-school vermouth bar. We settled on Bodega La Peninsular, an historic wine cellar founded in 1903, known for serving the traditional libation at la hora de vermut, typically between midday and 2pm as an aperitivo before lunch. Vermouth, a fortified wine infused with spirits and spices, has recently experienced a resurgence in popularity and I can totally understand why. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I found the drink to be very light and refreshing, and perfectly accompanied by a plate of fresh razor clams. We would have stuck around for a few more rounds but we had lunch plans and had to get a move on.
Passadis del Pep is another of our old favourite restaurants that we absolutely had to book when we found out we were returning to Barcelona. We used to love their welcoming ritual of seating us at the table and immediately popping a bottle of cava and pouring two glasses of their house bubbly! The deal was that if you didn’t like it, those first two glasses were free, and if you did like it, the bottle was yours. Of course we liked it. We liked it so much, that the first time we went we had three bottles!! Unfortunately this custom is no longer offered, which kind of took the shine off the experience for us a little bit. What was still amazing, however, was the procession of super fresh seafood that they bring out when you choose their chef’s menu. Plate after plate of glorious, plump, juicy, delicious seafood. And of course you can still buy as much cava as you like!
Two of our favourite new bars that we discovered on this trip couldn’t be more different. The first, Bar Sincopa is a very cool, gritty, old-school dive bar. Nothing fancy about the place, but the vibe is awesome. Great rock and roll played loud, and free-poured margaritas. What’s not to love. The other cool place is called The Box. The owner and bartender is a super nice French guy called Matthias and he makes dozens of infusions of rum and vodka and tequila, so the place looks like some kind of apothecary. His margaritas are also strong, but they are very meticulously assembled, like something in a laboratory. I’ve never tasted a crisper, more clean tasting margarita in my life. Day after day after day, it was consistently good. Which is why we kept going back, day after day after day.
You all know I love travelling. It feeds an insatiable wanderlust to explore the diverse ways in which other lives are lived, to eat food my tastebuds have never sampled, to see the iconic landmarks and buildings and landscapes of the world with my own eyes. I want to touch everything. I want to breathe in the air at the top of that hill, and I want to splish-splash in the waters of that sea. I want to be Drunk In… Reykjavík and São Paulo and Mexico City and Wellington and Prague and Vancouver and Cape Town and The Trossachs and Zagreb and Essaouira. We all have this one wild and precious life, and I really like to think that I first plugged into mine when I took that leap of faith as a brave, young woman and travelled halfway around the world to California for what was probably an ill-advised adventure. But not only did I have a life-changing experience there, I made three lifelong friends. I learned that the world was bigger than my little corner of it, and I wanted more. Fifteen months later, driven by itchy feet, I left Australia again, this time to spend a year as an au pair in Connecticut. A whole other odyssey. And the snowball kept rolling, kept on growing bigger, projecting me on the journey that I find myself on now towards an extraordinary life. A life outside the box. A life dedicated to seeing it all, and to experiencing it all. That first trip to Pasadena to hang out with Ben at Caltech, that’s my origin story.
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Chryss In Dubai 