Day 9 - Pallela

Friday, June 27, 2025

4.7 Miles Walked

11,535 Steps Walked

I feel like we took it a bit easy today. We wandered around for a bit in the afternoon after stoping for lunch…once we finally found a place. It was busy today! We ate at a place that felt more like it was for locals. Very traditional and simple food. 

We looked at shops and navigated the narrow one way streets that wove through the Old Town area of Barcelona. We stumbled upon this area yesterday and decided we want to come back to explore some more. 

Caleb was today’s winner. He found a very cool handmade wallet. He had it stamped with his initials so we had to come back in the afternoon to pick it up. 

This building had eyeballs all over it. 


Finally! It was time to pick up the finished wallet. 


I didn’t take many pictures throughout the day…until now. 5:00pm was the main event of the day! A few weeks ago, I signed us all up for a pallela cooking class. I’ve been really looking forward to this and it did not disappoint! This may go down as the best thing we did all vacation. 

Pallela is a rice dish that we fell in love with during the pandemic. A local restaurant in our town called Flavory Bistro makes it fresh and it is amazing. We began ordering it for takeout during the pandemic as the portions are HUGE. So when I saw that Pallela is very traditional here AND there is a class…let’s just say it was a done deal. 

You walk in and they hand you a glass of Cava sparking wine. Think of it this way; different countries have different sparkling wines: Spain has Cava, France has Champagne, and Italy has Prosecco. 

And, well, long story short, the Cava was unlimited. At one point, our instructor had everyone come over to Matt and my cooking station and said, “I want to show you what they are doing wrong.” Uh oh. Then he said, “They are still on their first glass of wine!” Then he picked up our glasses and handed them to us while he demonstrated the next step at our workstation. :D 

(They had non-alcoholic options as well.) 


Matt composed this picture. Not bad.


Caleb knew how to chop the garlic into really fine pieces. Who knew?!


Grace and Evan were paired up at a workstation, and Cameron and Caleb had a workstation. 


We had the seafood dishes. There was also chicken and vegetarian made by the other couples (we were the only family). 

We had a decorating contest. This was Matt and mine. 


This was Cameron and Caleb’s.


This was Grace and Evan’s. For the record, they had black ink squid. It isn’t burnt. 




These two had way too much fun!




And I do mean WAY too much fun. Just kidding. Caleb couldn’t stop laughing long enough to pose for this picture. 


I guess I don’t have a picture of us all sitting down to a four course meal together. Weird. But we did take this group shot with our instructor and our new BFF’s Stella and Briana. They just got married in September and were on their honeymoon! We really enjoyed getting to know them during dinner and we wish them the BEST! There were two other couples as well, but they kept more to themselves. 


What a night. I have a feeling we will be talking about this experience for years to come.