Sangria Compliments

Unfortunately, journeying to Barcelona for business, specifically a large and bustling medical conference humming with various pharmaceutical executives and aggrandizingly important physicians, actually translates to an almost nauseating experience of frustration, within the confines of yet another labyrinth conference center. Thankfully, in this case, even the large central conference center, often the most mundane area of any town, was an exemplar of fascinating contemporary Spanish architecture. Besides, the medical conference did exert laudable effort in the distribution of free food; European frozen novelties, developed without the addition of accessory and disgusting gum for an undesirable texture, are nothing to be sneered at.

Anyway, alas, my trip here to Barcelona, unlike my veritable vacation to Paris, left little time to shop for Italian leather shoes or other frivolities. Tonight was my last night, and I made the pitiful realization that I had not purchased a single item, valuable and interesting or kitschy and touristy or otherwise, to commemorate my trip to, what I presume to be, an incredible and rich city. Mildly facetious, I have embarked on sufficient taxi rides and strolled enough through the narrow streets to understand the beauty and unique culture of this foreign city. Tonight, just before dinner with my esteemed colleagues, and fellow embezzlers of red wine, I also made the realization that I had not sampled any local sangria. While I would have preferred an experience in a tiny street square or a patio outdoors somewhere, I finally ordered a nightcap sangria, which seems an oxymoron of sorts, in the lobby of the business hotel near the conference center, a place of both convenience and delightful service to our generally rambunctiously tame evening ways. As a token of good faith, for our loyalty to the hotel bar this past week and the promise of future, lucrative business, I was gifted the sangria glass by the mostly bilingual waiter. Provided it does not smash in between my various layers of suits, or is confiscated by some bitter security personnel who have little better to do in the airport, it will make a fine piece of memorabilia. 

(image taken from Fine Web Stores)