Barcelona Together

Today was fun.

I love Barcelona. Based on all of the places I've been so far, my perfect scenario would be to live in Barcelona and vacation often in Rome. I love the vibe, the feeling here; the people; how liberal it is, how open folks are; I love how, even though the stereotypes live strong, when events happen, even on weekend, the stereotypes are defied and folks from all walks of life come together and are accepting. I love the food, the attention to wellness, the weather, all of it. I don't like that none of my friends or family are here, which is why I still live in Orlando.

Today, my favorite part was getting to be with Jeremy. We saw Sagrada Famila, which brought me to tears at the beauty of it on my first visit, the Boqueria, Park Guell etc. All awesome, fun things, however my favorite part was being with Jeremy for his experience of it all.

This morning he realized that yesterday was his first time on a subway, his thoughts on the topic 'it works' :)

We went to the rooftop of the Barcelona Gothic Cathedral and he spent extra time marveling at it's construction, the view and the genius of it's design. I think he might be a blossoming fellow cathedral junky.

We went into Sagrada Familia and he was incredibly appreciative of the fact that I had bought advanced tickets allowing us to skip the line. Once inside he kept marveling at it's lightness, at the color sand overall visual loveliness. He has decided I need a tattoo to link me to this place as the moment we walked in he said 'it feels like you here'. We spent about three hours there.

We went to Park Guell where we hiked and then I rested and read while he sketched. Looking down on the sprawling city below, snuggling together and just chatting and observing the differences in culture, people and general vibes between the US and Europe was perfect. We enjoyed a lengthy discussion on aesthetics, Gaudi vs Wright (as in Frank Lloyd) and the virtues and differences in Abstract Art vs Realism.

We enjoyed a typical Catalonian dinner, during which he thanked me for 'forcing him' to eat 'good food' (which is code for, I think I might like 'fancy' restaurants) and are now back at our Air BnB, relaxing and preparing to leave this comfortable city.

Tomorrow we fly again. Off to Seville to meet up with the WHOLE family!

Highlights from today are below, but don't forget to check out my Flickr for all of our mobile uploads - high res/artsy pics from our camera will be added once we're home.

Bubble Guy next to Sagrada Familia 

My next tattoo? 

Sagrada Famila and Us

FitBit Time

Steps: 19,000 +/-

Miles: 9.7 +/-

Calories: 3,300 +/-

Longest Day Ever

Whenever I travel internationally the first day feels like an eternity. It's totally worth it to spend the rest of trip adjusted to local time, however it does require extra patience, planning and a sense of humor to survive 'day one' (which is really two days mushed together). 

This trip started in Orlando, we hopped to NYC where we spent a couple of hours snacking and chilling at JFK. Our $20 lunch of a tuna sandwhich, chips and a coke was well worth it once we got on the AlItalia flight to Rome, plane food always sucks. :) 

The 9 hour flight was fine, great movie options, nice attendants etc. Only challenge was that their seats are even smaller than Delta's coach seats and Jeremy just flat out didn't fit. There was a lot of up and down for him throughout the night.  Luckily once we got to Rome we had three hours in FCO before our Vueling flight to Barcelona which gave us about two hours to chill. We discovered a wonderful little nook of our terminal with these amazing loungers where we curled up for an hour plus nap. What a luxury!

Our good luck continued on our flight to Barcelona. Once we boarded and again settled into our tiny seats, Jeremy's knees pressed firmly agains the seat in front of him, delicately wedged in place, praying the seat in front of him didn't attempt to recline, the flight attendant approached us. "You're so tall! Would you prefer the exit row?" there is only one answer to that question...they moved us both to the more expensive, comfie seats. What a difference a couple of inches makes! We slept like babies the whole flight.

Once in Barcelona we took a train into the city and fairly easily found our B&B. We are staying with a cute young family right in the Gothic Quarter. We are only 200 feet from the Barcelona Cathedral in a VERY old building. BUT like I said, no rest for the weary, it was only 3pm locally, we couldn't go to sleep until at LEAST 9pm. So a quick splash of water on the face and off we went to site see.

We enjoyed a yummy lunch at my favorite little Vegetarian cafe and walked Las Ramblas before making our way lazily through the Gothic Quarter and to the Gothic style Barcelona Cathedral. This was the first true Cathedral Jeremy has ever been in. Now I'm a Cathedral nut, I have been known to plan entire trips around getting to spend hours inside these amazing structures. It was beyond cool to get to be with Jeremy for his first experience. The grand size of it alone is overwhelming, but then to think of how old it is, how there was no modern technology to aid in it's creation. All of the lives that have been impacted by its existence, people seeking sanctuary, all of the changes that have happened in the world outside while this building remained....it moves me beyond words. Jeremy too was touched 'this is really cool' he kept saying as we circled the interior. 

 View of the Apse from the Choir.

Geese, Swans and Coy in the Cloisters.

After an hour or so in the Cathedral we spent the rest of the evening wandering the side streets of the Gothic Quarter and eventually found a small market where we bought Jeremy's favorite Spanish snacks for a light dinner: Cheese and Onion chips, Tucs Crackers, Cruz Campo beer and Milk Bar chocolate. As you can see we absolutely had to free our 'barking dogs' from the socks and shoes and spent the last bit of our day on our balcony enjoying the cool evening air. At one point Jeremy is pretty sure a tourist took a picture of him mistaking him for a local :) Jeremy is wearing my FitBit for the trip so we'll know each day how many steps he takes, how many miles we go and how many calories we burn. Today, since we landed in Rome we've taken about 20,000 steps, walked 10 miles and burned about 3,000 calories. Yowza!

Finally, finally, around 9pm we both fell asleep, exhausted, as you saw from the post last night. Jeremy literally crashed. Now it's 9am here in Barcelona and we're both well rested and ready to get back to the streets. Today we will see Sagrada Familia. I can't wait! 

Safe

We made it, better than expected. Awesome two days. And I'm too tired to keep my eyes open to post. Peace out for now.

Why Not?

I am fairly certain that the Universe kept my battery running all day today.

We started the day by allowing ourselves to sleep as much as we wanted so we didn't even leave our B&B until nearly 3:30pm. Keeping that in mind here is how our day went....

We discovered that we could by tickets online for Sagrada Familia and skip the line so we did that. And there are not words for the beauty inside this cathedral.

I don't even want to lump it into the cathedral category or compare it to others I have seen, it is it's own category and own experience but it is amazing.

Once we entered I just laughed and stood like an gape mouthed fool, Megan graciously guided me to a place where I could stare in amazement for as long as needed and stare I did. Literally words cannot explain the way I felt being inside this building.

Until today I would have sworn that beauty and creativity like that only existed in computer graphics. Keep in mind I love cathedrals and they always make my knees go weak but this one...oh man. It felt like an alternate universe.

 To me the really cool part was the fact that it is unfinished so you can look around and see where there is still work to be done - if they finish in my lifetime I will most definitely have to return to see the end product. I have some great video and panoramic on my camera to share when I return home. So glad we went in this time.

Unfortunately we did the churches in the less than ideal order because after this we went to the Barcelona Cathedral in the Gothic Quarter which is also amazing but in a completely different way.

We stopped to listen to a street musician play Beatles and had an ice cream topped waffle and then meandered toward the ocean. On our way we found a street vendor making fresh churros which we'd been wanting but hadn't been willing to taint our experience with the stale variety - totally glad we waited. We found a bench by the water and savored every bite of these.

From there we did indeed find the ocean where we walked on the sand and I put my feet in the water. We watched children laugh and giggle and dogs play catch. It was quite pleasant.

We easily found a metro and located a TripAdvisor find (such an awesome site), Restaurant Sesamos. A vegetarian gem.

We lingered over every bite and could not have been more impressed with our dinner. We had pumpkin miso soup with a rosemary and olive gin and tonic; hazelnut manchego and red beet gnocchi; vegetable lasagna with a verdejo; chocolate brownie with nougat and bailey's sauce accompanied by cava. It was amazing.

About half way through the Sagrada Familia my camera battery read 'dead' and yet it is still going - like I said, the Universe knew this was an amazing day and threw me a bone. :)

Now we're packing and preparing to move on to Seville in the morning.

Wandering Barcelona

Today we took things a bit slower, or at least that was our plan. We started off visiting Sagrada Familia, we had planned to go inside but the line was ridiculously long and we weren't in a patient mood so we moved on, we'll go back.

We set up an event on CouchSurfing.com to meet some locals/fellow travelers so we went to the meeting place and enjoyed some beer while we waited. We were lucky enough to see the a mime show - he was really good, acting like a traffic director, interacting with people as they passed by. Just as the show was ending the two CS folks showed up, one a local and one a traveler from VA. After a few minutes of chit chat we decided to follow the local to a 'near by' park where a CS meeting was going on. Through a series of random events we got separated from the CS buddies but it worked out just find because there was a big festival going on in the park. It was some sort of organic, holistic type of deal. There was a drum circle, holistic healers and massage. There was one tent where lots of people were paired up with one sitting with their hands in a prayer position, eyes closed and the other opposite them holding one hand a few inches from a part of their body. There was food and vendors and amazing smells in the air. We spend a couple of hours wandering and shopping and had to force ourselves to move on.

When we eventually did leave the festival we went to Casa Botllo which is a house designed by Gaudi. If you aren't familiar with Gaudi you should definitely look him up, he's an amazing artist and architect, I equate him to a Spanish Frank Lloyd Wright. Barcelona was like his playground and his work is everywhere here which is awesome. The house looks a bit like the skeleton of a dragon from the outside and even more so inside. It's so hard to explain but it's so very cool. I don't know if I'd want to live there but I'm really glad we went in and saw it. There are several pictures up on Flickr and lots more on my camera to share when I get home.

For dinner we had our host, Herve, make us reservations at a restaurant he had recommended, Embat. Unfortunately when we arrived we found that their menu had zero vegetarian options and included items like suckling pig and pigeon. We asked if they could concoct a veggie option for us and they weren't so enthusiastic about the challenge so we opted to leave. By then we were getting quite hungry and it was raining so we found ourselves back at La Fonda. This time we decided to split things and ordered four different dishes, dessert and lots of wine. It was an excellent night ,

After more than a week of traveling our bodies are tired from walking miles and miles every day and our brains are tired from taking in all of the new sites so today we've given ourselves permission to sleep and rest. We had hoped to go to the beach and do this but of course it's cloudy out. :( We'll venture out eventually to go inside Sagrada Familia (also a work of Gaudi, still in progress nearly 90 years after his death) and find food but for now we're lounging and enjoying the smells and sounds of Barcelona wafting in through our window.

The Day of Views

Today is a gorgeous day in Barcelona. I have a mini harmonica on a necklace that I bought on my trip to Mississippi and whenever we have a serendipitous happy moment I've been playing a single 'hom' like note on it. It was played a lot today :)

We have been all over town taking advantage of the great weather. First we made our way all the way up to Montejuic for an amazing view of the city. The sun felt so nice that we stopped and sunbathed for a bit at the top of the castle.

Next we went to Parc de Guell to see the crazy designs of Gaudi. There we found some street performers that were really good, they had a bass, washboard/symbol, sax and guitar/singer. We spent about half an hour listening to them and bought their CD.

It was a tiring but good day so far, lots of great pics up on Flickr, go check them out!

Sunny in Barcelona

We drug ourselves out of bed this morning in Paris and easily made our way to CDG and eventually landed in Barcelona without too much excitement. It was incredibly windy as we landed and the pilot had to abort the landing and go around, I barely roused from reading Hunger Games but some of the folks around us were quite tense about the whole thing. We were in the exit row and the woman next to us really should have refused the responsibility, after the first landing attempt she went white knuckles and kept bracing herself, I figured if we actually had to use the exit I'd have to knock her out before I could get to the door to open it... it really was uneventful though.

We were both ecstatic to find blue skies and sun in Barcelona, we spent the taxi ride to our B&B with our sunglasses on and windows open.

Our B&aB is called Chez Papa and is run by a French man named Herve (RV) and is quite the character but we've already declared him a kindred spirit. He greeted us with wine and conversation and for about 45 minutes we discussed organic living, the evils of Walmart, vegetarian cuisine and Family Constellations. He spent some time asking us about our ancestry and then analyzed us based on our backgrounds, he had me pegged right away which Meg loved and I hated ^_^. The place is so ecclectic and wonky and wonderful - full of character. I'll try to get some pics tomorrow. We found this and our last place on cross-pollinate.com and are so pleased with the results! Our room is great, we share a bathroom but it's huge and there are several and only 4 groups of people to three bathrooms so not bad odds.

Today we just wandered a bit, practiced our Spanish (it's hard switching languages!) and napped. There were two restaurants I was really looking forward to and we basically got those out of the way.

The first is a Vegetarian place in the Gothic Quarter which appeared closed online but it was still there and still yummy. Meg had tomato and raspberry gazpacho and paella and I had a mexican salad and a veggie burger and we both had local beer and then vegan apple pie for dessert. All of this, a three course meal each and it was only 12 Euros each. So yummy.

Then after our nap we went out for dinner and went to La Fonda which is a place I had discovered during my last visit with Chris. It's local cuisine at really affordable prices. Here we both ordered the same thing, a goat cheese and honey salad followed by a Salmon steak with an avocado and tomato salad and a 'crispy mustard' which was like a sweet pancake filled with a mustard seed mix and then fried. It was all amazing and perfect with the Sangria we ordered.
Happy and full we realized the metro was closed so we walked back to our place. It was a bit of a long walk but we felt safe, the weather was nice and it was a good opportunity to get the lay of the land. Now we're ready for bed and curious to see what breakfast is like tomorrow. Herve starts playing music at 8:30am and serves breakfast at 9am, there will be 9 of us at the table and we're excited to meet our temporary flatmates.

Tour of Barcelona

More pictures are up on Flickr.

Friday we did the typical tourist thing and paid for a double decker bus tour of the city. Honestly, we were quite disappointed however it was nice to see the city. We did see a lot that we wouldn't have if we had taken the Metro everywhere.

We stopped at Park Guell for a bit which was an urban community funded by Guell and designed by Gaudi - sort of like Baldwin Park only artsier. It never took off and only two model homes were completed, one of which Gaudi lived in until he died in 1926. We didn't take the time to go very far into the park but what we did see was very cool.

After our siesta we went up to Montjuic (named so because on the mountain is a Jewish cemetary, so it's Mt. Jew). We stopped for a quick look at the Magic Fountain. It was pretty, but I think it would have been more impressive if I hadn't grown up near Disney.

After the Magic Fountain we took the bus around and down the Mountain where we got some great views of Barcelona, but weren't really able to get any good pictures.

For dinner we tried a new place, El Grande Cafe. It was extremely delicious! Gourmet food for a very reasonable price. We started with Gezpacho and a Warm Goat Cheese Salad, then Chris had Duck with Grapefruit Sauce and I had Vegetarian Risotto. Both very yummy. We split a bottle of red wine and the total for it all was around 40 Euros.

Being a Friday night La Ramblas was much louder last night, that combined with random text messages from friends and family :) it was in interesting night. We managed to get some sleep before packing up and heading off to Madrid.

Tools for a Day

This is the view from the double decker tourist bus. It has 3
different routes going all over the city. You can get on and off at
any of the stops as much as you want for the day. The only problem is
the line at each stop always extend around the block for the top deck
seats:-(

Gothic Quarter

This morning we went to Placa Catalunya to meet up with a tour group. It was 9,50 Euros each for a 2 hour tour of the Gothic Quarter, we got a 10% discount for ordering online. We had hoped it would cover the architecture and things we didn't already know. Unfortunately it did not. It wasn't horrible, the tour guide, Elizabeth, was nice and we did see areas of the Quarter that we probably wouldn't have wandered into on our own. However she really only talked about the overall history of Catalunya not the architecture or specific history of the Gothic Quarter. Basically she provided a vague, broad overview, not the specifics we were hoping for. Most of the interesting information we got out of her was from questions we asked outside of the tour. We actually learned more from "What Every American Should Know About Europe" - a cheesy book I bought a whole sale store for $5.

After the tour we wandered down to the Old Port for lunch. We sat on the beach for a bit which I loved, the smell of the Mediterrean. Chris enjoyed it too, espeically since it is a nude beach... :)

For dinner we went back to La Fonda and enjoyed another very tastey dinner and made friends with a couple of women from Denmark.

Yet more pictures are up on Flickr.

Gaudi and Vegetarian Cuisine

The architecture here is astounding. The mix of gothic and modern is just overwhelming.
After our Siesta we went in search of Gaudi. Gaudi was a famous artist/architect around the turn of the twentieth century. I had honestly never heard of him until researching Barcelona but as soon as I saw pictures of his work I was an instant fan. His most famous work is the Sagrada Familia - Church of the Sacred Family. He started it in the late 1890's, when he died in 1926 it was still in progress. It is still not complete today. I've read up on Gaudi and his various works so I was very excited today to see Sagrada Familia, Casa Mila and Casa Batllo.

We got to see all three of these in one day. Pictures are on Flickr.

After all this gawking we needed to hunt for some food. We wandered a bit, considered returning to La Fonda since it was so yummy, but decided to try something new. Chris was a gem and agreed to go into a Vegetarian place I found (vegetalia.es). It was SOOO yummy! We had pita and humus, spring rolls, wheat beer, tea with honey and I had black beans and rice and he had pasta. We both agreed it was VERY tasety, cheap and filling.

On the way back to our Hostal we stopped to talk to an artist who's work I had been admiring every time we passed. We actually bought something. It's paint and liquid glass on canvas. We liked the bold colors and the image is typical of spain so we bought it. We retired to our room early since we had to report early for our gothic tour.

Cava and Anchovies

So I told you that the language here is different. I told you that Chris tried some of the local cuisine. I didn't tell you about Cava. Cava is a local drink, it's basically a fuller bodied version of champagne - very tasty. It is traditional to eat anchovies...in the raw. Remember the sweet and sour? Well this is the sweet and salty. They placed two whole fish on a plate and then....plop, into Chris's mouth it went! He said it was fishy and salty and not entirely gross. I couldn't bring myself to try it, back to the whole idea of not liking it when food looks like animals. Chris had found this particular bar online (WorldsBestBars.com) and when we arrived we realized that it is the same one that my hero, Samantha Brown, goes to in the Passport to Europe - Barcelona. We even spoke with the same guy, so that was kinda cool.

I don't have time to include pics, but they are up on Flickr if you want to go and look.

On another note, my iPhone is dead. It seems the SIM card has gone caput. AT&T has been most useless in helping to resolve this. So, we have switched to Chris's phone. We're still checking email and we can receive texts free on his phone. So, the posts shall continue! :)

The Gothic Quarter

So far Barcelona is nice. I will ramble a bit to let you know how things are.

We are staying in Hostal Benidorm which is quite nice. HostAls in spain are somewhere between a Youth HostEl and a B&B only they never serve breakfast. We have our own room and bathroom and access to WiFi and a TV so it's adequate. The locaiton is prime. We have a balcony overlooking Las Ramblas which is the main drag in the Tourist District of Barcelona. We can look down and watch the street performs scare the people or listen to their music.

Yesterday we just wandered to get a feel for this new country. We ate a touristy places and paid too much for everything, but that was okay.

Italy has really good food, but it's all rich and heavy. I was starting to crave something closer to my normal diet. We found it last night. We stumbled upon La Fonda. I had a goat cheese salad and salmon with asparagus and Chris had mushroom ravioli and Duck with Apples. So yummy! The house wine was great and only 2,50 for a 1/2 liter! I was ready that Catalunya, the region we're in, is known for the sweet and sour combo, like the duck and the apples.

There is a whole 'nother language here! So we went from Italian to Catalunyan and in a few days over to Spains version of spanish - I'm so confused!!! Catalunyan seems to be a mix of spanish and french - for example the say Ade'u instead of Adios and Sisplau instead of PorFavor for please.

Today we wandered around the Gothic distric. We went to two cathedrals which was AMAZING! They were both in the gothic style and just really cool. I felt like I was in Pillars of the Earth (one of my all time favorite boosk). We got tons of pictures, a few of them are already up on Flickr.

Right now it is Siesta time. Later we are going to see some of Gaudi's work, a house he designed as well as Sagrada Familia - both of which I am excited to see. Tomorrow we're going on a walking tour of the Gothic Quarter and up to Montjuic - the old olympic village.

My iPhone is having all sorts of issues, I'm actually chatting with AT&T right now to try and resolve. But for now the updates may be less frequent. :(

Barcelona

We made it safe and sound. The flight was a breeze though the seats
were miniscule (cheap though!). We wandered a bit before finally
finding out hostal. It's quite nice so far, we even have a street view.

More to come!