Ramblas Guesthouse Barcelona

... bus to view the city. The bus ticket kiosk was in a lovely park. There were two fountains, although only one was functioning. There were tons of pigeons in the center that everyone was feeding. The park is called Placa Catalunya. Here there are also two pieces of art. One is the statue "La Deesa" (the goddess) and the other is a monument to Francesc Macia. There were some Filipino ladies in front of us in line that had ...

... San-Franciscan because he picked local seasonal fruit of the Mediterranean to depict on the sides of each facade.

After several hours and about a million pictures, next stop: Park Guell. We hiked and sweated up the side entrance and then ended up at the main area, which was amazing and beautiful but also packed with fellow turistas. The camera pooped out just as we had our first kind person ask if we wanted them to take a ...

... It was like a set from a movie, beautiful yet too good to be true. And all the locals buying their various goods, bargaining, gossiping...it was quite an experience. In that market, I felt the first real jolt of excitement that I WAS IN SPAIN and how amazing that was and how truely blessed I am.
Britt and I spent quite a bit of time in the market, examining every stand, taking pictures, and generally trying to absorb the rich culture and vast ...

... went down to the sea. The Mediterranean Sea is cold! I put like my feet in for two seconds, just enough time for a picture and ran out. The people around me definitely thought I was stupid, but whatever. My friends from Florence who were also traveling in Spain, but when I was in Barcelona they had already moved onto a small town in the south of Spain, one of them actually swam in the Mediterranean. He said it was cold, but he honestly didn't ...

... couldn´t drag Coen to this area. Now he enjoyed it very much, can you believe that? We saw Lloret da Mar, Tossa and Malgret da Mar and all the other places all the way down to Barca. Our hostel is smack in the middle of the city, a nightmare to get there by car. But we managed and now we step out on Las Ramblas. The kids had serious doubts about this spot. Tonight we went out, had a quick bite to eat and started walking on and ...

... I've completely lost track of days, but I really just went to the beach after that. However on Tuesday morning we scraped together the fortitude to get up before 12:00 and go on a free walking tour of the Gothic Quarter. Was quite worth the effort, we got to see some Gaudi architecture, the school that Picasso attended as a teenager, and some pillars that have resided in the city since Roman times. Yesterday we decided to go and visit ...

... beautiful stone-built old city until we found the staircase leading up to archeological wall and then walked along there taking in the views of the city from above. Day Ten: We took a short train ride up to Figueres, Salvador Dali's hometown. Here we only visited the Dali museum, which turned out to be our favorite museum in Catalunya. It doesn't have all of his famous paintings, but enough of his other artwork is there to show you how truly wild his imagination ran. We took the ...

... should have been. After being overly careful all week (ie. not carrying anything in our wallets and wearing our money belts at times) we had fallen victim to one of Barcelona's infamous pickpocketers. Through deep breaths and a few tears, we accepted our fate and continued on to the airport. When we got there, we were again confronted with the typical Spainish helpfulness - or should we say unhelpfulness. We first went on a mad search for Terminal C to get ...

... cash on me to get to Portugal and hopefully my new card will be delivered then. In the meantime I've been using the credit card at every opportunity. The next morning the tour finished after breakfast. I had one more night in Barcelona so after saying goodbye to those on tour who were up for breakfast, I got the train into town. The hostel was not far from La Ramblas which is a main shopping/tourist street in Barcelona ...

... didn't smile (we ordered a TON of food, too). I only ate French fries and mayonnaise...ladies and gentleman...EAT YOUR FRIES WITH MAYONNAISE (or a soy equivalent). They're amazing this way. In Europe, however, you don't tip so they don't work off tips...this means no fake happiness like in the states, unfortunately. I miss/hate capitalism-it changes daily. We had a 6am flight the next morning so we waited in the hostel for about an hour, then decided just to sleep at the ...