Planes, Trains & Automobiles

We left our house bright and early (3:30 am) to catch the train to Gatwick.



We arrived in Barcelona, and set out to find our apartment. Kate especially was so thrilled to be in Spain.

After checking into our awesome apartment, we set out to find lunch. We were starving, and took the recommendation of our apartment manager for a good local place. No one there spoke any English, so I used my stellar 3 years of high school spanish to order for both of us. Since it was Friday, we had to eat fish. Even Danny was game. I ordered what I thought would be a safe dish for him, since he doesn't really love fish.

This is what we got:



I'm pretty sure those are anchovies in the background, but I've yet to figure out what the other plate was. They looked like big lizards. And yes, we both ate them. The bottle of wine certainly helped it all go down. ;)

We walked around the city, hitting the hot spots like the Ramblas and all the way down to the ocean. We stopped in for a caffe, and Danny gave Kate her first taste of hot chocolate. The hot chocolate is more like pudding, and so delicious. We loved it last time we were in Spain. We also hit up the market, and checked out the goat heads, cow brains, and calf trotters (testicles) they had for sale. Too bad we had just eaten and weren't hungry. ;)








They had this beautiful promenade along the beach, and it had NO rail! I could not believe it. Kate kept saying she didn't want to go swimming, so I had to take great care not to let her fall in.



They take siesta very seriously in Spain, and places closed between 4-8 or so, and then opened for dinner at 9:00p. That was a small challenge with the kids, but they are troopers and hung in there like champs.



Saturday we walked all over the city. We headed up to Park Guell, which is a park that was designed by Gaudi. It was intended to be a posh residential area, but the lots didn't sell so the city bought it and turned it into a park. It was gorgeous, and we had a fantastic time just walking around and letting Kate run free.







No matter where in the world we travel, Kate is always interested in the same old things:





Afterwards, we headed down to the famous Sagrada Familia. This was Gaudi's crowning glory. He knew he would not live to see it completed, and it is set for completion in 2025, 100 years after his death. He wholly devoted the last 15 years of his life to the building, remarking that "his client was not in a hurry". He died penniless after sinking his entire wealth into the project. You can really see the difference between he new facades and the old:






We were set to leave on Sunday, but due to the complete and total incompetence of easyJet, we didn't leave until Monday afternoon. We spent 10+ hours in the BCN airport on Sunday without our luggage or stroller or anything. Luckily I was armed with standard mom-issue snacks, and Kate ate through them ALL. I made a conscious decision to really lightly pack for this trip, so the only toys I brought for her were one blue crayon and one coloring book. She worked that crayon to a nub on Sunday!