Barcelona, Spain

We arrived at the apartment were staying at sometime in the mid afternoon, starving! We met Laura, one of our hosts, and headed down the street for some quick sandwiches. After a light nap, we headed out with Laura and her brother, Diego, to a city-wide celebration for the final day of the annual La Merce (patron saint) festival. Now, JJ and I really had a chance to take in the fact that Barcelona was virtually spotless and had traffic lights that people obeyed! There were major boulevards and sidewalks where we could safely act like pedestrians. Egypt really seemed a million miles away. We arrived at a major plaza just in time for fireworks! What a great finale in our last country to visit – the show was very long and spectacular, also complete with the accompanying American music hits that everyone could sing along to. We made our way over to a bar where Diego and Laura’s other roommate, Lucas, worked and learned more about all of these Argentinos living in Barcelona!

The next day, we slept in and then took a long run in the area where we stayed (along Ave. Roma and Ave. Diagnal). We were really impressed with all of the bike lanes and pedestrian friendly boulevards in the middle of the streets. We ran through a park and then made our way back to get cleaned up for lunch and then head out to Gaudi’s famous church, La Sagra Familia. For lunch, the biggest meal of the day in Spain, we ate at a delicious restaurant, called Favorite! We each had wine, first course, second course, and desert! From there, we walked over to the church and learned that construction began at the church in the late 1800s and is planning to continue well past 2020. The church is gigantic and an eyeful. I can honestly say that Gaudi paid attention to all concepts of details in his design and my favorite part were all of the church spires with mosaic fruit and vegetable offerings on top. After circling the church , we made our way down La Rambla and walked all the way to the ocean! We admired the great diversity of the street and made our way through the Gothic area of the city until wandering over to Servidios Catalan Tapas Bar. The restaurant was jam packed at 10pm! We waited about an hour for the table, but kept ourselves busy admiring all of the tapas varieties and deciding what we would order. The decisions were still tough in the end, but the food was delicious! It was only our second time to ever eat tapas, and we were really impressed!

The next day, we went running back along La Rambla and then headed along the Mediterranean until we got to the Marina. The weather was perfect and so were the hoards of old men playing dominoes on card tables with their shirts off. On the Way back towards La Rambla, we made a pit stop to buy a Quechua Tent that pops up in 2 seconds flat. When we were camping through Europe, we saw many Europeans with this tent and decided that if we found it, we had to get one! Next, we boarded the metro and went back to the apartment. We cleaned up and then headed over to the famous Gaudi designed, Park Guell. This enormous park is full of impressive Gaudi buildings and accents. There were fountains, interesting birds, and amazing architecture that seemed like you were walking through a maze of mosaic tiles. Next stop on the metro was the Picasso Museum, although not very large, the museum displays an extensive array of Picasso’s masterpieces. My favorite part was viewing some of his earliest paintings, from the age of 14, when you can really tell he was receiving classical training. The evolution of his paintings and what he was experiencing in his life was very clear from the museum’s layout. JJ and I admired his blue series of paintings and the pottery he painted before his most influential cubist phase in the 1950s. By the end of the museum, Picasso’s sense of abstract reality was so mind warping that we had headaches and decided to call it a night!

The next day there was a massive strike all over Europe. Many of the public workers in Barcelona were striking as well and so JJ and I decided to spend the day walking all over the city, especially exploring the site of the Olympics in 1988. We made it over the Olympic complex, which is also the location of the Parliament house in Barcelona. The hike was up hill, since the whole complex was on a mountainside. We wandered past the huge track and field stadium, and then made our way up the hill to the Barcelona Botanical Gardens. We continued to wander through the gardens, exploring plants from the landscapes of South Africa, Australia, Chile, and other places with a similar Mediterranean climate to Barcelona. After the gardens, we continued walking down the hillside and walked by an enormous set of fountains, a radio tower, and the swimming pool complex before stopping for another full Spanish lunch at a local café. We ate very well and I was thrilled with the amount of fresh fish I could have at every meal (of course JJ enjoyed grubbing down on some meat!). We walked back over to the apartment, making our way through some lovely gardens. After hearing all about the strikes on the news, we opted to have dinner with our hosts. I got to help Lucas prepare a lovely dinner of pasta, homemade mashed potatoes, sautéed veggies, and some nice red wine! Adios y muchas Gracias!