Barcelona

 Hola, Barcelona!

It was hard to leave Paris! Out of all the places we visited I felt, going into it, that I had the least connection with Barcelona. But I ended up really liking it. Like, way more than I expected to! The atmosphere was so much more laid back, especially after being in Paris! People were a lot more friendly, and I wasn't quite as nervous trying to communicate with locals because I feel like my Spanish is better than my French. (which is still not saying a lot!) Although annoyingly, a ton of people there actually speak Catalan, which is not similar to Spanish enough for me to understand at all!

 By the time we hit Barcelona the tiredness of the pace we had been going for 8 days finally caught up with me a little. Like, Cheryl and I were joking about feeling like we would fall asleep standing up....like a horse! But can't complain! We flew from Paris to Barcelona due to a train strike (which was definitely ok with me!), but that meant we had to leave our hotel at 6:00am that morning. We dropped our stuff at our hotel and went right into the heart of Barcelona to tour the Barri Gotic (Gothic area) and Las Ramblas until dinner.

Barri Gotic- was SO cool! We wound our way through tons of winding alleyways and cobbled streets, with a new gothic building at every turn. There were tons of little shops tucked away all along the way as well. 

Spain was so bright and colorful and diverse, architecture-wise. So many beautiful buildings everywhere. We learned a lot about the history of why so many different styles of apartments were built in past centuries.

Beautiful narrow, winding streets

It seems that about the time we got to Barcelona is when Collin decided to try hard each day to get a great awkward photo of each of us in our ward group. So nice of him. You will see more to come!

Santa Maria del Pi

Placa Sant Jaume

A cool streetlight in front of Casa de la Ciutat...until you zoom in and see that the decorations are little baby heads. wha?!

Placa del Rei

Placa del Rei

Look closely at Cheryl's phone..... the tiredness had definitely caught up with some people, ha ha!

I won't keep captioning the awkward photos. But I hope you enjoy the fact that I put them up even though I am usually the worst victim! (Although Hailey is looking pretty hot in this one too!)

Placa del Rei

(we also visited Placa Sant Felip Neri, where we saw bullet holes in the walls from public -- and a guy trying to steal a garage door in a shopping cart. This was one of the places Gaudi liked to spend time at)

Barcelona Cathedral

Barcelona Cathedral

(Barcelona Cathedral behind us)

After touring the Gothic area, we walked down "Las Ramblas", which is just a big, long, busy, touristy street. Apparently a hot spot for pick-pockets, although no one got robbed that I know of. Anyway, I wasn't super impressed with La Rambla, it was really long but I guess I missed the awesomeness of it. 

The end of La Rambla--Christopher Columbus looking out over the Mediterranean

We had dinner at a Tapas bar! LOVED it! One of my favorite meals for the whole trip! I think we will be eating out Tapas more often from now on. 

On the Mediterranean!

This is the only Tapas I took a picture of for some reason. There were prettier ones! But this was insane. Fries, topped with egg and bacon. Oh my! It's worth remembering that, after this awesome tapas meal, the dessert they served us was plain yogurt. Yuck. But worth a good laugh.

Enjoying our tapas 

One of the creepy/cool street entertainers along La Rambla

Placa de Catalunya

Our only full day in Barcelona, we did a bus tour that included Park Guell, La Sagrada Familia, and Port Olimpic.

Park Guell-designed by Antonio Gaudi

La Sagrada Familia was something I had already learned a good amount about....from some documentaries I'd seen and from Collin over the years. But it was still amazing and breathtaking to see!! So huge, intricate, ornate, detailed. 

La Sagrada Familia 

A model of what the completed Sagrada Familia is supposed to look like-estimated completion is supposedly in the early 2020's. It has already been an ongoing building project for like over 100 years I think.

The back of Sagrada Familia

More beautiful apartments

We drove through Port Olimpic--where the 1992 Olympics were held.

1992 Olympic Stadium

View of Barcelona from the Olympic Park (you can see Sagrada Familia in the distance just to the left of the left big chimney--to give you an idea of how huge it is)

Last group shot!

For the afternoon we all split off different directions. Collin took a group of kids to the beach, and Cheryl, Hailey and I explored La Boqueria and did lots of shopping (6 hours worth!) in Barri Gotic. It was one of my favorite afternoons of the trip!

La Boqueria: AMAZING! I have been dreaming of this market since we left it! I took just a few pictures, but it was absolutely mind-blowing. So much fresh everything. Delicious juices, fruit, food, you name it. Oh man. If I could pick one place to go back to...it would seriously be here. 

La Boqueria

We ate a LOT from la Boqueria!! We didn't want to stop! My last treat was this delicious kebab. Did I mention everything in there was dirt cheap too? ahhhhhh.

Us 3 shopping girls went into the Barcelona Cathedral (luckily we were dressed modestly, i.e. we met the dress code. They were turning a lot of girls away!)

Inside the Barcelona Cathedral. Nor sure what the purpose of these is?

Inside Barcelona Cathedral

An amazing apartment designed by Gaudi

Another really beautiful apartment

Ahh! NBD we just shopped in Barcelona for 6 hours. And then walked a mile in the rain to get to dinner!

Oh man our feet. By Barcelona we had given up any cares of looking stylish and just wore our absolute most comfortable shoes no matter what! We looked SO hot.

Again with the awkwardness. Anyway, this was our last restaurant dinner in Barcelona. We had paella and tortilla Espana! (otherwise known as Sunday dinner at my house growing up)

Aw, this is our tour director, Alissa. She made the trip even better than I thought it could be. She was amazing! And hilarious! And pretty much wonderful in every way! We loved her.

We parted ways from the big group the next morning, and our little group of 8 headed on to ROME! This picture is supposed to show how cool we are since it looks like we are boarding our own private jet. Except really it was that we had to ride a bus for like 10 minutes across tarmacs to get to our plan and then walk up stairs to get into it. 

Stay tuned for Rome!