I'm sorry..... so sorry....

Apologies everyone, we've been very lax in keeping the blog up to date. I finally got around to finishing the second Barcelona post tonight and there is more to come.

In case anyone didn't know, we recently moved into a new flat, which ended up being a lot of work, repairing things in the old flat and everything. To top it off, we also had some friends come into town right after we moved in and we took trips to Amsterdam and Munich (more on that with later posts), so we didn't really get to enjoy the place until this past weekend. Here are a few pics of the new place, which is a vast vast improvement over our old place. We'll have more updates soon, and we have a trip to Prague planned for later this month.

Front entrance:


The Den:


The Bedroom:


Lots of closet space.... Yah!


Daisy Adair and Willow enjoying the best feature.... the back yard (or garden as the Brits call it):


Dan and Chewy in the back yard:


Chewy begging for food during our BBQ:


Willow was very amazed about the running water for some reason:


Family Photo:


Willow's weight lifting workout for Greg:


Rebecca, Tami & Daisy Adair:

Red, White and....even more Red.

Friday July 4, 2008

We got up the next morning and had breakfast at Cafe Barcelona, which wasn't bad. We then did a little souvenir shopping at Placa de Catalunya before heading down to Palau de la Musica to admire more of Gaudi's designs. We also headed down to Catedral de Barcelona, but they wouldn't let Tami inside since she was wearing a tank top, so we had to settle for admiring the outside. Next up was the Museu de la Xocolata (Museum of Chocolate) which was mainly filled with Chocolate sculptures. They had something on the making of chocolate, but we'd seen that several times in Belgium already, so we were more impressed with the sculptures. Continuing the Gaudi love-fest, we went to Palau Guell, although there wasn't nearly as much there to see as the other places. You could only see the basement and the first floor. The roof looked like it would have been impressive, but you aren't allowed to go up there.

Sculpture at the corner of Palau de la Musica:


Chocolate Guitar:

At this point, we were done with sight-seeing and were ready for some beach time. We took a bus over to Port Olimico and walked down the beach until we found a little cafe on the beach to have some tapa's and a drink. We then rented a chair since we hadn't brought any beach towels and sat for awhile. We only intended to stay for a few minutes so didn't put any sunscreen on right away. We ended up staying for about 30 minutes and quickly regretted that decision. We did dip our toes into the ocean, but it was still a bit too cold for swimming.

The beach is being attacked by giant smiley lobsters!


Welcome to the beach at Barcelona:


People enjoying the beach:


We walked back up the beach back towards downtown, through the beach area called Barcoloneta. We stopped at a sushi place for a quick snack, but since they didn't deliver our order of two sushi rolls after an hour, we decided that we couldn't wait any longer and continued down the beach. We then went to Port Vell and had some gelato from a place called Dino's. By then, our sunburn was starting to really show, so we decided to take the tour bus around the beach area. We opted to stay inside the bus rather than on the opentop!

Tami and Greg on the bridge:


Once the bus made it back into town, we went up to the Swing Bridge close to the Columbus Statue, then headed up to bar called El Bosc de les Fades. It was a fairly interesting bar with a fairy theme. They had several fake trees inside with faces on them, and a pool with a fairy sitting next to it. It was quite interesting. We had an una Clara, which is a beer topped with lemonade, which hit the spot. Tami stayed there while I ran to a Pharmacy down the road to buy some aloe. We did get a few strange looks in the bar as we slathered it on our faces, but it sure did feel good.

One of the "trees" in the bar:


We debated whether we wanted to sit and have a nice relaxing dinner at a nice restauraunt or if we wanted to do the night bus tour. We looked on the beach for a place that interested us, but didn't really find anything that really piqued our interests, so instead caught a taxi back to Placa de Catalunya to catch the night bus. Tami grabbed a couple of small sandwichs from a little store that weren't very good for us to eat on the bus. The bus tour was very good, allowing us to see many things lit up at night such as the Arc de Triomf (much less impressive than the one in Paris), La Pedrera, Casa Batillo, the Columbus Statue, and the Olympic Village at Montjuic. We ended up at the Fountain Show at MNAC, which was built for the Olympics and had a really nice show every night.
La Familia Sagrada at night:


Tami in front of the fountain:

Greg in front of the fountain, his face is almost the same color as the water:


After that, we were dropped off at Placa Catalunya. Because of our sunburns and the cool night air, we were freezing and stopped off at Cafe Zurich for a hot chocolate for Tami and a cafe amb llet for me(basically coffee with milk.) I was cold enought that I had two. We also had a pastry since we never had a proper supper and were hungry. By this time, we were exhausted and stumbled back to our room for some sleep before our early morning start back to London.

All Gaudi, all the time

On July 2, 2008, we headed out for Barcelona, Greg's birthday present to me. By the time we took a bus to the airport, flew to Reus, then took a bus from Reus into Barcelona, and then a taxi to our hotel it was after midnight. Needless to say, nothing much happened on my actual birthday.

July 3, 2008

We woke up and got ready before heading out to see Barcelona. We began with breakfast at Nuria, a nice cafe where we had the best freshly squeezed pineapple (pina) juice along with toast and a mini sandwich. We started off on our journey like so many other cities, going to the tourist information at Placa de Catalunya to see if there was any city information. One thing we noticed while walking around Placa de Catalunya were the number of dead pigeons. We immediately saw 3, and 2 of them did not even have heads. As we would find out tomorrow the pigeons here are cannibalistic, we saw one pigeon eating the head off of another. Not very pleasant at all. Enough of that.

Our first stop was at Casa Batllo, designed by architect Gaudi. I am absolutely fascinated by his works, I do believe that he is my favorite architect and Barcelona is my favorite architechtural city. Casa Batllo is built to represent a dragon being slayed by a warrior. The roof looks like the back of the dragon, a chimney is designed to look like a sword going through the dragon, the balconies look like skulls, the large front window represents the dragons mouth, complete with bones, there were interior windows that looked like dragons eyes and sea turtles swimming. It went on and on like this. Nothing that Gaudi designs is square or straight, no straight walls or floors, no corners, etc. Even the ceilings and floors are wavy and the walls are curved. It is amazing. And, the house was very colorful, the entire elevator shaft was all shades of blues. I could go on and on about Casa Batllo but could never do it the justice it deserves, the house was stunning.

The dragon roof of Casa Batllo:


Here is the back from on top of the roof:


Light fixtures set in the ceiling:


Looking outside onto the main street:


The same window looking in from the street:


Another view of the front:


Skylight:


The balcolnies resemble skulls of the dragons victims:


We then walked to La Pedrera, another Gaudi house. This house had 2 open courtyards in the building where you can look up to the sky. This house was several apartments, one that you can visit was even fitted with furniture from the 20's to help you realize what it would have been like back then. The roof was by far the most spectacular part of La Pedrera. There were so many chimneys, each made to look like warriors or groups of warriors. Again, here the floors are wavy and intricate, and the views were amazing from the roof. While La Pedrera was not as colorful as Casa Batllo it was still an amazing building.

Exterior of La Pedrera


More of the exterior:


Closeup of the balcolny:


The 'soldier' statues on the roof:


Greg with another set of statues:

Another statue... this one can almost be a Pez Dispenser

Tami on the roof:


Greg on the roof:


The interior courtyard:


At this point we decided to go ahead and take the hop on hop off bus to our next destination, La Segrada Familia. This is one of the most massive, detailed, and amazing cathdrals I have ever seen. The church was started by Gaudi in the early 1900's but was not finished during his life, he was unexpectedly killed in 1926 when he was hit by a tram, but he did live to see 1 of the 8 spires completed. The Nativity side of the church was designed by Gaudi and is very gothic. The ohter side is being done by Josef Subirachs and is much more modern, very square, even the faces of The Passion are square. Both sides are amazing but completely different.

The outside of La Sagrada Familia on the nativity side:


More of the nativity side:


Closeup of the nativity side:


The Passion side:


Another sculpture on the Passion side:


Stained glass window inside:


The ceiling on the inside:


The columns are based on trees in a forest:


Once inside La Segrada Familia the masterpiece continues. The tall pillars are shaped like trees and at the top of each a large sunflower bursts to life. The roof is not complete, but they hope it will be done by 2010, while the remainder of the church is expected to be completed by 2030. It is taking so long because Gaudi had requested that the church be built solely on public donations and not from any government funding. Greg and I decided to take the elevator ride up one of Gaudi's spires to see the views over Barcelona. Once up at the top (a very long way) the only way down is through stairs. It was really neat because the stairs are all spiral and go throughout the different spires on the Gaudi side of the church, it is kind of like a maze because you can take different paths and kind of get lost. At one point we were even standing over top of the Nativity looking down upon it.

Tami and Greg on the spire:


Me at the top of the spire:


The steps going down the spire

Greg on the spire:


The top of the lower columns have fruit and other things on them:



After about 20 minutes or so we made it back to the ground and took another walk around the church and then through the museum. Gaudi's crypt is in the museum, and it is supposed to be a vision of it's own, but it is closed for renovation work. Inside the museum were numerous models of the various parts of the church, some stood more than 15 feet tall. We then decided it was time to eat, so we went across the street to Babalonia Gaudi and enjoyed rice balls with cheese, pizza, and Rioja. This was our only real meal the entire time we were in Barcelona.

We got back on the bus and headed to Parc Guell, another of Gaudi's designs. The parc is another of his very colorful and eclectic pieces of work. The main symbol is the Trencadis Lizard. It reminds me of very large decopage work. We took some pictures with the lizard and then started walking through the park. There were various levels, stairs, caves, tunnels, paths, etc. We got to the top level of the park to enjoy the most amazing views of Barcelona so far. But, the views were not the best thing. Along the entire edge of the top level was a wavy, porcelain bench. Again, the bench is in his Trencadis style and is very colorful, it is another iconic symbol of Parc Guell. After walking for quite a while we found a nice shaded bench so I could take a quick nap, I needed to reenergize for the rest of the day.

Tami with the Trencadis Lizard at Parc Guell:


The curved bench at Parc Guell:

Tami & Greg on the bench in Parc Guell:


We decided we were ready for some leisurely sightseeing and got back on the bus and just rode it around for about an hour, through the Olympic Village, Montjuic, and back down towards the Mediterranean Sea. We got off at the Christopher Columbus statue, which is the end of La Rambla, the main pedestrian thoroughfare. From here we walked up La Rambla and went into Mercat La Boqueria, their world famous Market. Here is where you can find walls of fruits, all laid out so pretty. There is lots of fish and other seafood as well. We ended up getting watermelon, pineapple, coconut, and freshly made juices to have as a snack, since dinner doesn't really start until 8:30 or so. We walked up La Rambla back to Placa de Catalunya where we sat in front of the Rodin statue and enjoyed our fruit.




We took the bus back up to Casa Batllo where we walked to Kirin (japanese restaurant) for dinner that was recommended to us by Dan. We were looking forward to it but were really just in the mood for sushi and not a whole lot of food. Unfortunately, it is a hibachi style restaurant where you pick what you want and they cook it for you, and it is all included, so we ended up leaving to find dinner elsewhere where we could get something smaller to eat. We walked through the Gothic quarter (Barri Gotic) and ended up eating at a little place called Can Gabi, where we enjoyed nachos, chorizo quesadilla, and Cava. At this point it was nearing 11 pm and I was exhausted, so we just headed back to our room for some much needed sleep.

On our balcony before heading to bed: