May 20-28

For Christmas, B and I gave each other a trip to Barcelona and I admit I have a problem…no one needs point it out to me and mostly I’m not that ashamed – I am a certifiable Coldplay nut and I wanted to go see them in concert abroad.  As they had not announced any US dates back in December (but have since announced Salt Lake August 31st) and we thought Barcelona sounded fun and Lelu would still be home before she headed off on her study abroad and the twins would still be in school so babysitting them would be easier.  We each bought two tickets to the concert thinking it was our job to book it and wrapped them up for each other on Christmas. Sometimes communication is not our strong suit.  So having 4 tickets (this is where being a Coldplay nut is relevant) when I saw that they added another night to Barcelona, I sold two of them and bought two more tickets to the second night, with his support, being a very good sport, as he is not generally a music fan.  I think this is where his ability to humor my nuttiness paid off in good karma – when I went to book a hotel in Barcelona I saw that they had a vacation package called “Adele package” – curious about when she was going to be there I clicked on it and her concert was the night before Coldplay.  If B is going to listen to music, he chooses to listen to women singing and he’s commented on Adele particularly (not that he knew her name just that he liked the song) so I booked at that hotel in order to get the tickets to Adele.

Who knew when booking everything in December that the twins schedule ended up being the craziest week as TT’s LaCrosse team had made it to the championship and had playoff games every single night the week we were gone AND Ari had her final dance recital, dress rehearsal, dance showcase and cheer practice mixed in.  Needless to say, Lelu spent a lot of time in the car driving them around. We missed too much….TT made a goal in one of the playoff games; their team came into the final game undefeated; and the final game was a nail biter only to lose by one point in the last 5 minutes of the game. It was a sad night for their team. Ari danced her little heart out. She has SO MUCH personality when she’s up there.  The recital was all ballet but the showcase was the fun one to watch.  Christina was a very supportive aunt coming to enjoy the fun rewards of all of her hard work and her favorite stuff: Hip hop and a tumbling routine.  Sad we missed so much:(

Day One

Taking a Vespa tour is my number one Barcelona recommendation.  On Sunday morning our guide Matteo met up with us.  He was originally from Brazil and was really super chill, except when he saw some girls from Holland who had rented Vespas from him driving in the bike lane – that’s a big no-no. He said we were good drivers and made it easy for him.  Why was that so satisfying to hear?  Of course, he couldn’t see that I kept leaving my blinker on, which B pointed out to me lest I get a big Vespa driving ego.  We had three different tour guides who gave us a lot of good info and trivia and I’m going to mix some of the fun facts (FF) in with my photos, because I love good trivia and fun facts.  We spent about five hours touring the whole city. It’s really not that big. It reminds me of San Francisco – a lot packed into a city on the coast.  This is called Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau.  It was designed by a famous architect (I’d never heard of) in 1901 and is still a working hospital. FF: In Spain all healthcare is ‘free’ whether you are a citizen or not.  So a lot of people from Africa and places where the healthcare is not free, come there to have their babies and then go back to their countries.  Our guide says it’s the best healthcare for emergencies and baby delivery but anything else you are on a waiting list 4-6 months long – so either you suffer, pay cash to an independent provider and/or pray you don’t have an aggressive tumor. 

This is called the Sagrada Familia designed by their (beloved and somewhat worshipped) famous artist/architect Gaudi in 1906, when construction began, and they are still working on it.  It is supposed to be a temple for meditation and silence and it’s filled with tourists that pay $30 euros to walk around inside and take photos.  I thought it looked part gothic/sandcastle/Las Vegas.  We didn’t go inside on this day but came back and toured it later in the week.  I’d probably be considered blasphemous – but I thought it was a kind of an “emperors new clothes – gaudy (not Gaudi) – hot mess”

This was B’s favorite building in the tech district…it has a crude nickname…go figureThis was another Gaudi designed house,  People still live in there but the top floor all the tourist can go look at.  If you zoom in you can see all the really unique rod iron balconies.  This is Gaudi park. I have to admit I was impressed with this place – except that it was full of european tourists that don’t believe in showers.  I’ve never been to Asia, Russian, or South America – but the BO in Europe…..makes you want to take strong essential oils to take out and sniff in all crowds.  But the park was worth seeing!This is the view from the very top point in the park.Olympic Stadium…pre-Coldplay. It holds something like 60,000 peopleThe view from the top of the hill with the museum.  This was probably my favorite part of the Vespa ride going around the fountain below and up the hill and around to the stadium. Gaudi really liked mosaics.  I actually thought the house next door was cooler looking but I have no idea who that architect was. and jet lag was setting in…. The house next doorThis is our guide and B standing in the Born district (not like Jason Bourne, but it’d be a great place for him to kick some butt) – it’s got a museum over where they dug to build something new and found all these ancient ruins underneath the city and then it surrounded by cool little boutiques and tapas bars.