Barcelona

You wouldn't have known it from my lack of posts, but 2 weeks ago we actually got to leave the UK for the whole weekend and head down to Spain. We spent 2 nights in Barcelona, and I must say, the place is fantastic. The food, the people, the whole atmosphere was incredible. If only our beach day had been a bit nicer (see the photos) it would have been perfect. And certainly 2 days is not enough...another day or two would've been perfect.

We landed Friday night around 8:00 and after a 30 minute train ride to the hotel and dropping our things off, we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of dinner time. It didn't take long to find a place about a block from the hotel, and though the menu didn't explicitly say Sangria, we stopped anyway. It turns out Sangria is implied in my Spanish restaurants, and good thing we asked, because this place ended up being the best we had all weekend. It is also where we ordered the BBQ platter for 2. When it arrived I only recognized 2 of the 5 meats, but I figured I was in a new place and I wanted to see what it was all about. I at least tried a bite of everything, eventhough I was sure one was kidney. I was slightly scared when the waiter didn't know the word for the one I thought looked like brains, but was also slightly relieved when his co-worker told him it was glands. The fifth meat was blood sausage, and having lived in England for 6 months I knew to stay away.

On Saturday, our only full day, we spent the day wandering around Las Ramblas and saw the La Sagrada Familia. I can't really do it justice, but it's a chruch that has been under construction for over a 100 years. Even while we were there we saw 4-5 cranes and lots of scaffolding. The work that is done is incredibly detailed. I got some photos, but again, they'll never do it justice. Saturday night we headed into the Bario Gothic for dinner, but actually ended up next door to the hotel.

Sunday was beach day, but the weather wasn't so cooperative. We at least put our feet in, so I can cross that large body of water off my list. There also happened to be a triathalon that morning, so we sat down and watched the parade of sweaty, beat-down athletes run by while we sipped on espresso and ate our ham and cheese toasties.

You can find the muy bueno pictures aqui. Bear in mind that the reason I haven't posted them until now is that my trial of Adobe Lightroom expired. And as I'm not technically a student this semester I don't qualify for the student rate. And I'll a monkey's uncle if you think I'm paying full retail for software. So if the pictures suck, I apologize, I'll re-visit them next Spring when I'm enrolled in classes and can reap the benefits.