Day 12: Barcelona, Spain or "My love affair with an air conditioned bus"

June 28: Barcelona, Spain

Okay! Another day and my last "official" planned excursion: a FULL day tour of Barcelona for 22 people (Badgleys, Hollands, Faurots, Zdepskis, and the McDonells). I worked with Julia from the tour company to create a custom tour since it was just our group. Our itinerary for this glorious 9:00-5:00pm day of fun and learning:

REALLY loving listening
 to the tour guide

La Sagrada Familia- Crazy (and still incomplete) Gaudi designed church
Park Guell- Meticulously planned and incredibly advanced for his time Gaudi designed park
Las Ramblas/La Boqueria- The most amazing and fascinating food market I could ever conceive of!
Mountjuïc- Literally means "Jewish Mountain" that was built up with lots of venues for the '92 Olympics
The fütból stadium- Yay. If it was playing season I am fearful we may have had to attend a game :)
Olympic swimming pool
Cultural Museum
The SUPER cool Gaudi houses
An old bullfighting ring (that is now, of course, a MASSIVE mall)

The top of Mounjuïc

It was the BEST choice. Our tour guide, Macarena (Yes. Seriously. That was her name :) was incredibly informative and interesting. We had a brand new luxury bus that had to have well over 50 seats. As there were "only" 22 of us, the adults congregated in the front to catch every fascinating detail Macarena had to share with us, while the teen contingent put as much space as possible between us and them in the back two rows. With every stop I appreciated our bus more and more. It was a cooling beacon calling mama home after a lap around beautiful Parc Guell or a (very) short hike from the air conditioned doorway to see the view from the top of Moutjuïc. It would be dishonest if I said I did not gaze at the sweaty (and visibly grumpy) tourists traveling in packs up the steeper hills and settle myself a bit more comfortably in my cushy seat while being SO grateful we were NOT them. (Insert MAJOR applause for Nana again, as she funded our part of this excursion!)

"Napping Medicine"

This crossed the entire
WIDTH of the table!

I could not say one thing that was "way" better than another but our lunch sure was memorable! Shockingly, the teenagers took off on their own for lunch with one working cell phone between the five of them, while the rest of us headed to a great little restaurant near La Boqueria. It was hot and my brother ordered a "large beer" and lo and behold, a LARGE beer did he get! Not to be outdone, Toby and Jerremy also had one. I could sense the bus nap coming as soon as the VATS of cerveza were set in front of them! They say that we like BIG food in America but HOLY COW! This was the seafood platter for TWO! And the size of the straws! My brother started calling them "spitball snipers" and the kids could not get enough of them! Fun for everyone!

Ignore me...
Check out those straws!

We returned back to our respective rentals, relaxed with a lovely beer called DAMM LEMON and headed out again for dinner at the beach... this time with only 19 people. :)

Dinner at "The Crazy Crab"

Dinner was great and we had lots and lots and lots of authentic Spanish foods and some Spanish twists on home favorites like margaritas and mojitos. By 10:00 we were stuffed and ready to give birth to some Spanish food babies so we headed by multiple taxis back to our places. Overall, a very good day with very good friends!