Barcelona

"It's just another shitty day in paradise!"- Jimmy Buffett

Excuse me for starting with profane quote, but as you read on, you'll see this is a perfect quote to sum up our trip to Barcelona.

Barcelona, is truly, my kind of town. It has all of my favorite things: a great beach, cool old city with a rabbit warren of alleys, great food and drink, and good shopping.   My own personal paradise.  After only 4 1/2 days, this city has tied with or even maybe surpassed Zurich as my all-time favorite place!

We flew in to sunny, palm-treed Barcelona on Saturday after fighting with heaps of snow in Germany for the last few weeks.  Our drive to the airport was pretty rough because of all of the snow and the inefficiency of the Germans when snow falls on their roads.  Just seeing the sun was enough for this trip to be great in my mind! We arrived at our hotel, the W, and didn't leave that evening!  It was such a luxurious hotel, right on the beach with great food and the most comfortable beds ever-hands down, no competion!  We were all happy to just sit in the lobby, nibbling tapas and playing games while looking at the beach outside. This is what we were overlooking, so can you blame us?

On Monday, we wandered around the city all day.  We went to La Rambla, the main walking street, and explored the Barri Gothic (Gothic Quarter).  We found a Christmas market and made sure to do some shopping!

I had read online about these Christmas logs that they sell in Barcelona.  Apparently, they are the traditional Catalan Christmas decoration, instead of trees.  The website told me that it is these logs, not Santa who brings kids gifts, and that the logs "poop" out the gifts. There is even a song that kids sing to the log as they wait for him to poop all December.  So, of course I had have one of these pooping logs! Lainey and I each bought one :)

Apparently, poop is really important to the Catalans.  They even have a squatting shephard in their nativity scenes, and a 3 story one in the mall!  Quite foul if you ask me, but also very funny!

At the Christmas market, nearly every stand was selling some animal or person-including celebrities-in this position.  At least at the mall, they had an explanation.  Here is the link I mentioned with further explanations if you are so inclined :).
http://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/en/events/christmas/barcelona-christmas-traditions.html

Now do you see why that was such a good quote to start with?

Aside from, the old town, we also took the kids to the aquarium there.  They loved it!  Later that evening we went for an early dinner (in Spain) at 8pm for paella.  Yum!  Aidan hated the food in Spain, but liked that one of his favorite soccer players from Spain, Messi, had eaten lunch at our restaurant the same day!

The next day we went in search of the Gaudi buildings.  Antoni Gaudi is a "moderniste" architect who's buildings are famous in Barcelona.  We saw 3 of his most famous ones and they were really cool!

La Pedrera

Casa Batallo

His masterpiece, still unfinished, Sagreda Familia

Most mornings, this was our wake up view.  This sunset picture was taken from my bed!

 

We loved trying all the tapas, at restaurants like this. Aidan was not a fan of the food, but Lainey liked it!

 One afternoon, we came back to the hotel to play on the beach.  It was a bit chilly, but the kids still had fun!  Better a little chilly on a beach, than freezing in the snow!

 Our last day there was rainy, so we met up with one of Jay's co-workers who's wife is from Barcelona and they took us to lunch and to the fresh market.  You could buy every kind of fruit or veggie here, plus all assorted parts of animals!  Aidan thought the fish were funny, but we were all a bit grossed out by the cow bellies!

We bought some strawberries there before going back to the hotel for a nap.  Lainey looks the picture of relaxing and luxury as she eats her berries from a martini glass!

Barcelona was a great trip.  Probably the most relaxing one we've been on in some time!  It's a good thing Barcelona is such a fun city, the hotel was so great, we would have been fine never leaving it!  Just staying there was vacation enough!  Hopefully, we can get back to Barcelona, and other parts of Spain, when the weather is good enough to enjoy the city and the beach some more!