Sunny Spain

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Another travel day. Today that meant getting up at 6, getting the kids up at 6:45 and biking to the train station. We then two took trains to Charleroi and a city bus to the airport. The kids were thrilled that there was, once again, a little plastic house to play in near the terminal. Sometimes happiness really is the simple things. The flight to Girona was about an hour and forty minutes. The kids all did fantastic which gave me hope for our long leg going home in January. Once in Spain we had to navigate our way to Barcelona. I am not sure in the end that these tickets were worthwhile since we ended up spending so much money on shuttle buses but the whole weekend was so fantastic it that it doesn't really matter. Spending a small fortune gave us round trip bus tickets for the hour long drive into Barcelona where we took two quick metro rides to the Barri Gotic section of the city and finally found our hostel. To recap that was bike-train-train-bus-plane-bus-metro-metro to get us here 😊

Accommodations are always the trickiest thing to sort out when planning travel. You never know what you are going to get or how easy it will be to get there. The Hostal Levante turned out to be a little dilapidated (peeling paint in our strange apartment) but between the space and the wonderful location it turned out to be perfect for our weekend needs. We had three bedrooms, a living room and kitchen. The girls really enjoy going to all of these new "homes" and acting out their familiar play in a different location. This one had a strange window to one bedroom with bars over it like a jail cell. This provided lots of entertainment in the shape of dungeon, jail and space travel play. After we settled in we hit the streets. The Barri Gotic area is northeast of La Rambla and is lined by a medieval wall which contains little alleyways transporting you back in time. Spain already feels so different from any place we have been. It is so new to us that we didn't have any preconceived ideas about it. Aside from the wonderful architecture the first thing to hit us was the SUNSHINE!!!!! It was amazing being able to walk around the city without a heavy jacket and scarf. We were all in heaven. Our walk through the Barri Gotic brought us past Placa de Sant Jaume, lined on either side by the seats of city and regional governments (Palau de la Generalitat and Casa de la Ciutat), several churches and museums where we ended up at a Starbucks (happiness is the simple, albeit expensive, things sometimes). Refueled we walked to the del Born area to the Santa Maria del Mar church. It was exquisite. We couldn't believe how much we had seen of Barcelona in such a short time.

We then went in search of dinner and found an amazing little gem off of de l'Aregenteria street which had been written up in Food & Wine magazine (we didn't know this in advance). The trip was a success with just this one afternoon topped by an amazing dinner. We had a whole bunch of tapas (spinach with chickpeas, ham, farm sausage with white beans, spinach salad with goat cheese quince & almonds, fried squid, bread with tomatoes and olive oil and mixed salad) and a nice bottle of tempranillo wine. The kids were amazing. Of course I expect Abigail to try and like everything which surprisingly she didn't at dinner. She only tried four of the seven dishes and in the process ate half of a plate of squid! Emma is working on her alter ego, the terrifying Karate Girl, who has many special powers, one of which is to try new foods (her invention, not mine). She decided two weeks ago she wanted to try cauliflower and now the kids all love it roasted for a snack. At tapas she tried the ham (different than ham that she knew), salad and sausage and she loved all of it. Very impressive. Eliza mostly enjoyed the amazing sausage (and here we thought we had the corner on great sausage in Belgium).

Dinner was an absolutely perfect start to our Barcelona weekend. We had a lovely walk home through the city all decked out for Christmas with lights strung up everywhere. We are all loving Barcelona (even though Abigail keeps calling it Amsterdam) and Emma is beside herself excited to see Gaudi buildings in the morning. Eliza and I stopped at a grocery store on the way home, conveniently located next to our hostel and stocked up on supplies. The girls all played jail with Daddy until it was time to go to bed. I had told Jonathan in advance that since he knew some Spanish he would be responsible for play tour guide on this trip. It turns out they mostly speak Catalan, which is fairly different than Spanish, but Jonathan wasn't about to shirk his duties. Thus, Jonathan planned day 2 while I read and then we both played cards and enjoyed more nice Spanish wine until we called day one over.

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Photos

In the Bari Gotic
(Abigail's photo) Eliza poses in front of Camera Boy, aka Jonathan.

Stained Glass in the Santa Maria del Mar
(Emma's photo)

Inside the church
Santa Maria del Mar

Lights
The amazing architecture extended to the street lamps as well. Everywhere we went we found cool lights lining the streets.

Daddy in the jailhouse
The girls got much entertainment and new story ideas from the use of this jail-window in our apartment in Barcelona.