Climbing Mountains, Hitting the Beach, and Borat?

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After our last posting, we decided to head up Montjuic, the 'mountain' in Barcelona, which happens to be about a block from our apartment. We strapped Delaney in to her carrier and hiked up the mountain for some beautiful views of the Sea and Barcelona. There is also an old fort up there with some distinctively less old anti-aircraft guns. On our way down we stumbled upon a small zipline in a park (completely unattended of course) and had a great time taking Delaney for rides on it (unfortunately the video got deleted...).

The next day we wandered through the Gothic and Born districts to the Ciutadella park, Barcelona's answer to Central Park. There was a gorgeous fountain there as well as half of Barcelona's population enjoying their Saturday picnics. Delaney enjoyed some quality time on the swings before we headed off in search of lunch.

We found a tapas place in a courtyard where we dined on Catalonian style cod fish (similar tasting to Ceviche), melon and Iberian ham, and some of the best mussels I've ever had. After lunch we headed to Barceloneta beach to join the throngs of sunworshipers. Never have I ever seen so many people on a beach. For miles and miles every inch of sand was covered with people. Somehow we managed to forget towels, but plopped down on an available inch of territory and took Delaney in for her first dip in the Mediterranean. She seemed ok until her brain actually registered how cold the water was. She much preferred to sit in the sand and play with it (and occasionally try to eat rocks/cigarette butts/old bread crusts...not the cleanest of beaches). We enjoyed people watching. There was a steady parade of Asian women offering massage on the beach, men offering to tattoo you on the beach (with a REAL freakin' tattoo), and guys with cans of beer on ice in plastic bags. Guess who we flagged down? 😊 While drinking our newly acquired beverages a throng of men in shirts that said 'Que es...?' (Spanish for 'What is...?) with a man in a lovely, lovely Borat bathing suit. We can only assume it was a bachelor party. Of course, we got a nice side view picture for you all.

After the beach we headed to the market to stock up on goodies for dinner. I've found a great bottle of cava that costs about $3 and I whipped up a very tasty dinner before dominating a game of Phase 10.

"How's traveling with a baby?" - Glad you asked! Actually its been pretty easy. I read somewhere the babies adjust to pretty much anything after three days. True to form, on the third night D slept right through. She seems to really enjoy all the sightseeing and we make sure to take her to a playground at least once a day so she can run around with other kids. She's been eating absolutely anything we put in front of her, so that's been very easy (she's loving some fresh goat's milk cheese lately). She's decided that there is so much excitement that she only wants to take one long nap per day and that's made things much easier in terms of timing. We're careful to head home about 1 1/2 hours before bedtime so she can wind down, take a bath, and read her books we brought from home. By nine, she's asleep and we're ready for dinner Euro style 😊

We're also going to start posting a running tally of how many people say "Go Gators!" to us (Pat has a Gator shirt as one of his five shirts). So far, 2.

This morning we got up and walked up the Ramblas and found quite the political demonstration. Apparently Spain is getting ready to vote and they are very, very unhappy. I'd imagine the US would be similarly unhappy if unemployment hit 21%!

In the afternoon we grabbed a bite to eat at a Kurdish restaurant before heading to DHUB, a design museum of sorts. It had a few cool things (like a laser that could be used to free form draw furniture in the air and then a computer/machine would actually make that piece of furniture). It was free, so we were happy. We also saw the most amazingly LONG line for the Picasso museum. We're glad we went last time (it wasn't that great, frankly).

On the way home we listened to the sweet, sweet sounds of the cruise ships departing, so tomorrow we begin our tour of the Modernist structures. La Sagrada Familia is slatted for tomorrow, but we plan to hit all the big ones.

Hope all is well in the States and congrats to all those who ran the Fargo marathon!

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Comments

[Andy]

Borat
Thanks for the pic of the Borat unitard. Must. Bleach. Brain.

[Mirm]

wondered
I wondered if you were seeing any of the protests. It would be super interesting to see political demonstrations in a different language. I've only seen them in Ireland. So glad Delaney is handling the travel well. So what tattoos did you all get? ;)