Lovell Me True: Euro Trip Part 2

The second part of our trip we spent in Espana. We decided to go to Barcelona and experience the Mediterranean. We arrived on Tuesday, June 10th, travelled to our hotel about 30 minutes outside the city in Sabadell, and decided to just hang out there the rest of that night to rest some. We found an apartment style hotel there, so that was really nice. It had two bedrooms, a kitchenette, and even a washer in the bathroom. No dryer, but hey, I won't complain about hang drying if it means avoiding the laundromat!

Wednesday we spent some time walking down La Rambla, the street leading down to the beach that has lots of vendors and shopping on it. There are also people dressed up in crazy costumes that will cover their face so you can only get a picture of them if you give them money. Kind of annoying, but still fun. We also went on a bus tour of the city, including Passaeig de Garcia (the rich upscale shopping street), Park Guell (designed by Gaudi, including one of his homes), and La Sagrada Familia (the cathedral Gaudi started in 1882, which is not expected to be completed until 2026 or something ridiculous like that). It was a very interesting tour!

Costume lady on La Rambla

Park Guell

La Sagrada Familia

Thursday we went to the beach. Oh man! The water was much more pretty than what I'm used to here on the Gulf of Mexico. Clear and blue. The sand was even white! But when you walked on it, it was very hard and grainy, so I'm not sure the whiteness was worth it. (Sidenote - if you ever go to the beach in Barcelona, be warned to not everyone thinks they should wear clothing at the beach, especially old woman). We spent about half an hour on some beach chairs before someone came up to us saying that we had to pay 10 euros to use the chairs. That wasn't happening, and I was already starting to look like a lobster, so we moved into some shade, got some smoothies, and just enjoyed looking at the beach for a while. We also went to La Museu de Xocolata - The Chocolate Museum! Lots and lots of Chocolate!

Carly, me and Kristin at the beach

Chocolate Ferdinand and Isabella

Chocolate Ben Hur

Chocolate Ratatouille

The next day we went to the Barcelona Zoo. I don't think I'd ever been to a major zoo before, so I really enjoyed it. I think I took like 200 pictures! We also walked through a park and saw the Arc de Triumf.

Big animal

Little animal (I LOVED the little monkeys!)

Water animals

Spanish Arc de Triumf

Saturday we went on a cruise up and down the coast. There were some HUGE cruise boats in the harbor. They were ridiculous. The water was really choppy the farther out we got, so we kept getting splashed with water every time the boat dipped back down into the water, but it was still a fun little cruise. That night we went to a Flamenco show to get a taste of some true Spanish culture.

My first ocean 'cruise'

Harbor with huge cruise ship - this one was small compared to some of the others

Flamenco! Blurry, but I tried

Cast of the Flamenco show - the guy with his shirt open was very cute!

Sunday we stayed at the apartment most of the day to rest, do laundry, and get ready to leave Barcelona. We went back into the city one last time to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe - we were desperately in need of some normal food! That night we ordered pizza in our room and played cards. It was a much needed relaxing day. We really enjoyed Barcelona, but were also ready to head off for the next part of our journey!