Beloved Barcelona

In my case leaving from home happened sometime around 11 am. I walked all my luggage down to my mom's Mini that I was borrowing in order to visit Arno in the Army before heading to the world. So after I'd packed the car down the road I drove. 45 minutes to get to the base. We had visitation rights only that Sunday for 4 hours. And I was standing there 10 minutes before they even opened the gates because I knew I had to leave earlier to catch my plane. We drove in, parked and I got to go say hi to my sweetheart who was so overdressed for the summer heat but not allowed to take off even the hat. I on the other side wasn't allowed to kiss him, hold hands or touch him in general. So hard, considering we had last seen a week ago and there was gonna be another week to go before he would get his weekend off. I gave him this quick hug when no one was looking and then we went off to have some snacks in the cafeteria and hang out his best friends who arrived a little after me.

From the military base I left after 2pm and drove to my parents' where I left the car and all four of us – me, my little brother and my mom and dad - took a taxi to the airport. I got a nice reminder what it is to travel with my folks who travel a lot for work and hobby - and because of that get all kinds of bonuses. On that busy airport we first got to go past the lanes to the priority check-in and after that throught these priority gates to the security check. Then we headed to the lounge and got to eat and drink as much as we could. The wines weren't too tasty tho...

I fell asleep even before the plane took off – must have been pretty exhausted – and woke up when they served drinks. Got myself a big cup of coffee to make it through the 4 hours fligt to Spain!

We landed to Barcelona and took a taxi to the hotel. I headed out to a restaurant with my parents to eat some serrano ham and goat cheese salad while my brother settled down for the final game of the Euro champ football next to a pizza.

The following morning I woke up around 9 o'clock, still pretty tired but headed to get some stuff from the store with my mom. (We are a family full of people who are either allergic or special diets so finding a place that would serve us breakfast would be a mission impossible, that's why we rather buy the food ourselves) Just to inform you, me and my mom are a trouble double and have this tendency to.. well... So we had bought some fruits, oats, ham and yogurt, went by this cute little bakery that sold us fresh croissants and then headed back to our condo. In this point my mom fitted the key to the main door and it didn't turn in the lock. So we stated pulling and pushing and turning and kicking and leaning but the door didn't open. So we tried to memorize which was the number of our apartment and rang the door bell. No one answered. So we did it again. Still nothing. We rang another one. Nothing. We rang again. Some lady answered us and tried to help us by telling how to push and pull and something. Nothing. Then I went to the street and started jumping and waving to get my father's attentions like 3 balconies up. Until I realized that our balcony had a cover and these balconies were different. Then I looked to my left and saw that there was another door – the door to get to our stairway. I told my mom who didn't believe me until the key fit the lock, the door opened and finally – 15 minutes later – we got in.

So after breakfast we left to walk around. Bought some pick and mix candy with my brother and headed to the big church. Sagrada Família - you know – the one they will probably never finish, maybe cause it's such a tourist attraction unfinished. Then we went off shopping. Zara, all of us love it. And some other shops. But the heath got us to stop in a restaurant where I ordered a strawberry-goat cheese salad and a tapas piece of bread (I usually don't eat bread so my tummy was a little mad at me for this decision). After our lunch we hang around these fountains, walked, shopped, were stunned by the beautiful architecture and stopped to eat some fruits. We made it to La Rambla and saw the human statues that the street is famous for. Walked around a food market and bought some more fruits before heading to the hotel. I have taken this siesta thing very serious and every afternoon slept for and hour even tho I am such an anti napper. And after my siesta we headed off to dinner.

The following morning I woke up when it was still cool enough to do some running so I went for a half an hour run around the streets. Back in the condo I showered and got breakfast before jumping into my shoes to go to see the FCB football stadion (you can guess this was my brother's idea). I mean I am a FC Barcelona fan if I need to make my pick but not really interested in football. Hockey is a fast enough sport for me, football gets a little slow with people running and the arena being so big. But it was a cool arena and we got to go in to all the press rooms and showers and everything. But still, not a football person.

Then we took a taxi (where I had my siesta sleep) to the Güelli park that had all the cool mosaics. We tho had lunch before getting in. But oh boy it was pretty. All the statues, houses, mosaics, shapes, flowers. Also walking around the park is free so it's a fun thing to do even with a tight budget :) From the park you can see over the city of Barcelona, also pretty cool!

After that we walked 4,5 km to the Gothic township. There we had some afternoon tea (*holding up my pinky*) and walked around. Pretty cool shops and people singing opera on the streets. But really, if you want to go shopping for anything fun, do it there. I didn't buy anything tho, really more just amazed by the stuff they were selling. And when our feet were asking for a stop, we sat down for churros and hot chocolate! Yummy! Then we made it through the store and bought ourselves some small snacks that we had during the night, like ham, wine, fruits and so on. So the last night we hang out at our apartment because the next day we had planed to take the car to Andorra so I guess some rest for our poor feet didn't make any harm.

Till the next time,
Linnea