Barcelona, Spain - March 2011

We flew to Barcelona on a Wednesday night and arrived the next day in the morning.  As we were sitting on the plan getting ready for takeoff, passengers started lining up in the isle with their cameras.  Apparently there was someone famous sitting 2 rows in front of us.  It turned out to be Lionel Messi, the biggest soccer player on Barcelona's team.  Because we spent most of the long flight watching movies and eating food, that meant we had to spend a lot of thursday resting and relaxing since we didn't sleep.  It was nice just to spend a day hanging out near the hotel.  We stayed at the Barcelona Airport Renaissance.  

The hotel had paddle ball courts.  Not knowing how to play paddle ball, we played using tennis rules.  We had a great time and wish that there were more paddle ball courts in the U.S.!

These are brand new paddles.  The first day we were there we played with some that the hotel had that were in pretty "rough shape."  The concierge felt really bad that we had to play with paddles that had paint chipping off, so he bought some brand new ones for us to play with the next day.  Later on our first night we walked around the suburb "El Prat" where our hotel was located.  We came across a pizza shop called Telepizza, and ordered some yummy pizza, garlic bread, and coke.  My Spanish is really rough, but I got the point across and the food came out how we wanted it, so I suppose you could call that success.  We also stopped at a small little market and bought some cookies, juice, and fruit for the morning.  On our way out of the market, we saw someone get some fresh baked bread from a gentlemen in the back and decided we needed to come back the following night and get some for ourselves!

The 2nd day we were there we got up and took the free shuttle downtown that our hotel offered.  We were dropped off in one of the Plazas, then walked, walked, walked, and walked some more.  We looked at our walking route for the day and estimated it at about 20 miles. 

Upon arriving to Spain, we found that our camera had decided to stop working, so our first stop in the city was to find a camera.  We found a camera shop a few blocks from where we were dropped off and bought a camera with a european plug.  They didn't have any with our type of plugs.  Oh well, what can you do?  We weren't about to buy an instant camera to save memories from Spain!  In all honesty, it is probably one of the nicest cameras we've had and we are rather enjoying it.  So not all is lost.   

Our main destinations were all of the Gaudi architecture.  We saw a lot of neat cathedrals and what not along the way, but really just wanted to see the Gaudi buildings. 

The first Gaudi building we saw...

Another Gaudi building...

La Sagrada Familia was the most intricate building I have ever seen!  Gaudi designed it and it has been under construction since 1883 and will not be finished for another 20 years or so!!  This is not surprising at all once you actually see it.  Every single aspect of the builiding was 100% ornately designed. 

After walking and walking and walking we took the shuttle back to the hotel and were soooo tired.  We had zero energy left, but loved paddle ball so much that we just had to play.  We went and played for an hour or so and completely overdid ourselves.  I fell asleep for a couple hours, but woke up very hungry so we made the jaunt to the Telepizza and got ourselves some more dinner.  I promptly fell asleep when we got back and woke up about 12 hours later.  When I woke up in the morning, my entire body was sore.  I guess that's what happens when you work at a desk! 

Our last full day in Spain we went down to a larger grocery store and bought some more juice, cookies, chocolate, and food for a miniature picnic.  We had the picnic on the lawn outside our hotel, then took the afternoon shuttle downtown.  Our goal was to explore the beaches and see some of the buildings at night all lit up.  The beaches were packed since it was about 70 degrees and sunshine.  We took our razor scooters this day and rode all over the beach walks.  We found a little crepe shop and bought one with dulce de leche.  So yummy!

We found lots of fun sculptures, my favorite being a giant rope/web/playground.  I jumped off of the playground to get a neat picture and actually broke my big toe when I landed.  I was super glad I had the scooter because I was having a really hard time walking.  This is the picture...

Luckily the picture turned out pretty cool or I would have been extra mad about the injury.  We had dinner at a restaurant on the beach.  It was a buffet and had plenty of crab legs and other seafood for Brett.

We didn't get to play paddle ball on our last night there since I hurt my toe. So sad.  The following morning we got up and went right to the airport and flew back home.  Luckily we got business class so I was able to just put my foot up and stay off of it which I think really helped it.  When we got into Atlanta at 1:30pm we instantly knew it was going to be tricky getting out on a flight.  There were volleyball teams everywhere!  We tried all sorts of flights throughout the day and watched them all fly away without us.  Finally at 11:00pm we caught a flight to Omaha, slept in the Omaha airport, and caught a flight to Minneapolis at 5:00am to make it back in time for work that day.  Needless to say, it was a rough night at work, but it was totally worth it!