Barcelona

Day 1 – We made it. It was a close call, but we did it.

Our flights were with Air Canada and I’ve been worried since the day we got them about our layover time. We flew into Toronto and had to go through a security check there. We only had 1 hour 15 minutes to get off the plane, through customs and to the other side of the airport. Even if we left on time I thought we had a low percentage of actually making it.

Well, Air Canada confirmed their reputation of always being delayed and we left Seattle 45 minutes late. You can imagine I was anxious as all get out. Turns out though, these two ladies in the seats in front of me were also going to Barcelona and on our cruise. By the time we got off the plane we had to hit the ground running. And you all know me and I don’t run.

As we finally got off the gangway and were officially in run mode. One of the gals that we met stopped a guy in one of those carts you see in the airport and asked him if he could take us to the E gates. He said hop on.

Off we went. And I gotta tell ya, if we had not, we would not have made our plane. It was already boarding and we stood for like 5 minutes before they called our zone.

Phew. Safe and sound, and a little sweaty, the rest of the flight was uneventful.

We landed in Barcelona, found our driver and were off to Hotel Gaudi.

We stayed in Hotel Gaudi last time we were in Barcelona and loved it so much we figured we might as well stay again. Prices have gone up significantly. Plus, the room we got was a bit more expensive. We were on the top floor, and we had a terrace.

It was a great hotel. The view from our terrace looked down on the Palau Gaudi roof which has several “Gaudi” style statues.

We didn’t really have any plans for the day we arrived, so we dropped off our suitcases and went in search of lunch. Hotel Gaudi is on Las Ramblas which is a major (and touristy) walking street. Its tree lined walkways are covered with restaurants, flower shops, ice cream, and more. It’s great for people watching.

So, we found a restaurant and ordered our tapas and drinks. Janet had a sangria, and I had a beer. We asked for the small ones. Their smalls are almost 30 oz of liquid.

We stopped at this restaurant primarily because I saw on the menu Fried Olives. What? I had never thought to deep fry a green olive. It was delicious. We also ordered jamon with melon and croquettes.

The real entertainment, though, was Janet. She was taking a drink of her sangria, started to drop it then in the attempt to recover from starting to drop it, she spilled most of it on her. I looked over to see what the commotion was about and saw and piece of apple on her shoulder and her entire front side covered in Sangria. We haven’t stopped talking about it yet.

We sat there for quite a while. Partly because of all the alcohol we had to consume (“had to”) and partly because the sky opened up and it rained. Poured actually. But we were safe under a restaurant tent.

After that, our room wasn’t quite ready so we had to find something to fill our time. I was exhausted so wanted to sit for a bit, and truth be told I needed to find a bathroom. Thankfully there are two Starbucks on Las Ramblas. A teeny tiny on that had the dirtiest bathroom I’d ever seen and no toilet paper. And a huge on that was clean, tidy and had toilet paper. You can image which one I stopped in.

While I was doing that Janet walked up to the top of Las Ramblas and took photos and just checked things out.

Finally, we headed to our hotel since our room would be ready.

That’s when we discovered what a fantastic room we had.

We walked a long way to get dinner. We were on the hunt for paella. Which isn’t hard to find. But it is hard to find a good one. We think we found the restaurant we ate at in 2015 and sat down.

That night I dealt with some leg cramps. They seem to be part of my travel experience these days. I brought electrolytes to help with that but it sure didn’t help that night.

The next day we got up and had our breakfast in the hotel. My standard European breakfast of ham and cheese on a baguette. My god it’s so good.

Then we were off to Parque Güell. Parque Güell is a failed park up on the hill in Barcelona. I don’t remember the whole story but Mr. Güell bought the land and wanted Gaudi to do the design. Mr. Güell was a well off man in Barcelona and told the well off that only the best families would live in this park. Turned out only Mr. Güell, Gaudi and their lawyer lived there. That’s why it was a failed “park”. The rich didn’t come.

It’s a beautiful green space for the city now. Tourism keeps that place a float…and how. It was packed with people from all over the world. PACKED!

Once we were done there we tracked down the Hop On Hop Off bus and, well, hopped on. We had a tour scheduled for La Sagrada Familia and we needed to get lunch before.

We got off at the La Sagrada Familia stop and were FLOORED at the number of people there. It was busy when we were there in 2015, but My GOD. It was wall to wall people. And you all know how good I am around so many people.

We had time for lunch, so we walked down the street and found an open table. The waiter moved a table for us, so we figured this was turning out to be a good spot. We were wrong. We only wanted a ham and cheese sandwich and a Fanta. When we sat and ordered he was “ok” with giving us the ham and cheese, but we HAD to order an alcoholic drink. Fanta was only to go. What? So we said no thank you, got up and left. The guy was so rude and didn’t seem to care at all that he just lost money.

It worked out in our favor though. We walked around the corner and found this cute “very little” place where the woman was friendly and welcoming. We ordered and she said, “go on upstairs and I’ll bring it up.” A couple minutes later we had our sandwiches and a SUPER sized Fanta. I was in heaven.

We walked a little further to the meet up place for our tour and waited until it was time to go.

I don’t even know what to say about La Sagrada Familia. It’s the most unique basilica I’ve ever seen. It’s been under construction for a hundred years and still isn’t finished. It has followed Gaudi’s original plan, mostly, but each engineer on the job has put their own touches on it. The tour guide pointed out the façade that was constructed while a Japanese engineer was in charge all those people have a very definite Japanese face and eyes.

Inside the basilica is just amazing. The outside is fascinating, but the inside is just beautiful. It’s supposed to represent a forest and nature in general. The light that comes in just makes the place glow. It was beautiful in 2015 and even more gorgeous today.

Finishing there I was pooped. We hopped back on the bus and headed to Las Ramblas. We strolled down the avenue until we found a place for dinner. Janet and I both had Sangria, split a pizza and the weirdest Caesar salad I’d ever had. It had fried chicken nuggets on it and the lettuce was the spring mix that has what I call “weeds”.

We sat and did our people watching and amused ourselves thoroughly.

We walked back to the hotel but not before stopping for gelato. I mean, it was on the corner of our hotel so it only seemed right.

Tomorrow we get on the ship. It's gonna be a whirlwind trip again. I wonder if Janet and I will ever take a trip that is relaxing. Probably not.

Sunday Dinners H1

I didn't do so well this year so far tracking Sunday dinners here on the blog. My intent was to post one a month as they happened. And, well, life. 

I started out strong in January. Then nothing. So let me catch you up. 

February - Italian

February was a wroaming Sunday dinner. We all gathered at Chez Levi out in West Seattle. She's got a beautiful house that has a killer view. It's always weird for me to have Sunday dinner some place else. I both love and hate it. Love it because we get to change it up and I don't have to do dishes. Hate it because I love hosting. 

Dinner was stuffed shells. So delicious. We also had Italian Salad, Deconstructed Tiramasu, and appetizers. It was a small group that was the Braspirs, Claudia/Bob, Janet and I. I like small groups sometimes. 

The view from Chez Pantry Goat

That's not one of my cats, that's Frey.

March - Burger Bar

Mmm burgers. I do love a good burger. I blame my mom for that. She LOVED cheeseburgers. The drippier the better. Homemade burgers are one of my favorite things to make. So easy, so inexpensive and so yummy. 

I did the burgers and cheese. Claudia brought all the veggies, including amazing grilled onions. The Braspirs brought baked beans, Janet brought a beautiful lemon cake, Rose and Graeme brough arancini (risotto balls). So much food. I also provided the condiments that included BBQ sauce and fried onions. 

Poor Graeme. Lucy only wanted to sit on his lap. Poor guy is allergic to cats, and that stinkin' cat kept coming back for more. 

This cake was amazing.

April - Thai

Thai themed is officially not my favorite theme. I like Thai food, but I like Thai food in a restaurant. It's a tricky theme because it requires ingredients most of us don't use (kinda like Indian last year). Still everyone played along. 

I made Thai Beef curry in the crock pot. Mark and Jo made spring rolls. Kathy did Chicken Satay. And Janet did Thai Lettuce Wraps. 

I discovered too late that no one signed up to bring dessert. So I brought out some Cresta bars, and Nutella cookies. Worked like a charm. 

Spring Rolls. It took a couple to get the hang of the rolling.

May - Burrito Bowls

I love me a good burrito bowl. And this dinner was spot on. I made carne asada and Charro beans (so good). Mark and Jo brought guac. Graeme and Rose brough Mexican corn. Janet brought sides for the burrito bowls (sour cream, cheese, onions, salsa, etc). The Braspirs brought Flan. 

We had way too much food again, but we were happy and full. As we always are on Sunday dinner nights.

Kathy made flan.

June - Spanish / Portuguese

Oh boy! What a Sunday dinner. Mark and Jo hosted it at their new house in Gig Harbor. We moved this Sunday dinner to Saturday to make it a little easier to get to Gig Harbor and home again without Monday looming. 

Mark made Paella. He and Jo had taken a class and so they knew the right way to make it. Plus he has this massive Paella pan - so it seemed like we had to break it in. 

We started with appetizers, of course. Rose and Graeme brought jamon and cheese; there was smoked salmon; marinated olives, and I made Garlic Shrimp. 

Making Paella is a process, but it's not difficult. There's a lot of components, but if you're an organized chef, this part is easy. Mark did an excellent job and the Paella was some of the best I've had. 

Best part of the night was when Mark was going to take the Paella pan into the house and we'd serve ourselves from there, only the pan wouldn't fit through the back door. That's one large pan. We ate our paella with a yummy El Senior Caesar Salado (it was just a Caesar salad, but we had to make it Spanish.)

We finished the night with a chocolate tort brought by Janet. 

Our next two Sunday dinners will also be wroaming ones. Next month is our annual Low Country Boil at Janet's. Then August is being hosted by the Pantry Goat. 

Barcelona / Canary Islands Photo Scavenger Hunt

About a thousand years ago I read a photography article about asking friends/family for a list of photos you should take on your vacation. The author was surprised at the variety of options presented to him.  He had ridiculous options, mundane options, obvious options etc.

What he ultimately found is by having this list he was constantly scanning his surroundings. He found he was more aware of things on his vacation and found that trying to find these photos made him a better photographer in many ways. The first, and biggest in my opinion, is taking photos that you might have normally missed.

This vacation I had a list of 20 items that my friends and family had given me. Facebook is a wonderful thing for this type of game too. I had done this last year for the trip to Rome but wasn't prepared enough to remember to actually write the photos down. This year I had them written down and shared them with the SIL to help keep me focused on taking them.

Here's the scavenger hunt list and photos.


1. Pickpocket

You'd think it'd be easy to get this photo in a place like Barcelona considering we had been warned and warned about the gypsies and their pickpocketing career. Still I found it was super hard to do. Instead, I took a picture of this crazy woman sitting in the square. She was talking to the birds and yelling at the seagulls when they came around. The more interesting, and frightening, part is she was literally falling out of her shirt. I put on my telephoto lens to check her out when I noticed her girls were out as well. That is not an image you want burned into your brain.


2. Selfies

I'm horrible at selfies. I have short arms and a fat face, which leaves very little room for anything in the background. My friend H is constantly posting selfies and I noticed she rarely has her entire head in the photo.  So SIL and I decided to try that in this photo. We had just scattered Dad's ashes and were walking along the water front. These sand castles had been built for Easter and some of them were pretty darn amazing. I took two photos. The second photo was so bad of both of us that it's been deleted so it never EVER falls into the wrong hands.


3. Cafes and Desserts

Lunch at Cafe Zuricj

Did someone say tapas?

Breakfast at the hotel

This was a no brainer. Although I may have misinterpreted this one. When I was thinking "cafes" I was thinking what we were eating, not the actual café. I only took one photo of a café we ate at, but have several photos of our ham and cheese sandwiches and tapas. We didn't really eat desserts, so that part I didn't even consider.


4. Nature within the city

I wasn't sure how easy or hard this one would be. Some cities don't have "nature" that's worthy.  Barcelona, and many of the places we stopped, thankfully, had some great nature (trees, flowers, mountains etc.) I couldn't originally decide which photo to use for this. But this photo is one of my favorites. SIL and I were doing the walking tour of the Gothic Quarter and this little church was on the list. Alongside the church was this little garden with beautiful orange flowers.


5. Travel companion in a compromising position
No photo for this. Though I tried. SIL made it hard. She knew about this one and I think was hyper aware of what she was doing so I wouldn't take a photo of her in a compromising position.


6. Jamon

Probably the easiest of the list and yet the one I couldn't take enough photos of. We visited La Boqueria open market in Barcelona (and ultimately found a fantastic bar inside that had the BEST ham and cheese sandwiches). The thing about the open market is everything is out in the open. We marveled at how unsanitary we American's considered it. No refrigeration for some things where we would have and all the ham, seafood, etc just sitting out in the open.  There must have been 30 stores that were selling Iberian jamon.  In all the cases, these legs were hung up and when they were slicing it, the leg of pig was attached to this crazy cuff thing.


7. Someone in a hat sipping a coca cola

I love the specific-ness of this one. And I was sure I wouldn't get a picture of this.  I chose to take some artistic liberties with this one, and took this photo on the last day we spent in Barcelona before we came home. I wouldn't have even seen it had a friend we met on the cruise hadn't pointed out another guy in a hat drinking a coke.  The other guy wasn't nearly as interesting as this character. And whether he has coke in his cup we'll never know. My "artistic liberty" is that he's drinking coke.


8. An interesting doorway

This was one I knew wouldn't be a problem either. I love taking pictures of doors. I also figured Europe and Spain in particular would have a ton of interesting doors.  While in Casablanca I tried to get some interesting door shots with the Moorish arches.  That proved harder than I expected. Then when we were in the Kasbah and we were walking out of the fortress we passed this door. I knew it would be the door for this request.


9. Picture of myself in a disco, dancing
So yah, no photo for this one either. SIL and I aren't night owl type of people and were in bed well before the discos opened.  I did have a thought of perhaps using the disco on the boat during the day, but then completely forgot about this one.


10. Picture of someone named Heather

I knew that Heather wasn't a very popular name in Spain and figured this one wouldn't happen. Then when we were in Teneriffe many of the trees up on this mountain were Heather Trees.  So I again, decided to take artistic liberties and take a photo of a Heather tree instead. Then I couldn't get any photos of these trees without them being blurry. SIL and I decided that a blurry picture of a heather tree actually fit the personality of the Heather who gave me this photograph request.


11. Starbucks sign

Barcelona, turns out, has several Starbucks.  I think I counted about 6 different ones as we walked through the city.  Taking a photo of Starbucks wherever I travel is actually something I normally do anyhow.  So this one was a breeze.


12. A Spanish version of Linus and Lucy

This one sent me in an entirely different direction. It started in Casablanca when I saw the first cat. I took a photo thinking I may not get a photo of a black/white cat.  Then as I walked a bit further into the Kasbah, this beauty was sitting there. Ahhh...a Linus/Lucy cat...granted it wasn't in Spain. But I figured that at one time this cat's family had lived in Spain and she was just visiting relatives in Casablanca. So I counted it.


Then what happened is everywhere I saw a cat, I took a photo. In fact, at one point this little brat of a boy (he really wasn't a brat he was surprisingly well behaved) called me out for taking another photo of another cat.

Cat in the Kasbah

Another cat in the Kasbah

Mr. Cat in Tenerife

This little guy was mooching food in Casablanca

Also at the Kasbah

This sweet cat was at a roadside stop we made in Malaga

13. Chains

I stumbled onto these chains on the island of Lanzarote. We had stopped for lunch and across the street was this cut little church.  Wanting to go inside the church we walked over only to find a wedding of christening was taking place and we couldn't go inside. So walking along the outside I found this old chain fence. I couldn't decide which one of these I liked best.


14. Picture of a purple flower

These beauties were in the Alhambra.  Not only are they purple flowers, but they're the MomUnit's favorite flower.  And we had been at the Alhambra in 1986 and I had been flooded with memories from that trip. It seemed like a win-win to me.


15. A noteworthy mustache

Are you kidding me? I hate taking photos of people, let alone people I don't know.  I did see a few mustaches, but none of real "noteworthy-ness".  Then SIL went into this little store in Teneriffe that had this little doll. I think a yarn mustache is noteworthy...don't you?


16. An old padlock and key

I wasn't sure about this one. Finding an old padlock AND key might prove to be challenging.  So again, I took some liberties.  Finding old locks would be easier for sure. I took a couple of photos of old locks, but liked this one the best...even though the actual lock isn't old, the hatch is.


17. A crab

Since we were bringing the crab hats with us, this one wouldn't be too hard. But beyond that, La Boqueria made taking a photo of a crab easy. There were lots of live crabs in that market.  When we visited this underground lava tube that had a lagoon in it, the lagoon has these white, blind crabs only found there. I really wanted to get a photo of those, but in a dark room with crystal clear water, there was no way without a tripod.


18. A pretty, or interesting, bug on a bridge rail

THIS one was one I also put in the "not gonna happen" file.  I did find this interesting worm thing in Teneriffe. Granted it wasn't on a rail of a bridge, but at least it's a bug.


19. An obvious American tourist

My original plan for this one was to have SIL take a photo of me with two cameras around my neck, and a map in my hand...then we found/saw this.  SIL actually saw him first and on our last day.  I had my camera in my bag and couldn't get it out quick enough. Thankfully the American tourist had to stop before crossing the tree...and since I had a telephoto lens I could capture the photo. It isn't a great photo and really was only taken to check this off my list.


20. A picture of a pregnant woman on a Vespa

When I read this one I decided my friends must hate me. What was going to be the actual possibility of this? Almost none.  When we were in Casablanca I was watching the crazy traffic for something interesting to shoot. After having been in Saudi I knew that the chances of something crazy happening in this city with regards to traffic would be a possibility.  SIL saw a cow in the back of a truck, but didn't get a photo.  As we sat at a stop light, I saw this and had to take the photo.  It's not a Vespa. And it's not a pregnant woman.  But it's close.


And so there they are. I wanted to thank everyone who gave me a photo idea. It was fun doing this and practicing my "awareness" of my surroundings.  I am trying to think of a way to do this in my everyday life. Any ideas?