Brilliant Barcelona
Love, love loved Barcelona! This city has so much character to it, whether its the lovely cafes, the tiny streets with all sorts of retail shops on them, the Spanish dancing freely on the street corners, to the friendly people who are excited to practice there English with us.
We loved our condo that we stayed at; it was very big (hard to come by in Barcelona), so homey and in a perfect location. So perfect that right down the stairs was a local bakery that made all there baking fresh daily. #Slapthatonmyass
Carb overload is an understatement. Every fourth location was a pastry, cafe, pizza or sandwich shop. One day we even seen a biker that was delivering fresh bread to different places.
The culture is all about "work to live," most of them closed down from 4-7pm and on Sunday mostly everyone was closed with the playgrounds and walking paths packed with people. Chris got a kick out of the gyms not opening up until 7 am on weekdays, and 9 am on weekends.
We did check out the standard tourist attractions such as Le Ramba, Sagradia Familia, the Marina, Park Guell however, our favourite things to do most of the days were to hang out where the locals are off the beaten paths getting lost in the city with each street seeming more interesting than the last.
We went over to the Marina one day, and it just so happened to be a yacht show. We went onto some very nice yachts right on the water. The stairs were pretty steep, and Jada played with the kitchens as if they were her mini playhouse kitchens, creating a bit of a stressful experience not to mention the sales people were not impressed at all. Ha. There were some huge yachts parked in this Marina, after checking out who owned them to name a few, there was Steve Wynn, daughter of Walmart and was rumoured one of Vladimir Putin's yachts.
Spending time at the beach was an exciting experience. I got a massage from a Chinese lady who promised a Reflexology which ended up being an oily foot rub. Chris got in an argument while bargaining over the cost of a beach towel with a flogger. I was jealous of all the people's drinks on the beach so I went and purchased a Mojito which was just green syrup from a flogger that was so bad I only had one sip of it.
The second location distribution of Roger Jones (Chris' dad) ashes was into the Mediterranean Sea the day at the beach. Roger spent some time travelling around this area. Chris' last experience of Spain was when he was 16 years old meeting up with his dad in London to catch a flight to Spain. After a big fight at breakfast, Chris' brother and Chris headed right back to the airport the next day to catch a flight back home to Calgary versus going to Spain for a holiday with his dad.
False Alarm visit to the Hospital. Everyone but Chris caught a cold in Spain. One night Cruz was coughing, and it was a deep, very manly adult like cough which made us think it could be Croup cough, we decided to visit the local Children's Hospital. Everyone was super friendly to us and even took the time to keep Jada entertained. After a half day wasted and a lot of communication challenges we found out that Cruz has a common cold. For us, this is our first time taking our kids to the hospital, and we are embarrassed to admit that our first time was over a 'cold.'
The Spanish love kids! Jada never went a day without someone touching her shoulder, her head or smiling and making goofy faces at her. Cruz was also a hit, while we were getting all of our bags onto the belt at security in the airport the custom's ladies carried him. One other time we were waiting for our food at a restaurant and the bartender reached over the bar to hold him. These are things that you would rarely if ever see people do in Canada.
Travelling with two kids has been a lot of fun, and we are loving watching Jada experience the different cultures and cities with us. Cruz, on the other hand, is just here for the 'ride' or should we say the 'carrier.' Walking past bars, pubs and restaurants at night with a good atmosphere has been a complete tease for us. We have been settling for a glass of wine at the condo on the patio. We brought along a couple of books and discussed what Netflix episodes we were going to watch at night when the kids went to bed, but we haven't had one evening where both kids went to bed before 10 pm. Long days and long nights are our current situation. Not like the fun late nights we had before kids.
Posted on October 27, 2018 by admin in Travel Tips & Tricks tagged
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