España!

        The first day in Barcelona, we went on a city tour from 1-5.  They took us around all the major spots in Barcelona, and it was a really good overview.  It helped to plan what we wanted to do on other days.  We went to Montjuic (spelling..?), which had gorgeous views of the city.  That day also happened to be a holiday in Spain, I believe St. John/St. Juan, so there was a party going on in the park, so that was fun to see!  It wasn't any official city party, it was just a big group of college-aged students happy to not have school, and it was neat to see what kind of music they listened to and stuff.  Next we went to this place called the Pueblo Español.  It's this fake walled-in city that is supposed to represent all the provinces of Spain, and theres different areas of the Pueblo that have different architecture and maybe a replica of a famous church or something.  A lot of people really liked it, but it wasn't really something I would ever do again.   It was made-for-tourists and pretty fake looking, but supposedly I saw what southern Spain looks like?  Next we went to the Gothic quarter, which was AWESOME.  They started out by showing us this area that was built by the Romans in the 3rd century! It was so incredible.  The architecture was awesome and it was the characteristic European streets that are really narrow and windy but randomly converge and open up into enormous plazas.  That was definitely one of my favorite spots in the city.  In the gothic quarter there was also a beautiful cathedral.  I took so many pictures that I'll have to show y'all, but it was unfathomably enormous and beautiful.  After that, we took a short drive around the city and saw a lot of Gaudí's buildings, which are nuts!  His architecture is like crazy messed up art that somehow manages to pass building safety codes.  They are so cool.  We visited the Sagrada Familia, which is a Gaudí-designed cathedral.  It's apparently been under construction for something around 150 years or so, and they say it's not even close to completion.  But what there is of it is insane - by far the coolest building I've ever seen in my life.   After that, we came back to the boat and changed clothes and went out to dinner (this is Megan, Karyn, and I)  We went to a place called Amaya, which was on Las Ramblas, the huge center street that runs through Barcelona.  I had Paella de verduras, which was delicious. Here, we also learned that it's best to buy an enormous water bottle everyday at the market for 1 euro, and take it with you everywhere.  At restaurants, they won't serve you tap water.  If you say you just want water, they show up with a teeny .5L bottle for 2 bucks.  Then we walked down a couple side streets off Las Ramblas and eventually found ourselves in the gothic quarter again, which was cool.  It doesn't get dark until around 9PM here, so we had a lot of time to walk around and explore after dinner.  We stopped at a little restaurant and shared bottle of wine and had dessert - Catalan Creme.  Dear goodness gracious it was so good.  It was a mix between flan and creme brulee and custard, and it was yummy!  Then we walked back towards Las Ramblas and found a happy Irish pub on Pg. Ferran.  It's really weird - Barcelona has two things to do at night - either crazy sketchy nightclubs with crazy sketchy people or irish pubs - there's no in-between or a more authentic Spanish bar scene that we could find.  Pretty much all Irish pubs.  They were really nice there, though!  We ordered chicken wings, which came with this really yummy tangy/spicy sauce.  Megan and Karyn also ordered white russians, which I'm not really that into because of the coffee taste.  I will say, however, that they taste mostly like chocolate milk.  It's like those Bushwhackers!  Then we went back to the ship pretty early, around midnight.
        The next day, I took a trip to Montserrat, a mountain about an hour away from the city that has a beautiful monastery built into the rocks.  The church was gothic-style and beautiful, and the view from the mountain was amazing.  You could see down into the farm villages and it was really cool!  The cathedral has a patron black madonna carved out of wood that has immense spiritual significance for the people here, but the line to get up to view it was about 2 hours long, and we didn't have the time on our tour, so i didn't get to see that up close.  I saw pictures, though.  After that trip, we went back to the boat for a little and then made our way into Barcelona again for another night out.  Darnit - I just realized I have a flip flop tan.  That stinks.   We went to a bar called the Obama Bar, which was either already a bar before Obama became president (and was just a coincidence) or a semi-offensive racial slap at Obama.  It was decorated with traditional African decor and had pictures of people in villages in Africa - we didn't really understand it.  Our best guess is that Obama is a town in Africa somewhere - can someone clarify?  Either way, they had a statue of Obama sitting in one of the booths, kind of like the ones of Ronald Mcdonald.  I sat on his lap for a photo, just like Ronald too.  We ate a variety of bar-type snacks for dinner and watched Spain play in the world cup, which was pretty cool.  The bar was packed and everyone was going nuts.  Europeans love them some fútbol.  Then we decided to try our hand at one of the clubs.  We walked a good 6 miles or so past the beach to get to this one club area that was supposed to be the best, and we didn't end up going to one because they all wouldn't let Brett in because he was wearing an España soccer jersey; apparently thats a no-no in clubs because of possible drunken brawls.  So we went to a kebab place and got "kebabs," which were not, in fact, on a stick.  Blew my mind.  It was just meat and lettuce and stuff wrapped in a pita shell.  By this point, it's like 2 or 3 in the morning, and everyone still wants to go out somewhere, so we walk down and find this row of bars.  I repeat - bars!  Not Irish pubs!  Eureka.   We went from place to place and most people got shots and mixed drinks, but I'm civilized and got only a white wine at the first place.  I didn't feel like drinking much.  Nor do I ever really feel like drinking much, for that matter.  Everyone makes fun of me and calls me a mom because I always sit there and sip my glass of wine while other people down shots of nasty alcohol.  They laugh at me… :-/  Karyn has actually started calling me Mommy as a joke.  Same with Megan - she stubbed her toe real bad one of the days and it was bleeding and I cleaned it and put a bandaid on it; she promptly started calling me Mom too.  Anyway.  The barhopping lasted until around 4:30 or so and then we came back to the boat.  I was so sleepy from my little glass of wine, so I took a shower to get the nasty smoke out of my hair and fell into bed.
        Next day - we had lunch at a restaurant called Ambos Mundos, in La Plaça Reial off of Las Ramblas.   Continuing my paella tour of spain, I had Paella de Pollo (paella de polloneta in Catalan, the language they speak in Catalunya, the Province where Barcelona is).  All three of us girls wanted the chicken paella, too, so they ended up cooking one huge dish of it and bringing it out to us in the pan (which is the traditional way to serve it, supposedly - you get to scrape the crunchiness at the bottom of the frying pan, which is awesome)  It was delicious.  By far the best paella I had during my stay in Barcelona.  There were also some street performers that were doing acrobatics right next to our little outdoor seating area; they were insane.  They would hoist each other up and balance in the craziest positions.  Their arms and cores must have been inhumanly strong.  I can't remember where we went to lunch, but we spent the majority of the daytime at the Parque Guell.  It's a park that was designed by Gaudí, and is therefore one of the coolest parks I've ever seen in my life.  It's huge too.  We roamed around for hours and hours and took a lot of pictures.  It's set on up on the hill overlooking the city (Barcelona is between the mountains and the ocean), and we climbed all the way to the top and got an awesome view of the whole city.  Side note - I'm currently on the boat and they have Aladdin playing on the TVs in our rooms; I love the crew's choice for movies.   Anyways.  After Guell we went to the shopping center that is right next to the port.  We walked around for a while and went into a lot of the stores.  Most everything was the same as the US, so I resisted buying anything.  In the center of the mall, the had a Caboiera troupe showing off their skills, which were pretty impressive.   I still have the Caboiera song stuck in my head three days later.  After that we went back to the boat to change for dinner and went out to watch the US soccer game.  We ended up going to our happy Irish pub again, which was our favorite place so far.  We ordered burgers for dinner, and they were so enormous and delicious!  The game ended up being disappointing, but it was a fun night anyway.  We hung out with some other friends from the boat for a little and went back to the boat around midnight.
        The last day, Sunday, we didn't have much time on shore.  Lunch, we went to a pretty touristy place called Top Tapas.  I had Paella de Carne (finishing out my paella tour) and it was not very good.  Ambos Mundos was wayyyyyy better the day before.  We walked around for a little bit and visited the big outdoor market that Barcelona is famous for.  It was really neat!  Alas, it was time to board the ship again, and we said goodbye to Spain.  It was a great four days!  As Jasmin says in my awesome closed-circuit TV showing of Aladdin, it was a dazzling place I never knew :)  Next stop - Italy!