After leaving the boys on their own to fend for themselves (read: watching Phineas and Ferb in Spanish), Robert and I drove around the city trying to return our rental car. We managed to find the train station and left the car, what seems like an every day task but was actually quite monumental in a foreign city and had I not rented a car there a couple years earlier we never would have managed. We bought horrid sandwiches from the train station shop and took them home to toast on the pannini machine - not the gourmet meal of my dreams!
The next two days we were tourists, taking the double decker bus to the top of the hill and going to Parque Guell, designed by Gaudi with amazing views of the city. We temporarily lost the boys who insisted on being mountain goats and not sticking to the paths, but we managed to find them and headed back down the hill to meet up with our friends, Laia and Gumer, for lunch at the old market at San Catarina. Lunch was one of the best of the trip and then we headed to the Picasso Museum in the old town. I wasn't able to go last time as it was a Monday and it was closed. That said, I was unable to go this time due to the over three hour wait to get in! Like last time, it was all for the best since wandering through the old streets admiring graffiti and shops was wonderful. There was a great shop called "Happy Pills" that sold candy in pill bottles - you could fill the bottles however you wished from candy bins. Their "Anti-Crisis" cure was a paper cone like you'd get at the doctor's office to fill with water to take a pill, only you could fill this cone with all the candy you could get into the cone for one euro. Amazing to see how much James and Henry could cram into one little cone! We also saw amazing waffles, but we skipped them in favor of tapas on sticks. I did photograph all the waffles we did not eat, however...
The next day we did more wandering through the Rambla and back to old town to buy soccer jerseys and ended up eating a few tapas and then some fresh pasta back in old town. The night finished at the new Espanyol soccer stadium to see a soccer game. Espanyol won and it was great, although the stadium was not nearly as wild as the one in Germany. If it had been FC Barcelona playing, the number one team, it would likely have been CRAZY. But this was fun and we got to see Laia and Gumer and it was an amazing way to finish our time in Spain.
At 3:30 in the morning we woke up and by 6:00 am we were on our way to Rome en route to Tel Aviv. The boys had been promised ice cream at the soccer game, but there was no ice cream at the stadium, so yes, we had gellato for breakfast.
A few photos of the days are here, although the photos of the game are not yet downloaded... View Album
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