Captions

So after talking to Rhonda, we realized that all of our Snapfish captioning up to this point may have been a huge waste!!

If you are actually looking through the pictures that we post links to (at right), don't click the "Play Slideshow" button. Instead, just click on the first picture and then click through all of them to see our little notes on what is what.

If you have been watching the slideshow in the past - look at this as a great opportunity to re-live our last several months in Europe!

Barcelona!!!! (Under Construction)

So, now that busy season is pretty much over, we were able to take another trip out of the country. I had really been getting an itch, as I've spent more than 2 months in the same country (the longest since we came over). We decided to take a 3-day weekend. We knew we wanted to go to Spain, and it was a toss-up between Barcelona and Madrid. Jenna ended up picking Barcelona, and I'm sure glad she did. This trip was amazing. This is going to be long, and broken out by day, so don't feel bad if you have to read it over multiple days, because that's how I wrote it.

Friday, March 6th

In line with our not wanting to miss out on any traveling time (and because early flights are cheaper), we booked the earliest flight on Friday morning. This, of course, meant we needed to leave the house at 4:45, which was just awesome. We made it to the airport without any hiccups, and our new Rick Steves' travel backpacks were perfect for fitting all of our stuff in a carry-on. The flight was great, especially the landing, as you fly in over the ocean/beach and downtown area of the city, so the views were great.

Our first stop was our lodgings - our first experience with a hostel. We played it pretty safe, staying in one of the nicer ones where we had our own private room and bath, and it was pretty nice. It was actually run by 2 girls originally from the US, so we were able to get some good info from them and they made it feel a little more friendly. We freshened up a bit and went out to hit the city. We first walked along Las Ramblas, which is the main street running through the city. It is mainly pedestrian, with two small lanes running on the sides for cars. the central section is completely packed with people, street performers, and surprisingly, pet stores. There were probably 20 stands with birds, turtles, rabbits, and even roosters.  For some odd reason, we didn't take any pictures of this.

We then headed over to the Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter), which is the main historic section of the city. It is full of very small winding cobblestone streets that seem like they haven't changed in several hundred years. It is also the home of the city's main Cathedral. This was our first main tourist attraction and the first bit of evidence for why this post is subtitled "Under Construction". Here is a stock photo of the outside of the cathedral that I got off the web:


And here is the photo that we took:

As you can see, the entire main facade was covered in scaffolding, which just happened to also be a huge advertisement for the local telephone provider, which you love to see on the Church. The Cathedral was pretty nice on the inside as well. It was a lot like the ones we've seen all over Europe, so not too much to mention. The only interesting things were 1) the cloister (garden area inside the church walls) where they have kept several geese for hundreds of years; and 2) the electronic votive candles (lots of churches we've been to have allowed for purchasing a candle and lighting it. As a 21st century church, here you just drop a Euro into a slot and a fake candle lights up). Awesome.

We next headed for lunch. As you can see from the photo, the weather was incredible - sun shining and about 65 degrees, so we ate at a small restaurant with seating in an outdoor plaza. We had our first Spanish dish, paella (pie-a-yah), which is a rice dish with meat (traditionally seafood) and a few veggies and some good spices. It is amazing. For Rhonda, we took this photo:

After a stop for ice cream (they have tons of ice cream shops - something that is sorely missing in London), we went to one of the other historic churches in the area, which although it is less famous is supposedly a better example of Gothic architecture. It was interesting in that it is very open, compared to most cathedrals that split up the wealthy from the commoners.

Our last stop for the day was the Picasso Museum. We didn't originally plan to stop here, but it is one of the 3 places listed for Barcelona in our new book "1,000 to See Before You Die". Anyway, it was interesting to see the museum, because as it turns out, Picasso did not get into what he was famous for until later in life. The museum was dedicated to his entire life, so there were a lot of things that looked normal (drawings, a lot of stuff from his "blue period", etc).  They also had plenty of the cubist stuff that he's known for, but it was interesting to see the other side you don't usually hear about. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed.

We left the museum, and called it a night after our busy day.

Saturday, March 7th

We had a pretty big day planned, so we got started relatively early with a pastry and juice from a local shop. We headed to the "central park of Barcelona", partly because it is supposed to be nice, but also because there was supposed to be this amazing fountain there. Once again, the architecture was supposed to be great, and you could climb to the top and get some great views over the park and the city. Here is the stock picture from the web:


Notice all of the cool sculptures, nice foliage. And now this is what we saw:


Now it was nice that they had the fountains running, but of course, it was also under renovation, so we missed out on the full effect, and couldn't go to the top of it.

So we left the park a little disappointed, and headed to the Olympic Village (Barcelona hosted the '92 Games, remember). In anticipation of the Games, they built up a Marina and beach area with tons of restaurants and shopping. This was the area where people hung out at night or when they weren't actually watching an event. We enjoyed lunch on the boardwalk, and even were able to spend about an hour "laying out" on the beach, which is Jenna's favorite thing to do:

It was amazingly sunny out, which was nice, but it was still only in the mid 60s, so we had a little more clothes on than we're used to wearing to the beach!

After a little break, we headed to to see Montjuic (big hill/small mountain), which is where they have an old palace (converted to a museum) and the actual stadium of the Olympics (now going mostly unused). It started off with a great view of the palace from the foot of the mountain. Here is the picture from the web:

And here is the picture we took (of course with scaffolding):

Even with the construction, this was very cool. The entire approach is full of great landscaping and fountains and it all leads up to this very impressive building at the top. We've uploaded a lot of photos, but they really don't do it justice.

So, we started making our way up the mountain (which, in hind sight, may not have been the best idea). We decided to hold off on the museum until the sun went down (we had to stay in the sun when the opportunity presented itself!), so we went straight for the stadiums. They were cool to see, but it is a little weird. They are mostly unused, and other than a handful of tourists, this enormous place was empty. We didn't stick around too long, but before heading back to the museum, we'd heard that there were great views looking down on the city from the top of the mountain, so we started making our way farther up. This was the really bad decision of the weekend.

After about a 2 mile hike up the mountain, we discovered that the view was not very good at all. The picture below is from when we started and were smiling.  There aren't any other pictures of us from the rest of the hike.

We were both super tired to begin with, and this just added to it, and put us in a pretty bad mood (one of us more than the other!). Luckily, we found a bus to take us back down the mountain to the museum (where of course we walked around for another hour). The museum was fine, but probably not worth commenting on (either that, or it was awesome and we were just too wiped out to care).

We left the museum and started heading back down the mountain, walking past the "Magic Fountain", which turns out to be just a normal fountain that lights up and they pipe out some music. We stuck around there for a while, took about 100 photos, and then headed to the subway to go back towards our hostel for some dinner.

In the subway we had our first encounter with a pickpocket. The "Magic Fountain" is a major tourist attraction and the subway station was pretty full. We were waiting on the train to arrive and when it did we were getting ready to board the train. I, Jenna, was wearing a small cross body bag and it was on my right hip. I felt someone standing right behind me a little too close, so I grabbed my purse and pulled it around front. It was open and my pack of gum was sticking out of the top. I turned around and all I saw was someone ducking and walking away into the crowd. I was too worried about my purse to chase after them. I checked my purse and nothing was missing, thankfully. I really hadn't been carrying anything important in it, just sunglasses, lip gloss, and my gum, so it wouldn't be a big loss if anything was missing. Unless he would have gotten my sunglasses or lip gloss, but the gum is replaceable. I think we have always been pretty vigilant but I think now we are to the point of being paranoid, at least I am. 

After getting off the train Jenna explained what happened and was going through her purse in detail, making sure everything was there, and as the platform cleared off we saw another couple looking around with a lost look, and overheard the guy talking about how his wallet was gone, so apparently the guy found a less vigilant tourist to prey on.

For dinner we had the other famous Spanish dish - Tapas. We've had these elsewhere, and you can find them at various places in the states, but the general idea if you haven't had them is that they are small portions of dishes which are meant to be shared. So Jenna and I shared 4 different entrees. We've actually had better tasting tapas before, but this was okay. After dinner, we were exhausted and it was time to head off to the hostel and to bed.

Sunday, March 8th (Gaudi Day)

So there is this architect named Antoni Gaudi. He lived and worked mostly in Barcelona, designing and building several buildings and other structures throughout the city. His style is very unique and incredibly ornate.  It is hard to explain in words so you have to see the pictures.  Most of what we did on Sunday focused on him. Here is a picture of one of the buildings we stopped at on our first night walking the city:

The first stop on Sunday was La Pedrera, which was originally an apartment building but now also has several businesses. Gaudi is famous for not using straight lines, using lots of symbolism, and just being over the top in everything. The roof was the main thing worth seeing at La Pedrera, which was incredible and a good way to start the day. You can see it in the pictures, but it is just very unique, with very intricate sculpting and turning even the most random (yet functional) items, like a smokestack, into art.

After this, we headed to the real masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia. This is a church that was started in the late 1800s, and of course, is under construction. This one gets a pass, though, because it has just never been finished. Gaudi died in 1926, and they are hoping to finish by the 100 year anniversary of his death. The pictures we have are decent, but you really have to go to understand the massiveness, and why it has taken over 100 years to get it where it is now.

I like to think I've seen a lot of cool stuff in my few days on this earth, but this is by far the most fantastic. First, there is the massiveness, which I really can't say anything else about - although I tried to capture it in the photos, I think you really have to be there. Secondly, this is one of the few structures that I've seen built in my lifetime where function and efficiency aren't the most important considerations. I can't really say that I've admired any building built in the last 100 years, other than this. Lastly (and most important), this is a church that is built with tons of symbolism as one of the main foundations. I love that. Each of the 3 entrances (facades, with the back side not having an entrance) have 4 tall spires, one for each of the disciples. There are also four larger spires that make up the corners of the sanctuary that represent the 4 Gospels. There is then one ridiculously tall central tower for Christ, and one slightly smaller one for Mary (since this is catholic). Each of the 3 facades also represent (and are named for) an important part of Christ's life - the Nativity, the Passion, and the Glory - and they are filled with sculptures, etc to represent those events.

I say all of this as though it exists, but in reality most of it is not complete yet. As of now, they have the Nativity and Passion facades completed, and have done some of the work on the inner sanctuary area. The Glory facade, the Jesus and Mary Towers, and a lot of the other stuff is still in the works (but you can see the plans).

I have tentatively marked down in my calendar a repeat trip to Barcelona in 2026 for the sole purpose of revisiting this place.

After we left, we went to Parc Guell (pronounced Gooey), which was also designed by Gaudi. It is the central gathering area and entrance to what turned out to be a failed housing development, but all of the park was completed. It is very interesting - reminiscent of Dr. Suess. Not much else to say about this place (the pictures do a good job), other than the fact that once again, we had to walk about 1.5 miles up a ridiculous hill to get here, which added to the crazy total of 24 miles walked between destinations in our 3 days (not counting walking in museums, etc, just to and from everything).

The park was the last thing on our agenda for the day, but we still had a few hours to kill before needing to head to the airport, so we went back down to the beach, grabbed some ice cream, and watched the sunset before grabbing our bags and getting on the plane home. We had a great time in Barcelona and are so glad that we were able to go. It was nice to see the sun again for three straight days after not seeing it for several months!

Monday, March 10th

So our trip should have ended Sunday night, with our return to London at 11:30pm. Of course, we were delayed 20 minutes, which made us miss the train we needed, which meant we had to catch the 1:05am train, putting us back home just before 2am (which made for a wonderful week of work!). That was the not-so-good finale to an otherwise amazing trip. And to finally end this post - Thank You for taking the time to read the whole thing, which literally took me a week and a half to write.

Stonehenge and Bath

On the weekend February 28th, we didn't really have anything to do, and looking at the weather it was going to be nicer than it had been recently, so we took the opportunity to see a bit of the English countryside. We'd been wanting to see Stonehenge and Bath, but wanted to wait for nice weather, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity. We figured we could do it all in one day, so we hopped on an early train (7:15) on Saturday morning.

Salisbury/Stonehenge


First, the train ride actually left something to be desired. We'd heard a lot about the train having these great views. It may have been because we're still coming out of winter, so things aren't the brightest green, or it may have been that the train ride through Switzerland was just ridiculously amazing, or maybe a combination, but either way we were a little disappointed.

We arrived pretty early on in Salisbury, which is the village that is closest to Stonehenge. We'd heard some good things about the town from our Dallas friends who visited there, so we spent a little while walking around the village, which I guess you'd say was "quaint". We then took a bus to the famous Stonehenge. The weather turned out to be a little cooler than we'd hoped, so we walked around it fairly quickly, took a few pictures, and I guess took it all in. It is pretty impressive, and it is pretty cool to see the models of what it originally looked like and hear about how the guys (or aliens...) built it. Anyway, there isn't exactly a lot else out there, so we were mostly finished in about 25 minutes. The bad thing is that the bus only comes every hour, so we had to spend over half an hour wandering around the gift shop. I guess I'd say "questionable" as to whether it was worth the trip, since if you've seen the photos you've mostly seen the thing itself. It would have been nicer if it was a little warmer outside, we could have spent more time outside and enjoyed it more. 

After finally making it back to the town, we went to visit the main cathedral, which was very nice. It has the tallest spire in Britain, and it one of the first one's we've seen that had a large green space surrounding it. All the others generally have some kind of plaza or are even just backed up next to other buildings, so this did seem a little more set apart. Other than that, it was still pretty much like all the others (and we didn't actually even take the time to go into this one!). We then took one last stroll through the town on the way to the train station.

Bath


Next stop was for the city of Bath, about a 2 hour train ride west of London. The city was built at the only natural hot spring in all of Britain, and became a popular spot when the Romans built baths there (hence the name). We were pleasantly surprised with the city. It still feels very old, with most of the streets still made of cobblestone and the buildings being hundreds of years old.

We visited the Roman Baths, which was very interesting. There is one pool that has stayed in great condition, so it was pretty cool to see that, as well as the ruins of the rest of the building. Since we had gotten there a little late, and the main sites closed early, we weren't able to go into the Abbey or see any of the Jane Austin sites (much to my chagrin, to be sure!!).

We were able to go to the only spa in the city. It was sort of like a public pool, but hot. They had three main attractions - one large pool, a sauna, and a rooftop pool - all of which are heated by the thermal waters. We had 2 hours to enjoy the pools, and it was pretty cool. The rooftop pool was definitely highlight. From this pool you could look out at the lit-up Abbey, and since it is a smallish town outside of the city, we could see the stars. It was pretty cold outside (probably around 50), but it was amazing to be sitting in the warm water (next to 100 other random folks) and stare at the beautiful skies. (By the way, everyone was wearing swimsuits, there was no nudity.)

By the time we left the spa, it was about time to head back to the train station. The bad thing was that it was 8pm and we hadn't eaten since about noon. Also, as it turns out, the city pretty much dies after dark. There were no restaurants on the way to the station, and when we got there the guy at the ticket booth told us that the only thing nearby was McDonalds. Now this is a pretty big deal, because I have not eaten there in about 5 years. I was never a big fan, but then like many others that movie "Super Size Me" turned me off completely (not just from McD's, but really most fast food in general). But, we were hungry and out of options, and I broke down and suffered through 3 Chicken Selects and Jenna had a chicken sandwich, and we're still living, so I guess it wasn't that bad. After so defiling our bodies, we headed back to the station and got back to London just before midnight, tired from our long day of travel.