Day 4: Barcelona

Day 4 in the books! We started the day by wandering around a food market. The St. Joseph Mercado La Boqeria. It was awesome, pretty touristy, but so much fresh fruit and an insane amount of food options. Logan and Jaydn tried raw coconut and dragon fruit for the first time. Brooke and I got fresh juice and empanadas.

After our snack we kept walking a little ways and got coffee and people and pigeon watched at Place De Catalunya. The pigeons were horrible and I never want to see them again. There was an incredible bubble blower in the Plaza that let Brooke try to blow a few bubbles and even made a bubble around her. This more than made up for the icky pigeons.

Our plan after that was to head to Casa Batllo, the first structure designed by Antoni Gaudi of the day. One the way Brooke and I saw a sephora, both thought we "needed" some things and got swindled into getting a free lipgloss... it's cute though, so worth it. Casa Batllo was beautiful from the outside and we decided not to take the time to go in. Another building designed by Gaudi that was just a couple minutes walk from Casa Batllo is La Pedare, slightly less fun, but cool to see.

At this point it was time to head to Sagrada Familia, the highlight of Barcelona. Brooke and I were pretty pumped, but Jaydn and Logan had to find a bathroom.... turns out thats a tall order. They ended up waiting about an hour and a few kilometers before they were themselves again...

Sagrada Familia is even more beautiful than all the pictures both inside and outside. It's vastness itself is a specticle. It draws your eye upward constantly towards things above. When looking around the church all you can see is faces tilted upward. It's a beautiful sight to see hundreds of tourists being captivated by a piece of architecture that was meant to bridge Heaven and earth. Gaudi did a great job. We also took and elavator up one of the towers. It was toooo high. Not a fan of heights, but the views were great. We then had to take what felt like a millions steps down in a tight spiral staircase. Spooky.

We're finally getting used to eating at European times... late afternoon lunches and late night suppers. So as we trudged up the hill to Park Guell, Gaudi's most remarkable landscape design, we looked for lunch. I was getting pretty hangry at this point and was excited to order a tapa of patatas bravas, sparkling sangria, and a bocadillo de jamon y queso... a ham and cheese sandwhich. The boys had gotten used to smaller beer bottles and each ordered 2 beers a piece. After their order the waiter quickly left without looking at Brooke or I and came back with 4 glasses and 4 coronas. Logan spoke up and I think the waiter was confused, and rightfully so.

After finishing the climb up what felt like a small mountain at the time (20,000 steps in for the day) we got to explore Park Guell. We loved it's beauty, uniquness and it was also the first nature attraction we had been to. After park Guell we found a taxi up to Tibidabo. A large hill on the outskirts of Barcelona, that overlooks the rolling hills behind it as well as the whole city. It has a huge and beautiful church sitting on the top. We arrived just in time for an amazing sunset.

Once arrived and after we had taken in the view we quickly realized that there was not that many other people around and we didn't know how we would get back to the city given there were no taxis or ubers around. I figured the Lord would provide and continued to explore the grounds without panic... Brooke too. The boy's decided to pay 5 eruo to take an elavater all the way to the top of the church. They say it was pretty great, but the tower earlier in the day was more than enough for us. While the boys were at the top Logan made friends with a man named Thomas and his cousins Mari and Zerti from Albania but who now live in the US. They informed the boys that they were going to walk to a nearby town and take the train back into Barcelona. They asked if we could join and when they found us admiring the sunset we automatically had 3 new friends as well. We enjoyed eachother's company as the sun set and as we walked our way into town. We exchanged social media information and went on our ways. Us to eat and them to their hotel.

We had a great little meal and some beer off of La Rambla and got home BEFORE midnight. A new record for us. As I finish writing everyone else is already sleeping and I know I'll be out as my head hits the pillow. I'm so excited to not have an alarm until 8am... it's officially vacation now.

Notables/highlights:

• A man on the street asked us today "You like to drink, smoke weed, coke?"

• At one point I told Brooke, "It's ok, we could use a little walk, it's nice out" as we were coming on 24,000 steps.

• 29,177 steps total today...

• I just realized that Wix doesn't spell check for me... sorry if I have a million errors