Barcelona, Spain - October 11-14

Alright. Time to get back into this thing even if it's been over a month since we've been to a lot of these places.

We woke up early in Bilbao to take an 8 hour bus to Barcelona. It was by far the cheapest way to get there. The time actually went pretty quickly, but sitting and doing nothing on a bus for 8 hours is exhausting so by the time we got in we weren't in the mood to do too much. Between the travel time and recharging, we lost most of one of our three days in Barcelona. That left us with only two days to do as much as possible. We got a lot done, but left wanting to go back.

Our first full day was mostly spent walking through the city to get a feel for it. We walked up Las Ramblas (past the animal vendors and the increasingly obnoxious street performers), through Placa de Catalunya, up Passeig de Gracia (where the Gaudi house is.



apparently this was the last project he did (other than Sagrada Familia) and it is really crazy inside. There was a line around the corner to get in and it was E15.50 a person. That's close to Leaning Tower territory pricewise. We decided to save it for another trip), past Sagrada Familia and then came back towards the water through their Arc de Triomphe, ending up at the park. It was actually longer than it sounds too because we spent a bunch of time doubling back trying to decide where to eat. Restaurant indecisiveness is a common theme of our trip.

After lunch we walked through the park and back to the Picasso Museum. It was a full day.

Our second day was just as full. We swung by the big market which was filled with delicious juices and some other things.



We went to Parc Guell which I remembered being really cool. It is an interesting site to see and has great views everywhere. This is where the unfortunate body-chop off picture occurred. Fortunately, we got some good backup pictures after that one didn't work out







The large cathedral dominating every picture of the city is of course Sagrada Familia. It's still not done. I think it's supposed to be done in around 2025 now. I doubt it will be. We left Parc Guell and walked all the way down to see it.

Just like a lot of Gaudi's work, it really is a strange sight. It was interesting to see a cathedral that retained so many of the same elements of the other cathedrals we had seen, but yet was entirely different.



The line to take the elevator upstairs was too long and sadly they didn't have an option for stairs. We settled for just walking around the church and attached museum.





We walked to get mussels later that night and hit the hay early before our early morning flight to Madrid.

Self-Portraits (Part II)

After our last post showing how skilled we (mostly Ali) are at taking pictures of ourselves, whether by tripod or arm-extension, we received a few comments asking us to ask others to take pictures of us. It's not that we refuse to do it, we've just run into a few problems with people who apparently have never seen a camera before.

At the Roman Forum, we asked a nice lady to take a picture of us. I think she was from Germany. Perhaps somewhere in Eastern Europe. She was very kind and did her best, but seemed to miss the point that we wanted a picture to show that we were actually at the Roman Forum.


She seemed to think that we wanted a picture commemorating the fact that we in fact exist and do not mind standing next to each other.

Then today in Barcelona we reached the very top of Parc Guell with a sweeping 180+ degree view of the waterfront and the city. We asked a nice young lady to take a picture of us. She skipped over the requisite "Just push the button?" question and went straight for the shot. She then asked if it took, and upon checking I realized it had not. Yet despite this warning and the fact she seemed to be aiming over our heads, we let her continue.



She opted for the disembodied heads levitating over the city photo. Unlike the lady taking the picture at the Forum, this girl apparently thought we wanted our heads to not to be a distraction from the beauty that is Barcelona. At the very least, I feel like it gave me a great idea to cut out the messy part of traveling by superimposing our floating heads on pictures of famous panoramic views.

In all fairness, we are very grateful for the help of people, some of whom go out of their way to offer and most of whom to a very good job. But it's always awkward when you don't like the picture that came out and have to either ask for another or move on. Most of the time, we know what we are looking for better than the person who is taking it. The tripod and timer help us set it up. Sometimes we end up in mistiming it or in awkward poses and with the frame a little tilted, but we're usually pretty happy with the results.