Barcelona

Once upon a time I went to Italy and ended up spending the first couple of hours twisting and turning through the cobblestoned roads completely and utterly lost.  For some reason my internal navigation was not properly functioning that day.  Once upon another time, after busing into Barcelona from the airport I was able to immediately get my internal bearings set and walked directly to the hotel.  No issues at all the entire time I was in Spain and I must admit that I am pretty proud of myself.

I was also extremely excited to see that the hotel was located in such an amazing spot.  We were fairly central to everything that we wanted to see, including the ocean which was no more than a ten minute walk.  The furthest thing that we had to walk to was La Sagrada Familia and even that was a pleasant walk that only took us about 20 minutes. 

Don’t be jealous, but for the entire two weeks of vacation, with the exception of one day, we had incredible weather.  It was between 60-65 degrees each day and although that is still a bit on the chilly side for this girl, it was much nicer than snow and sub-freezing temperatures.  The sunshine does amazing things to my attitude.  I do wish it would have magically made the food better, but even the sunshine isn’t that powerful! 

Barcelona was a fun city and the Cathedral of Barcelona was essentially right outside the hotel front door.  The first night was one of the only food experiences that I really enjoyed.  We went to this quaint little hole-in-the-wall and had crepes.  I had one crepe filled with spinach, feta and tomatoes and another crepe that was filled with Nutella and fresh strawberries.  Both were good but one can never go wrong with Nutella and strawberries.  It was lick-the-plate wonderful!  It was also a good thing that each crepe was almost a foot long and four-inches wide.

Almost everyone that heard I was going to Spain would rave about tapas.  So of course I tried them on a couple of occasions.  I wasn’t impressed – at all.  Not sure why everyone is so in love with them.  Essentially they are appetizers or finger food.  I found that they were bland and unseasoned.  I even tried the “curry” at one point hoping that there would be a little spice and flavor infused . . . no such luck.  The only other thing that I really enjoyed eating here was all the fresh bread and cheese.   

The people were extremely friendly.  We were wondering down La Rambla one day and stopped by one of the street venders.  He just wanted to look at my blue eyes.  He couldn’t get over the fact that they were so blue.  He was so fascinated that he forgot to even try to sell us whatever it was that he was selling.  It doesn’t matter how many places I visit, I will never get used to people stopping me just to look at my blue eyes.  In Utah it is so prominent that I forget that it really is rare in other places in the world.