Day 4 road trip 1

Today we road tripped to Bordeaux. We rented a mini Cooper....which danelle drove like we were in Mario Kart the whole way up. Nice little zippy car. On the way we saw a number of castles and churches. At first it was pretty exciting but pretty soon you realize every guy with a town was building those things back when building churches out of stone was fashionable.

The drive took 5.5 hours and 4 was about long enough. They were out of GPS systems so once we get into a town we struggle to find our way. We stayed 10 min. outside of Bordeaux in a town called Martillac at a chateau over looking the city. Amazing and the first night we were the only people there. our room was huge and looked out over the towns local church.

For dinner we were suggested a place not more than .5 miles down the road across from one of the towns premiere wineries.

We were exhausted so after dinner we briefly walked the grounds and hit the bed.

Day 3 Easter

We hope everyone had a great Easter. This post is a bit delayed because we have had some issues with chargers, Internet, and not having the cord to load pics onto the iPad. So with a much more plain post than we would like here we go.

Easter Sunday we again went for a run. After which we ate the hotel breakfast and made our way to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia which was pretty amazing. The line was around the building and since we may come back to Barcelona a day early we choose to pass on the 2 hour wait. Somwe took our talents to the beach.....and just in time as the sun was clearing off.

At this point our dogs were barking after 2 days on our feet so we picked up a couple beach cruisers. We tried to rent one with a baby seat for Danelles Louie but the guy wasn't to hot on that idea wanted to keep it for a real baby. The wind was strong off the water but the sun was great. We went up and down and aroUnd the town a few times before stopping for lunch where we had a burrito Spanish style.

Having so much fun we extended our ride 2 more hours and ended up with tan lines that make me glad I won't have to worry about taking a shirt offf for 3 more months in Seattle. We closed out our night with tapas and one of the more popular spots in Barcelona......where we didn't start dinner until 10pm, which still made us some of the youngest people out under 35 ( as most know the "kids" don't come out till past midnight. We kept it going a little longer with a drink at placa reiel.

Day 2

Day 2 started with a much neeed run through the heart of the city. These guys don't mess around when it comes to food and in order to get down on a stack of tapas every 2 hours a run is needed to keep the appetitie going. Plus it is a great way to see the city. Of course all of the locals look at us like we are a couple panda's in a zoo as we run by at 8:30am without a cigarette in our mouth (smoking is big here). We had a chance to run by Danelles old apartment, through a local park, and down some of the more scenic the streets. Local vendors were setting up for a festive Saturday. Running around that early allowed us to beat the crowds which would come out in droves by lunch.

The city is geared perfect for runners and bikers alike. Each street has its own bike path.

After running we enjoyed a tasty breakfast of sandwhichs and egg at a spot right by our hotel. Being able to actually set outside and not get rained on is a huge plus (even though it has been raining at night).

Guell Park was our next stop and we crammed into a bus with about 213 others and headed the few blocks up the hill. It was amazing the amount of people up there and the views. Everyone seemed in great spirits. As a matter of fact that is one thing I have noticed, people here as a whole seem happier than back home...maybe that is just because I can't understand what they are saying.

While coming down from the park we each picked up a jersey for the soccer match that night. I went with Barca's and Argentinas star player Lionel Messi .Danelle went with David Villa star of Barca FC with Messi and the Spanish National Team and current World Cup champion.

After the park we hoped on foot and started looking for a place to eat. We ended picking a great place to eat called Taverna Medderteraian. After lunch it was time for a nap and the big game.

Barcelona FC plays in Camp Nou which is the largest football stadium in Europe. We had got great seats from our hotel through a season ticket holder (row 19 right behind the home goal). A few things that were interesting about the game...the first is they sell beer, but it is 0.0% alcohol. Sin alcohol they call it, which I didn't know and still ordered one, and while it tasted great it wasn't nearly as tasty as the Diet Coke Danelle went with (the use cane sugar here for the pop vs. the fake stuff in the USA...makes about a 5x difference in terms of taste). To make up for the lack of booze they do allow smoking, all game. At times a cloud of smoke is just hanging over the field.

The team they were playing was from Pamplona and wasn't great. Early on it was obvious FC was clearly the better team. Messi didn't play until the second half but when he came on the pitch you'd like the Beatles were taking the stage. Clearly the best player on the field we were lucky enough to see him score with less than 4 mintues to play in the goal directly in front of us to give Barca FC the win.

After the game it was tapas and wine at La Bodegueta Provenca where there was a wait at 11:30 pm for a table. We enjoyed oursevles but were exhuasted after the long day and couldn't wait to get to bed.

Day 1

We arrived in Barcelona at 12pm local time and reached our hotel, The Hotel Astoria at around1pm. The hotel is very nice and has a very nice staff. They also happened to have a pair of lower level tickets to the Barcelona FC game Saturday. Not easy to come by and not cheap we jumped and the chance and took them for $88 euro a piece.

Our first task was finding food. Lucky for us it was raining here so most people were staying in, but for us seattlites it made us feel right at home. We stopped at a local lunch spot for some sangria and bread. Sitting next to us were 4 Spanish bros enjoying a smoke and round of lattes. We thought it best not to drink our entire pitcher of sangria so we passed it to a couple British gals who spent most of their meal in heated discussion over the royal wedding.

Now full and buzzed we headed into Los Rambles. It had a pike place market meets times square feel to it. We enjoyed the crowds, a church, and a restaurant recommended by Tracy grandma which specializes in snails.

After a quick trip home we headed out to one more spot for some tapas. The thing that initially has impress me the most about barcelona is how beautiful everything is and how damn good tahe food is. We ordered about 4 different tapas and all were amazing. And not amazing like olive garden breadsticks but amazing like the food was all natural and good. We must have picked a goos spot because we were the only Americans in the place.

By 9pm we were shot and heading to bed. The jet lag really hadn't set in but we will see how it is tomorrow.

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