barcelona: in pictures

i know that we have been here in brussels for like 2 weeks now and we haven't even posted once on our experiences at work, but we are trying to get our updated info all done on the blog. a brussels post will come this week... we promise.

barcelona was a great stop on our trip- mostly because of all the cool architecture. good old gaudi sure left his mark on this city and years after his death, it turned out amazing! we took a bus from costa brava and ended up in barcelona with just enough daylight to find a hostel, rent some bikes and start our tour. we headed to the street markets first, of course, after we had heard it was packed with weird merchandise and interesting people- we were not disappointed. among the great jewelry and bags, the street market proudly sold live animals of various sorts and all kinds of flowers. in one stop on the street i could walk away with a necklace, turtle, chinchilla and a few roses. target's got nothin on this market. our other favorite sight in the market was all the street performers. there were people holding completely still with their entire body painted gold or black, reenacting a famous statue or painting (stinkingly similar to that great arrested development episode), others dressed as ronaldinho and did cool soccer moves...some painted pictures and some just bluntly asked for your money without any show at all.. grown adults dress up in all sorts of crazy outfits and just go to the market all day to make a living. cade loved the idea and started thinking of all the places in the states he could make good money trying something like this which gave me horrible visions of our kids bringing cade to carreer day at school all dolled up like abe lincoln (the person cade thinks he could do best). 'my dad is abe lincoln for a living.' yikes...

after the street market, we biked over to la sagrada familia, the most famous of the bacelona buildings. this thing is HUGE! gaudi started it years and years ago, but died before it was done. they are still trying to finish it; however, gaudi never made real blueprints for anything he built so it is taking the architects quite a while to figure out exactly what the rest is supposed to look like. it was really great to see.

the next day, with my b.spears hat and our little bikes, we set out to see the rest of the architectural wonders of barcelona. but first- we made a quick stop at the bakery. cade and i have fallen in love with europe's bakeries and it is actually getting out of hand.

as far as our tour went, one of my very favorite stops was gruell park. another one of gaudi's creations, this park looked like an underwater kingdom full of mosaic tile... literally full. the walls, the benches, the ceilings, the sculptures... everything was mosaic tile. we started to bike there and were surprised to see that it was built at the top of a huge hill. 'let's go europe' forgot to mention that part. we huffed it up the hill as best we could...sweat dripping down my face. one english guy yelled out to me as i passed by at a snail's pace- 'you can do it! almost there!' at that point, i turned around, looked him in the eye and said 'no, actually i can't. thanks.' and cade and i walked the rest of the hill. the view from the top was awesome and it was a blast to wander through the park. well worth the sweat.










finally, another video clip. this is us biking through the streets of barcelona to the picasso museum (a great art museum, by the way). we just pretty much biked wherever we wanted, and as you can see- it caused a small problem.


overall, we loved barcelona.. a great stop on our tour de spain.