Looks like we made it!
Smooth and easy travels for all of us, and we had the sweetest of reunions in our Eixample apartment. We all admitted to being a tad worried about what this place would actually look like, since the only thing we really knew was that it had bunk beds in the kitchen, but it's incredibly nice and modern and with two terraces on which only wine or cava is served. The gals had been here a couple hours and followed my instructions that on my arrival I should be greeted with antipasti, which I'll admit is very similar to tapas BUT TOTALLY BETTER. After cleaning up a bit, I was told they were having internet trouble but that "waiting for Nat Geo to help." It's so nice to be needed.
We spent our first day in Barcelona strolling. Casa Mila (La Pedrera) is only a few blocks away, so we swung by there first, and after spending ten minutes in a line that wasn't moving, we decided to go back there today, first thing, in line at 9 a.m. when it opened. It's 8:20 and no one's up yet...I suppose I should act surprised. After that we made our way down Paseo Gracia (passing Casa Batilo, which we also did not go inside), until we hit Placa Catalunya, the city center. Placa Catalunya is filled with Roman-influenced statues, and you know that with Liza in tow, we could not leave them in peace. We spent 15-20 minutes running around posing with them, making sure people knew we were Americans.
From there we meandered down Las Ramblas, the stream of Barcelona. We had Rick as our walking tour guide, but I gotta say, his tour was kind of a let down. We had to sit down midway to have a giant goblet of sangria in order to make ourselves feel better. Once we hit the end of Las Ramblas, we celebrated with some cava at Cava University, where we discussed the necessity of masters degrees. I'm only planning to get a Masters degree if it comes from Cava University. Then, realizing it was somehow already 8 pm, we strolled along a side street popping into various bars for tapas and wine. It was a very mellow evening since we're all a bit tired: me from 19 hours of traveling plus jet lag (wah); them from too many nights of partying in Rome (wah wah).
When we got home, we had our first serious argument of the trip (didn't take long). It's the 2011 Wegmans vs. HEB. I was BRUTALLY ATTACKED for my life-long appreciation and love of the classic film "Mary Poppins." They contest that it's boring and has no plot (erroneous). Even worse, they say "Teen Witch" is better. Now, whilst generally I'd say, different folks different strokes,they took it too far. If you don't like Mary Poppins, you don't like me. I have nothing against Teen Witch. I'm sure it's a fine film. But to say that me and millions of adoring fans are wrong, that "Mary Poppins" has no plot and is boring (um, they jump into a chalk painting), is just mean. That's all I'm saying.
Our ambitious plan for today includes (eventually?) re-hitting La Pedrera, hitting Sagrada La Familia, and hitting Parc Guell. Oh goody it'll be gaudi.
A few misc. items:
-Our Spanish names for this week are Isabella, Enrique and Olga (Olga is such a hilarious name. Apologies to any Olgas out there).
-We (or maybe just I) keep forgetting we're in a foreign country, and keep habla-ing ingles. As per usual, EOB and I don't try, and just let Liza do all the talking. Her Spanish is perfecto, pero (1) they speak Catalan and (2) she keeps mixing in Italian. GODDAM IT LIZA, YOU'RE RUINING EVERYTHING
-We went to a meat market yesterday. It wasn't what I had in mind when they said we were going to a meat market.
Wait a second. You know people who don't like Mary Poppins? That's blasphemous.
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