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First Day in Barcelona

As stated previously, we slept in today until about 4pm - The time change so far has been hard to get used to. In fact, I am writing this blog post at 5am local time.

Today was a great day. We got to see a lot. We hopped on the hotel's shuttle and headed downtown. They dropped us off at a place with some wonderful fountains - and, of course, a Mc Donalds.



We then ran into a city worker who was hauling trash. He spoke English fairly well, and was excited to tell us all about his city. He recommended that we go on a short walk down to the boardwalk area - by the ocean. So we did just that. On the way, we happened to pass this store - not sure what it was all about, but I thought it made for a good photo op. Unfortunately, it was closed, so I was not able to get my happy pills for the day. A lot of the stores were closed today.



The area around the ocean was really neat - lots of boats and little huts selling jewelry and other touristy stuff. We continued to follow the ocean and eventually found the beach.

We discovered a lot today, from a Casino, to the Zoo, to a lot of awesome 'green spaces'. This is the first city I have ever been in that really integrates nature into the city. Numerous times we would be walking and then, out of the blue, there would be a beautiful park - additionally this town has a TON of awesome water features - it seems like everywhere you look there is a fountain, creek, or waterfall. Very cool and very easy to forget that you are in a city that is home to 1.5 million people.

The area by the Zoo was extra nice. Very well kept up. - See previous posting about that.

Interesting things - the people seem to be in love with crepes with chocolate sauce on top of them - they sell these things EVERYWHERE. We have not tried one yet, but it is on our list for tomorrow. Also, the native Spanish people are kind of hard to identify - they really just blend in with everyone. Often times it is very difficult to determine if someone is American, British or Spanish.

We ate dinner at a nice outdoor seafood place on the ocean. Beautiful view. The food was okay - I had Spanish rice mixed with assorted seafood. Abby chose rice with assorted veggies. Hopefully tomorrow we will score some good food. Lots of KFC, McDonalds and Dominoes pizzas here.



On our way back to the hotel, our taxi passed by the Palau Nacional - which is located on top of a magnificent hill called Montjuïc, the views from the Palau Nacional are unmatched anywhere else in the city, and the museum is surrounded by a handful of other museums. Barcelona’s Palau Nacional appears, at first glance, to be a very grand, old building. Looks can be deceiving! This sprawling structure that houses the National Art Museum of Catalonia was actually built in 1929 for the International Exhibition. This thing was lit up like a Christmas tree. It was truly amazing - and this picture does not do it justice. Will visit and photograph upon our return to Barcelona in a few days. There were water fountains galore as you approached the building - and then this amazing sunburst of light behind it. Really something.

Alright, well it is 6am here now, I am going off to lay down for a bit and hopefully catch an hour of sleep. The shuttle bus leaves for the airport at 9am then off to Ibiza on the 11am flight.

Day One: DCA to JFK and JFK to BCN

Well, it is official, the trip to Spain is up and running! Things started out great - we got to the DC airport about 1.5 hours ahead of time, which was unnecessary - but we wanted to play it safe.

After checking in, we enjoyed some mozz sticks and wings from TGI Fridays. Security was a breeze, they actually opened a second line right as we arrived so we flew through. The flight to NYC JFK was amazingly short - a mere 38 minutes. However, once we landed we drove around the airport forever - it took nearly 20 minutes to get to our gate!

The flight was supposed to take off from JFK to Barcelona at 6:45pm - due to a late arriving plane, we did not end up leaving until around 715 or so. There were a ton of people from Spain on the flight, far out numbering the Americans. One Spanish high school class was returning home - thankfully we did not have to sit by them.

Before boarding we stopped at the duty free and picked up a bottle of Makers Mark and a bottle of Captain Morgan. We decided to crack open the Captain once we were about 2 hours into our flight - we ended up finishing the entire bottle! Stupidly, I gave the empty bottle to the flight attendant when they were going through the plane and asking for garbage. Once we landed in Barcelona, one of the male flight attendants told us that "just for future reference, you can not serve yourself alcohol on the plane, only we are allowed to do that"... lol opps..

The movies on the plane were lame! They were showing a bunch of kids movies, like Ice Age - which is very odd considering the flight was an overnight flight. So we chilled out and caught up on some reading. The flight was nice and quiet - a big plane with 7 seats across. Luckily, we got to sit in an extra row - man the extra leg room was NICE!

We watched the sun come up as we were descending into the Barcelona airport. It was quite beautiful. Customs presented no problem - we quickly flew through and grabbed a cab (although we found out later that the hotel offered a free shuttle) 25 Euro later we were at the hotel. Btw, the exchange rate is about 100 US Dollars for 63 Euro.

The hotel is amazing - 5 star all the way. Luckily, we were able to get checked in right away and head up to our room. It was about 10:00 am Barcelona time - around 3am Chicago time. We went up and crashed until about 4 in the afternoon.

Barcelona, Spain - Picture Gallery Now Online

I have uploaded some of the pictures from Barcelona on Sunday - you can view them by CLICKING HERE

Arc de Triomf - Barcelona, Spain

The Arc de Triomf (English: Triumphal Arch) is an archway structure in Barcelona, Spain. It was built for the 1888 Universal exhibition, as its main access gate by architect Josep Vilaseca i Casanovas.

The arch is built in reddish brickwork in the Moorish Revival style. The front frieze contains the stone sculpture "Barcelona rep les nacions" (Catalan for "Barcelona welcomes the nations") by Josep Reynés. The opposite frieze contains a stone carving named "Recompense", a work from the earliest period of Josep Llimona.

The top of the arch is decorated with the Barcelona coat of arms as well as a representation of all 49 other Spanish provinces, work of Torquat Tassó and Antoni Vilanova.

The arch is located between Passeig de Lluís Companys and Passeig de Sant Joan, at the end of a wide promenade connecting with the Park of the Ciutadella.

Here is a video I shot of the Arc de Triomf