We stayed in a HOTEL with an awesome shower and a huge not-bunkbed and we were literally spoiled to death and fed like queens (fat queens at that) by Simon and Patti. Kelly has been an honorary Foster for years and gels with the family to the point that we all forget she isn't a relative in the first place. All we can say to Simon & Patti for taking our homeless nomad selves under their unbelievably generous wings is...
thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you
thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you
thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you
thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you
thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you
thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you
That really isnt enough thank you's so we will pay the rest off by simply saying that Simon is a fab dude and we owe him a stellar vacation, or a very classy nursing home in later years, the kind with a salad bar and nice toilet paper. And Plat, well we owe you many a generous cocktails at Embers... maybe we'll even be able to throw in a few sushi rolls too :)
Jenny is so happy to have such an amazing, fun, kind, wonderful family and Kelly is super grateful for being a temporary adoptee.
The first half of the week Jenny's super fun Auntie Sue and Uncle Rick made for some seriously great Barcelona company. We owe them a huge thank you for picking up bills that are far out of our budget, and for being such fun to spend time with!
On Wedesday Sue and Rick departed and Simons parents arrived. Some quality family time was had by all and we enjoyed talks about life, family, love, travels and the city that Britt has been calling home. A big thank you is owed here as well!!
We didn't realize how dirty and homeless we have become until we were around clean unhomeless people - when we arrived Jen's dad said he could visibly see dirt on her forehead. We made it our mission to become a little less homeless in this week of being sedentary by showering daily, making use of a blowdryer and some cosmetics, and even doing laundry! Sue was absolutely horrified that we were living in dirty clothes and she was not having it one bit. She said it had to be done asap or our clothes would start standing up ad waking around on their own shortly.
We spent a lot of time on the famous street, La Ramblas which had shops, tapas, cervezas, artists, people, and street performers (who Jennys brother Alex gave a run for their money with his seriously awesome breakdancing moves) galore. Side roads winded off to plazas and other huge boulevards and streets - Barcelona is a huuge city with an especially huuge and impressive market full of beautiful stands of fruit, candy, nuts, nicknacks, and not so beautiful skinned rabbits and plucked chickens with heads...ew.
It really was a great and packed week so we are going to highlight our favorite things:
1) Chapitos shots bar-- Imagine all of your favorite things turned into shots. Roasting marshmallows, whipped cream and MMs, pop rocks and even a head massage.... then set them all on fire and add some liqour. This is Brittany's favorite spot, for obvious reasons, and now ours as well. Shot after shot, it was a great family outing :) DELICIOUS!
2) The Craziest Cerveza Stop Ever -- After strolling Las Ramblas, we found ourselves in need of an afternoon cerveza. We stopped off at outdoor cafe where we sat in between 2 huge tables, one of drunk German women and one of drunk Norweigan men. We gave them a run for their money with our cerveza skills, but they were far ahead of us and we still had more sights to see. Jenny and Patti popped up for streetside purse purchases and Alex got a shanzy pair of Ray Bans (wink wink). A great afternoon pitstop on our first full day!
3) Chinese to-go on the beach -- cervezas didn't quite fill this group up, so a couple hours later we found ourselves beach side and hungry. We stopped in a to-go Wok restaurant, then sat on the beach eating our delicious boxed lunches with chop sticks. The Medditeranean and people watching weren't bad backgrounds.
4) Gaudi's architecture -- Gaudi was an amazing architect who created insane buildings that contain few straight lines and often look like they are melting or growing, or like a gingerbread house, or like a crazy treetop canopy....he did a lot of drugs obviously, but was killed when he got hit by a tram (this seems ot be a very important fact in Barcelona and we are sure that we aren't mistaken about the tram incident as we were all told about 10 times). Gaudi's most famous Barcelonana work is the Sagrada Familia, an enormous cathedral that he began working on over 100 years ago. It is still under construction and they have a looong way to go, but what has been completed in insane! Gaudi also attempted to build a neighborhood of strange houses which is now a park with lots of crazy stone architecture. All of our legs were made of lead the day of the park but it was an amazing sight nonetheless.
5) Dinner and champagne at the W - Britt's classy and awesome friend Elenor managed to use her in with the hotel industry to get an unbelievable room at the W. She invited us all over for dinner and champage in this crazy hotel built right on the coast. We all agreed that we would rather sleep in the lobby of this bad boy than just about any other hotel we had ever seen. Dinner and drinks were a delicious and fun time. Great family company and Elenor was her hilarious self as always.
6) Super Lazy rooftop hotel day - Today we did...nothing. We all went out for cafe breakfast and then headed up to our hotel roof with ice bucket pool. No swimming but lots of pink cheeks and noses as we soaked up the sunshine and drank some cervezas (to Plat's request of course). This was a great vacay day with a real break from stopping around the world and sightseeing.
4) Gaudi's architecture -- Gaudi was an amazing architect who created insane buildings that contain few straight lines and often look like they are melting or growing, or like a gingerbread house, or like a crazy treetop canopy....he did a lot of drugs obviously, but was killed when he got hit by a tram (this seems ot be a very important fact in Barcelona and we are sure that we aren't mistaken about the tram incident as we were all told about 10 times). Gaudi's most famous Barcelonana work is the Sagrada Familia, an enormous cathedral that he began working on over 100 years ago. It is still under construction and they have a looong way to go, but what has been completed in insane! Gaudi also attempted to build a neighborhood of strange houses which is now a park with lots of crazy stone architecture. All of our legs were made of lead the day of the park but it was an amazing sight nonetheless.
5) Dinner and champagne at the W - Britt's classy and awesome friend Elenor managed to use her in with the hotel industry to get an unbelievable room at the W. She invited us all over for dinner and champage in this crazy hotel built right on the coast. We all agreed that we would rather sleep in the lobby of this bad boy than just about any other hotel we had ever seen. Dinner and drinks were a delicious and fun time. Great family company and Elenor was her hilarious self as always.
6) Super Lazy rooftop hotel day - Today we did...nothing. We all went out for cafe breakfast and then headed up to our hotel roof with ice bucket pool. No swimming but lots of pink cheeks and noses as we soaked up the sunshine and drank some cervezas (to Plat's request of course). This was a great vacay day with a real break from stopping around the world and sightseeing.
7) Olympic park - Our last full day in Barcelona Britt dragged us out of bed to go sightseeing. We went up to an enormous beautiful museum on top of a mountain, opting for the hundreds of stairs rather than taking the outdoor escalators to the top (well, except the lazy ones of us). The view from the top was so pretty! From here we strolled through some beautiful and mostly deserted gardens, stopped for lunch and then went to the site of the Olympics in 1994. Underneath the Olympic torch we all had a lottle outfoor siesta, until we woke up and took a jumping picture which thre Jen's back out...backpacker with a bad back is no bueno, updates to come on this one.
8) Nightclubbing with Britt - Miss BFost is quite the nightime scenster so she took the 2 of us old grannies out on some late night adventures. After Chapitos shots we headed to one of Barcelona's huuuge clubs packed with people, mosh pit style, with house music blaring. Britt had never been there and taking us seemed to be a shot fueled decision as she later regretted it, but we had fun! We hit the town for round 2 with Elenor and Britt to go to an awesome club with the world's best DJ. Great tunes, ghetto dancing (by yours truly of course) and fire eating dancers wearing sparkly unitards...this place was nuts and our fave! Round 3, we decided to do a little pregaming, on a bench of La Rambla, turns out the cops didn't much like this idea and so they decided we should do something else. We decided to run into a nearby restaurtant and use their bathroom...but the owners didn't like this plan either and they pounded on the door while we took turns using the W.C. They didn't seem too pleased so we ran out again. Off to a big beachside nightclub until later than we thought when it was time for suspicious pastry and pizza snacks. We think we would have been better ngihtlife bunnies a few years ago...
On La Rambla there is a famous drinking fountain - ledgend says a sip of water from the fountain will ensure you return to Barcelona again. At first we avoided a sip from it as there are a lot of places in the world and we couldn't be committing to come back to this one. After an awesome week here, and the increasing possibility of Britt taking up residence in Barcelona, we decided we needed a gulp of this legendary water on our last night here. Bye for now Barelona! Guess we will both be seeing you again!
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