Day 9 - More Barcelona

We decided to do a little more sight seeing this day. We got up around 9 or 10 and went down to that little bakery again and got bread, croissants, and a doughnut. We relaxed and slowly got ready to go out and see stuff. We left around 11:30am and jumped on the metro.

First we went to the Cathedral de Barcelona. It was kind of neat – gothic architecture, but much smaller than Segrada Familia. However, unlike Segrada Familia, we were actually able to go inside for free (during certainly hours of the day). We walked around (no pictures allowed inside) and it was neat, but to be honest it wasn't nearly as impressive as many of the churches we've already seen. After walking around and looking at all the opportunities to give money inside the church (about every fifty feet), we went back out into the square, where there were tons of vendor stalls set up, all selling xmas stuff (all involving either santa or jesus). There was also some really creepy music blasting – I can only describe it as “deranged disney”.

Then we had to track down “Wok to Walk”, this little Asian food place where we were supposed to meet Heather and one of her friends for lunch. It took us 20 minutes of walking and navigating in the rain, but we eventually found the place. Lauren wanted egg noodles with shrimp, but apparently (Heather tells us) in Barcelona, they never de-vein the shrimp anywhere, and this was true of most of the shrimp there too. For those who don't know (I didn't know this until this week), “de-veining” shrimp means removing the “vein”, which is actually the gastro-intestinal tract of the shrimp, containing all the poop. Awesome. Anyway, so she went with the egg noodles and beef (as did I), and they make it all right there. It was really good. Heather and her friend showed up soon after, and our lunch was great, except for the damn door that refused to stay closed and kept blowing cold air on us.

After lunch Lauren and I made our way over to the Picasso Museum – again, about 20 minutes of navigating on foot in the rain, but we made it. Unfortunately, they made me check my bag and pictures weren't allowed, so I have no Picasso Museum pictures to post. It was pretty neat though – they had an impressive collections of his works from throughout his life. We spent an hour in there or so, then decided we were tired and it was too rainy, so we jumped back on the metro and headed back to the flat.

When we got back around 4 or 5, we spent the rest of the evening relaxing (as usual). We made sandwiches from the fresh bread for dinner and watched a bunch of 30 rock. We also made it through two bottles of sparkling wine, which was delicious, though it only had the alcohol content of beer so it barely gave me a buzz. Anyway, it was a fun and relaxing evening, as usual.

PS - sorry I haven't been posting as many or as good pictures since Barcelona - there have just been less picture opportunities, especially with the rain. I'm sure it will pick up once we reach Paris.

Cathedral

Another Cathedral Picture

Xmas market outside the Cathedral