Barcelona by Mia

After our disastrous trip to Morocco we drove all the way back to Churriana, arriving at 4 the next morning. We slept until 10 (which was not late enough) and then had some breakfast before hopping back into the car to drive east. The plan was to stop at Valencia for one night on the way to Barcelona, where we would stay for two nights. The reason we had so much time to do all of this was that we had Monday and Tuesday off from school because of International Party Day

It took pretty much all day to get to Valencia, do we only had a little bit of time to look around before dinner. We checked out the Ciudad de Arte y Ciencia, which was a really cool complex of awesome modern buildings. In the middle of a shallow 'lake' thing. There were three big buildings in the lake, and an awesome bridge that was in the video course we took on Great Structures. We walked around there for a while and then we went back to the hotel. The hotel daddy got us a room at was a nice big four star... big enough for all us kids to sneak into the double room daddy got us. Wonderful....

The next morning we looked around in Valencia. First we went to the Cathedral (its important enough to just be called "the Cathedral") which was nice, but it looked like all the other really cool Gothic cathedrals we had seen. What made it special was the fact that the Holy Grail was inside it. So we saw that, and, despite what anyone saw in Indiana Jones, the Grail is NOT wooden! It is golden, of course. Next we went to the Plaza del Mercado which is a square with a few cool buildings on it, including a few markets and a church. There was also a bunch of old guys selling coins, movies, and books on either side of the sidewalk in front of the Silk Market. We saw a fat old guy in a wheel chair with a big stack of porn movies there, which was kind of funny in a sad way (if you know what I mean). After all that we got in the car and headed for Barcelona.

The drive to Barcelona was a bit shorter than the one to Valencia gad been, so we had plenty of time to get a hotel room and knock a few sights off our list. We parked the car by a big monument to that idiot, Christopher Columbus (sure, he found America, but he was aiming for India! And he didn't even realize he wasn't actually in India when he got there! That takes a certain amount of stupidity.) and walked along the waterfront. We walked out across a bridge to a mall they had in the harbor, around the mall, and then along Las Ramblas, Barça's famous street. That was really cool because the traffic space was mostly for people and all the cafes along the road had all their seating in the middle of the wide promenade that was in between the two dinky little lanes that were for the cars. There was also trees and stands selling jewelry and fake bags (you know, the kind of things people sell to tourists) along the promenade. Here and there there was a giant statue, too. One of them was a really gigantic metal cat, that Kayley and Sarah climbed on top of. After we walked down that street for a while someone had the stupid idea of walking down a dingy side street to get to our next destination. It looked crowded enough not to be dangerous, but it turned out that most of the people out on the street were guys looking messed up/bored. Some idiot tried to pick dadda's pocket (he did a pretty bad job, it was as far from subtle as it goes) so he tackled the scumbag and put him in a headlock. He didn't escalate it beyond that though because he had friends. Pretty much mommy got in between them and we all ran for it.

That was really exciting, especially because the guy didn't get the wallet or the phone! Also, some other guy who was watching told dadda 'good job' when we were walking away. Apparently they were either impressed, or were glad that the kids got tough a lesson. Either way I thought that was funny! After that adventure we got off that street as fast as we could and walked over to the 'Magic Fountain' which was what we wanted to see next. I wasn't just a fountain, but a whole complex of awesome stuff including a giant art museum, lots of columns and statues and the actual fountain which was off. It was just our luck that the fountain was off because we were there on the one day that it was off. Without the waterworks the fountain was just a big round pool with little jets where the water would normally come out of. Because there was more to see than jut the fountain, it wasn't that bad that it was off. We sat down at a cafe with some ice creams and drinks, to wait for the fountain to turn on (it was supposed to come on at 9, and we were a little early. We didn't know that it wouldn't come on at all, and apparently no one else got the memo either because there was a whole crowd waiting for it). Eventually the crowd trickled off when everyone realized that it wasn't going to turn on after all, and we joined them.

We took a different, safer route back to the car (Zander analyzing the previous event, speaking knowledgeably about the proper technique and etiquette of street fighting and pickpocketing, and asking Daddy all sorts of questions he already knew the answer to for the entire walk back) and when we got there we headed back to the hotel. (Our hotel situation was exactly the same as it was in Valencia, so Sarah and Zander got the floor and the other four squeezed onto the two twin beds that were next to each other. Its a good thing not to have weird sleeping habits! The only weird thing Kayley does some times is to try and climb you, and I am, of course, a perfect sleeper, so we usually get the bed if there is one. ) Back at the hotel we ate some salad and bread n cheese, and then went to sleep.