Monday, September 19, 2016
Greetings from 35,000 feet.
So much for Barcelona; boy am I tired. Our last day in Madrid we went to a cafe; on the fourteenth floor of a hotel "Dear Hotel," (with the comma) to enjoy the view and have a rather early glass of wine:
Then it was off to the train station to board my first high speed train, which travels at high speed. The speed looks like this:
and the views are generally gorgeous:
When we arrived in Barcelona, we took the metro to our Airbnb host, who did not speak English (nor much Spanish!), so that was interesting. Then it was out to the main popular section of town for dinner and drinks, where we met an Indian bartender who we chatted with until he closed the place.
Day two it was off to the sights. We went to this Gaudi park museum house thing. There was some cool stuff:
A little later we headed towards Las Ramblas to walk around and see stuff. Stuff:
Here's another homage to Columbus. He's standing, pointing towards (presumably) the New World. I feel like he is pointing East, though, since we're on the Mediterranean side and there's the beach.
There is ocean:
Then with our aching feet we climbed to get to the entrance of a cable car so we could see everything from above. The hill we had to get up offered some nice views, too:
And then from the cable car:
A lot of young couples in Barcelona. Bring your own babe.
Then we walked over to the beach. I took off my shoes and walked around. Here's the sea:
Then it was back to the Airbnb for a siesta in anticipation of all of the fish we were going to have for dinner:
No fish was safe that night.
There's other pretty stuff around the city. We rented bikes at some point and rode around the parks until we hit the beach.
Are those bats wearing armor?
Anyway,
I made a dinosaur friend:
The big sightseeing attraction in Barcelona is the Basilica. It's a big deal. I didn't know this, but they've been building it for well over 100 years. It's scheduled for completion in 2026, I imagine just before the Second Avenue Subway opens. But look at the thing:.
Ready to head inside? Are you wearing your diaper?
Here's the back. The idea is that the front entrance is all about the Nativity, and the rear is all about the crucifixion. We did the audio tour.
Here's more detail on the front:
Goudi was totally stoked on Jesus. Couldn't get enough of him.
The rest of the trip was wandering around the Gothic Quarter at night, eating and seeing what's around:
There was this festival going on in the main park, so we went there and saw all of this live music and interesting art installations. You want to see more of the Basilica, don't you?
Now it's a just-under three-hour flight to Stockholm, where presumably we will eat meatballs and shop for furniture. The snack guy is coming around I NEED COFFEE.