Spain

We arrived in Barcelona about 2 1/2 hours late, thanks to thunderstorms in Philadelphia. Sonrisa says she doesn't remember much extreme weather in Philly when she was growing up there. I think that the weather probably hasn't changed that much, she just took it all for granted and didn't pay much attention. You notice weather more when you are flying...After circling the airport several times waiting for a landing ok, the pilot came on and told us that he had told control that we were in danger of running out of fuel, so we should be getting our ok soon...and we did...before we ran out of gas. We didn't really mind coming in late, as we were pretty sure we wouldn't be able to get into our hostal room until mid afternoon anyway. So we took the train into Barcelona, sharing the train car with a gaggle of high-spirited Spanish teenagers. We got to Hostal Opera, right off La Rambla, at noon, left our bags and went and had our first meal in Spain, Sangria and tortilla di patata. Strangely that was the only tortilla we had in Spain, outside of the one we bought in the deli section of the super mercado in Nerja. We couldn't wait to check out all the activity on La Rambla and were glad for an excuse to walk, so after checking into our room, we walked down to the harbor. La Rambla is a pedestrian walkway lined with various stalls: there is a section of pet stalls, flower vendors, Hola Hola souvenir stands and the section closest to the harbor is lined with outdoor restaurants. I couldn't quite believe that they were selling chipmunks in the pet stalls...I don't know why they are different than hamsters, but it just seems weird. And we never did eat at the tables on La Rambla, I don't know why except that when we were walking there, we were always on our way somewhere and not ready to sit and eat. They seemed expensive too...The hop-0n hop-off bus was a great way to get oriented in the city and we rode it around, half paying attention and half asleep, for a couple of hours. Since we bought a two day pass, we knew that we would be going back to the sights we were interested in the next day. We walked around La Boqueria and ate fresh pineapple and then wandered across to the Barri Gotic, the narrow, twisty,cobblestone streets opening up into unexpected plazas and everywhere people sitting and smoking and drinking cafe con leche or San Miguel beer. Since it was our first day in Spain we were starstruck by the old buildings, the iron grille work, the tiles and we kept walking even though we were tired from traveling. By the time we got back to the hostal, we fell into bed and slept soundly, waking up around 8:30, a decent hour to get up, not feeling jet-lagged at all. We walked up La Rambla to Plaza Catalunya to catch the bus. I wanted to see as much Gaudi architecture as we could, so we started the day with a tour of La Perdrera, a Gaudi apartment building that has an apartment open to tour through, as well as the attic and roof. We also saw the Sagrada Familia, and Park Guell. The colors of the tile, and the sinuous lines, no straight edges...I wanted to touch evey curve and colored surface. Like fairy tale cottages. We went to the gardens at the Palais Real, took a cable car at Monjuic to the fortress, and walked around the harbor to the beach. A long day!