It was forecast to be rather rainy again for our first full day in BCN. So, we opted to spend much of the day inside as I had wanted to check out the CosmoCaixa science museum. But first, we ran to grab breakfast across the street from our hotel.
We were floored that Jason and I got coffees (mine "fancy") and all 5 of us had a pastry for a total of a whopping 8€. Yup, that's it! I was also excited to speak more Spanish. Jason wanted jelly but I could not remember the word for that in Spanish. I was able to go up to the lady and ask all in Spanish "Do you have...oh...How do you say..." and then I said 'jelly' in English and mimed spreading it on the bread. And in Spanish she was all, "Oh, you want butter" and again, in my Spanish, I got to be all, "No not butter, it is sometimes strawberry or grape and you spread it on bread" and then she got it "Mermelada?!" which is still not quite the word for jelly but sure, strawberry marmalade, fine. :) Then I took the kids back up to our room for some water and told the cashier in Spanish that my husband was there and was ready to pay our bill. :) Probably this isn't that exciting to the rest of you, but, living in Germany, I was so excited that I was able to communicate in the local language. I could understand and be understood. It was refreshing. Sometimes I forget how exhausting it is to have to work so hard at communicating. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it went for me with Spanish. When I attempt German, I have to work really hard at working it all out in my brain if I even know the word in the first place and then I mess up the articles (masculine, feminine, neutral) all the time and can't remember which order the words should go in the sentence so I end up sounding like Tarzan or something only able to speak in the present tense "Me want". My Spanish can just flow much better. I'm sure I still sound like Dora the Explorer with my very basic sentences and my obvious Mexican-influence versus actual Spanish accent but still, people, it was exciting. Be excited with me. Easton heard me and was like, "Mom, you are awesome." Woo hoo!
Anyway, we hopped on a train and then a bus. But, the whole time we were in Barcelona, our phones didn't do great with mapping. I had counted on being able to refer to them.
So, we took the bus a smidge too far and ended up "just outside Barcelona, hiking in the foothills of Mount Tibadabo. I was at the end of this path and I came to a clearing and there was a lake, very secluded..."
Oh wait. No lake. No crying woman bathing in the lake. (Bonus points if you get this reference.)
Anyway, we were up a smidge too high on ol' Tibadabo there. But the view was indeed lovely:
So, we ended up walking back down the mountain a ways before we got to the museum.
Checking out the museum's indoor rainforest we can see from here:
We walked up to the information counter inside and I totally had to do a double take when I saw Albert Einstein (yay, German!) and Charles Darwin sitting there in between the other live helping humans:
The museum was free for the kids and only 4€ for me and Jason. We tried to pay with a card but it had snowed and according to the employees, "It only snows once every 5 years here and since it snowed today, our computer systems are down." Say what? Of course we leave Berlin to go to Barcelona where we are there for the once every five years snow "storm". But anyway, whether it was the weather or not, we made it into the museum:
The Antartica exhibit:
Mesmerized by the Foucault pendulum:
More exhibits:
It was a fun family time and not at all crowded.
In the rainforest part, they had blowing floor vents, so Autumn pulled a mini-Marilyn:
We stopped for a small snacky lunch in their café and headed outside for a bit:
They had this interesting weather exhibit out there and it reminded me of when Ben "moved the island" on LOST:
A small collection of video clips from our time at the museum:
Eventually we left the museum, walking along the streets of a city that looks very different from our current home:
And back to our home-for-the-week on the train:
Easton the goober on the escalator. Since he didn't have too many pictures above:
They had these little "seats" lining the small street from the underground to our hotel:
We had some cereal and such back in our apartment for dinner and then kids were really confused when we said it was time for bed because they hadn't had a real "lunch" and thought the cereal they'd just had was lunch rather than dinner. Ah, traveling.
After the kids went to bed, Jason and I watched the Bachelor that aired in the U.S. the night before and pre-purchased tickets to visit the Sagrada Familia the next day.
Day 3 is here.
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