We ate a quick breakfast in the apartment before heading out for the day. I say quick, but Dalton had six slices of bread plus a handful of peanuts. That is a lot for our kids.
Anyway, as we had pre-purchased tickets for the Sagrada Familia basilica we had a certain time we had to be there. And it was one of the few touristy attractions right near where we were staying. First we had to stop into the hotel reception looking for a business center to print our tickets out.
They didn't have a business center but asked me to forward the email with our tickets to her and she'd print them. Then we walked up Carrer de Mallorca (the street that both our hotel and the basilica are on).
It was a beautiful sunny day (finally!) and the basilica did not fail to impress as we began to come upon it:
Whoa.
Anyone who knew we would be visiting Barcelona said this was a must do. And they were 100% correct. We knew it wasn't cheap, that our kids might not think it was the best time ever, but that we had to do it. We had to. Gaudí began construction on it 133 years ago and it's not estimated to be complete until 2026-2028. The kids will be like, 22, 20, and 18 years old then and I would love for them to see on the news holograms (or whatever we have in the future) that "The Sagrada Familia is finally complete" and then they can tell their college roomates, "Hey, I was there when it was under construction! See:"
The details on this building were unbelievable. And everything was so intentional and symbolic and it's really awe-insipiring, especially when you think about how long ago he designed the place, you know? No computers, no fancy technology. Anyway...these pictures are all from "Nativity Façade"
In contrast with the ornate-ness of the nativity façade, on the other side is the passion façade which is intentionally harsh and bony.
The kiss of Judas:
We paid for audio guides so we popped those on, the kids had a kids version, and we wandered around:
This was when Jason's audio set malfunctioned and he had to run all the way back to the beginning to exchange it. The kids found it hysterical to type in numbers of stations we weren't at yet.
They were pretty cute, though, and it was fun to hear them mentioning Gaudí or looking for certain things described in their audio tours. I really liked this little surprise orange tree just sitting there next to the massive church.
Pretending her audio guide is a camera. Goober:
I tried to get the kids to mimic the poses of the wisemen behind them but Easton and I disagreed over whether "his" guy was kneeling or not. :/
For whatever reason, perhaps because it was just so random and unexpected, this guy playing a bassoon gave Jason and I a gigantic laugh.
After our audio tour, we also paid for access into one of the towers. So, we headed over there to the elevators with our tickets and the employee looks at our kids and goes, "How old are they?" We told them and she was like, "I'm really sorry, but you have to be 6 years old to be allowed in the towers and pointed to a small sign. I was like, "What?!?! It didn't say anything about that on your website where I bought these tickets" and Jason said that she was 5 and a half and the woman was very nice and said we could just pretend she was 6 but we had to watch her very carefully as it was a little dangerous. I couldn't help but think that in Berlin, we never would have been able to fudge the rules like that.
They put us in the elevator and up we went:
Because we, you know, don't own a selfie stick, a nice Asian man offered to exchange pics with us. And this is the one he took. You'd never know we were overlooking Barcelona:
You get to take the elevator up, but everyone has to take the stairs back down. Tiny narrow stairs:
They weren't exactly "to code" as far as safety railings and such:
We reached the bottom and headed to the gift shop. Jason actually bought something for a later gift for someone so the kids and I killed a little time outside waiting:
Easton helped take this one of me:
But when he saw it he was like, "Maybe you could do a little...." and cocked his head to the side to demonstrate. So....
After that we headed for some lunch.
We got pizza and some tapas. Patatas bravas. Basically a French fry in a cube shape. With some mayo and some semi-spicy dipping sauce. Easton has already turned a little German and loves mayo on fries since moving abroad:
Dalton made a Baymax on his napkin there and is also being Baymax:
Our waiter was so so so nice. Again, so unlike Berlin. He was friendly and asking our plans for the rest of the day and making suggestions and drawing maps. It was refreshing. And we actually did what he suggested which was to walk down Carrer de la Marina.
Eventually we cut across towards our next destination, stopping at Parc de l’Estació del Nord on our way. It had this bizarre mountainy sculpture rising out of the ground. I later learned it is actually called Cel Caigut (Fallen Sky) and, of course, our monkey had to climb it and the other monkeys wanted to try too:
Easton said it was one of the most challenging things he's ever climbed, but he made it!
If you saw the montage, he also slid down it to get back on the ground.
After that, we headed towards the Arc de Triomf as planned.
This picture cracks me up. Jason kept backing up and backing up and backing up to get it 'just right', one would assume. What do you think?
Me thinks it's possible even Easton did a better job:
Photobomb by Dalton:
We then made it to our next planned stop: the Parc de la Ciutadella.
Easton being attacked by an iguana in front of the Castell dels Tres Dragons which houses a zoological museum:
We wandered around the park:
Found a playground:
Definitely not interested in posing for Mom:
Then we came upon the Cascada, possibly one of the most beautiful fountains I've ever seen:
I love Easton's expression here:
We spent a little time just walking around and enjoying it:
For reasons unknown, Autumn collected this bouquet of leaves:
And left them here when it was time to move on:
Upon leaving the fountain we discovered this giant mammoth:
A rare site, me on tip toes:
There were all these cool trees that looked like skeletal hands reaching towards the sky:
And the Catalan Parliament Building:
Then there was this strange statue:
Pink door for my pink girl:
Fun bushes to hide in:
Eventually we left the park and made our way up to a café for our first serving of churros y chocolate. In my very first year of Spanish (9th grade), I remember the fake conversations in the book and one of the things often mentioned was this "churros con chocolate". Señora Longabardi had studied in Spain and told us of this delightful treat. The first churro I can remember enjoying was when my dad took us to Disneyland when I was about 9. Now a churro is a must for me on any Disney vacation. And in Spain, there was the addition of this thick, hot chocolate to dip it in.
Dalton's not a big fan of cinnamon so churros in the past are not really his "thing" and Jason is vegan, of course, so J had a coffee and Dalton got a chocolate croissant and then whined about how unfair it was that we had this chocolate "drink". Booger!
We stopped into three different grocery stores on our long journey "home". The kids are so used to walking from living in Berlin that no one ever complains or asks "are we there yet?" And poor Dalton even had some chafing on his leg! We made it back to the flat, I was full from my churros but Jason whipped up some dinner for himself and we fed the kids, watched some Disney channel (it was all in English), and did showers and bed. Jason and I watched the latest episode of the Big Bang Theory after the kids were down for the night.
A smattering of video clips from today is below and day 4 is here.
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