Garra Rufa Pedicure

The rage here seems to be fish pedicures.  Haven't heard of them before?  Basically you dip your feet in a tank filled with little garra rufa fish and they feast away on the dead skin on your feet.  They do not have teeth, but use little suckers to eat the dead stuff.  Garra rufa are used for medicinal purposes in many countries to treat conditions such as eczema.  In the past couple of years it's become a trendy spa treatment.  When a friend offered me a voucher for a treatment how could I say no.  I'm glad I tried it, but don't think I'll get another one.  It tickled really bad.  Also, this treatment is banned in almost all US states so this may have been my one chance.  You'll notice we even drew a crowd.  I told them I was taking their picture and they were going in my blog.

Barcelona Take 3

For our last full day in Barcelona the agenda included more Gaudi, Paella, the beach, another scenic park and the Magic Fountain.  We started the day with a visit to La Sagrada Família which is a Catholic church designed by Antonio Gaudi, a famous Catalan architect.  Construction started in 1882, but is still not complete.  It is however a World Heritage Site and the pope visited in November 2010.  They are anticipating a completion date of 2026 to celebrate the centennial of Gaudi's death.  The line was huge so we just enjoyed the outside. 

After La Sagrada Familia we started a long, uphill trek to Parc Guell.  My knee was bothering me so I let Cory assume all stroller pushing duties.  I wanted to document the steep climb so have included a picture.  Brady was super excited once we got there because there was a man making huge bubbles.  If you ask him what his favorite part of the trip was 'Bubble Man' will be at the top of the list.  The park was very scenic and had more Guadi architecture.  I don't think we followed the normal path through the park and wasn't able to find the very famous Gaudi lizard.

Next stop was a lunch break to have Paella and Sangria.  We found a nice place close to the beach and it was warm enough to sit outside.  Paella was great, but one suggestion, pay the extra money for a bone and shell free batch.  We opted for the chicken and fish Paella and noticed that you could order it regular or bone free.  I think we anticipated chicken breast and grilled fish, but we had a nice bowl full of shells, bones, legs, etc.  It was still good, but it would have been well worth the additional money to have it come minus the bones, shells and legs.

It wasn't warm enough to put our feet in the water, but we did enjoy walking on the beach.  Brady second favorite part of Barcelona was throwing sand on the beach. 

Last destination of the day was the Magic Fountains.  They are similar to the Bellagio Fountains in Vegas as they perform to music.  Brady had fallen asleep in his stroller, but woke up when we got to the fountains.  We weren't able to stay long as according to Brady, "Don't like fountains.  Scary.  Go back to hotel."  We thought he would really enjoy them but I think we must have been too close to the action.

We went back to the hotel, grabbed dinner and hit the sack.  Our flight left bright and early the next day so this wrapped up our Barcelona weekend.  It was a great trip and hope at some point we are able to see more of Spain.

Barcelona Take 2

We woke up Friday morning well rested and ready to see the city.  First stop was Starbucks and McDonalds for breakfast.  We were really looking forward to an Egg McMuffin since our hotel breakfast cost €18 a person.  We got to the McDonalds counter to order breakfast and crazy thing was they do not serve hot breakfast items.  Our only choices were donuts, croissants or pancakes with chocolate syrup.  WHAT, no McDonalds breakfast?  Surely this was a one off at this location only.  Nope, no egg sandwiches at Burger King, Starbucks, KFC or any other fast food location within walking distance.  Lesson learned, apparently breakfast is not an universal necessity.  Everyone who knows me well, will understand what a travesty this was for me.  I am a breakfast person.  I cannot think of a day that I have skipped breakfast and a donut just doesn’t quite cut it.  However, we would not let this spoil our day.  We shared some pancakes and were on our way.

Plans for the day included a market, churches, plazas, a park and dinner at Christian and Missy’s house.  

First stop was La Boqueria, which is the large market just off of Las Ramblas.  La Boqueria had an amazing selection of fruits, vegetables, meat, seafood and any other kind of fresh food you can think of.  We were not hungry when we walked through the market so didn’t have the urge to buy anything.  I was intrigued by the big hanging pieces of meat.  You could get yourself a nice pork leg for €50.  I found it interesting that they were all the same price.  If I were to buy one of those nice pork legs I would probably want to weigh each of them to ensure I was getting the most value for my purchase.  We did stop back by the market on Saturday and had an excellent fruit smoothie so we can say that we experienced the market.

After the market we visited Santa Maria del Mar which is a Catalan Gothic style church built in the 1300s .  We were able to go inside and take in the amazing architecture.  No trip is complete without multiple church stops, so after Santa Maria we hit up the Cathedral with is also Gothic style and is the seat of the Archbishop.  As we visited the churches we walked through numerous plazas which many had interesting fountains.

As we were walking we spotted a Hard Rock Café and decided to indulge in some Nachos.  I’m not necessarily into collecting Hard Rock café items, but do remember always getting a t-shirt as a kid when my mom visited various places.  Cory and I are more into Hard Rock for their predictable nachos and burgers. 

We were in serious needs of a walk after our burger and nachos so set out to find the cable car from the beach to Montjuïc park.  We could see the cable car, but couldn’t figure out exactly where to catch it at.  It looked like you could catch it from the Port so we headed that direction.  When we arrived at the port we couldn’t figure out where to get on and didn’t see any cars actually moving.  Rather than spend all day trying to figure out the cable car thing, we decided we might as well just start heading the direction of Montjuïc.  I love walking so how far or hard of a walk could it be.  Silly us, the walk to Montjuïc was a steep incline and one of those walks where you get to the next level and then find out there is one more climb.  This happened probably 5-6 times.  We thought we were too the top, but then one more climb.  I also think we took the unconventional route as we got to a point where there were about 100 rock stairs and no pavement.  There is nothing like hoisting a stroller up 100 stairs.  In the end we made it up to the top (or at least we’re going to call it the top, I think we could have climbed up a little further) and took in some beautiful views.  Also, funny enough, we got to the cable car drop location and it was not running.  Later that day we saw the cable cars running again so it may have just been bad timing on our part.

Friday evening, Christian and Missy, previous co-workers, invited us over for Tapas.  They have been living in Barcelona for the past 1.5 years teaching English.  They did it up with some tapas, bread, cheese, wine and even had entertainment for Brady.

Barcelona Take 1

Tapas, Painted human statues, scenic views, Gaudi, Paella, ocean views, sunshine - all were highlights of our recent long weekend in Barcelona.  One thing that is obvious from the moment you set foot in Barcelona is the culture is much different than London.  I've been trying to think of an analogy to describe the differences, but can’t come up with anything good.  Someone in London told me once that if you were to go start a queue (line) for no apparent reason in the middle of nowhere, that people would go line up in the queue.  I’m pretty sure that if you tried the same little experiment in Barcelona you would not get the same results.  In general I got the sense that people are very laid back, create their own rules and are generally very friendly.

Thursday evening we decided to start things off right with a bottle of wine and some delicious tapas.  Most Spanish folk eat dinner very late (around 10pm) so we had no problems getting in when we showed up at 8pm.  Before we arrived I gave Cory clear instructions that given the fact he had more formal Spanish training than myself that he was to take charge of all Spanish speaking on behalf of the family.  Luckily most of the menu was in English and the only thing that wasn't fully translated was the drink menu.  Heck, even I could pick out the wine section with ease so all looked to be good when placing our order. I wanted Red wine so Cory ordered the Vino Rosa.  A few minutes later the waiter came walking out with pink wine.  I turned to Cory and said this isn't going to work you're going to have to reorder for us.  Cory, I quote, "We may just have to drink this."  Several of the waiters spoke very good English, but luck of the draw we got the guy who spoke very little.  I told Cory that he should at least try to get things fixed.  The waiter comes out and presents the wine, Cory broke out his best Spanish skills and says 'Rojo'.  Ahh, says the waiter, and comes back out with a bottle of red wine.  First Spanish lesson of the trip, Red wine is Vino Tinto, not Vino Roso.  The rest of dinner went extremely smooth.  Brady fell asleep before dinner so he napped in his stroller while we enjoyed our wine and tapas.  I wish I would have taken pictures of our food as everything was delicious and beautifully presented.  We had fried eggplant with honey, Ahi Tuna with guacamole, Artichokes wrapped in Prosciutto and 3 cheese garlic toast.  You will just have to imagine it. 

 After dinner we walked around Las Ramblas, which is the main touristy street in Barcelona.  Brady enjoyed the variety of 'entertainment' on the street.  I put entertainment in quotes as some of it was legit, but there were plenty of scam artists mixed in with the legit entertainment.  To give you an idea of the characters on the street there were at least 20 - 30 painted human statues some nice, but some naughty, random dudes selling bird whistles, other random dudes playing the marble and box game that you can never win, flower stands, hamster stands, bird stands and other random stands.  It is fun to walk through and very lively, but you definitely have to be aware of your surroundings.

After dinner and some walking it was time to hit the sack as we had a full agenda for Friday and Saturday.  More details of the weekend to come.