Barcelona Spain

       I'm kind of a jerk because we've been back from Spain for a week and a half and I still haven't posted anything about it. I'd like to chalk my lack of blogging up to a busy schedule or pregnancy woes, but I can't it's just laziness. Anyways, so here's the story of Spain:

Nate went TDY to Spain in May and Reese and I were supposed to fly out and see him while he was there but between appointments that we had and the trouble of getting to his exact location it just didn't make any sense for us to go, so Nate suggested that we instead take a week in August and go to Barcelona. We asked some friends if they wanted to go as well and it turned out to be a lot of fun to take a relaxing trip with other English speakers :) We had a wicked early flight on Monday, and by wicked early I mean we had to leave for the airport at 4am. We flew into Girona and had to take an hour bus ride to Barcelona. Reese was such a champ for the entire journey, we'd been potty training and while we were on the bus she said she had to go and despite the fact that it took us 20 minutes before we could get to a bathroom she didn't have an accident. We had a nice hotel just outside the main districts so it was nice and quiet and our first order of business was to get to the beach. Reese LOVED the beach! I was wondering how she would react to it but she went down to the water and was having fun collecting rocks and then I took her out in the water to ride the waves and she thought that part was awesome too. I was so excited to see her enjoying the beach, she even let Nate bury her in the sand...well to tell the truth he dug a hole and then she climbed inside and started pulling the sand on herself so he helped push the rest of the sand in. That night we called it quits early and got some much needed sleep after our very long day.

On Tuesday we went to La Sagrada Familia and it was pretty amazing. Most churches are the extremely similar inside and out but this one was so different and I was really glad that we went. After that we wandered over to some other buildings that Gaudi had designed and then went back to the beach for the afternoon. The day before we had noticed that a little ways down the beach it was less crowded so we decided to head down that way, BIG MISTAKE! That part of the beach was less populated because everyone was nude and though it doesn't matter either way may I please just say Why is it that only old people go nude on the beach? Anyways, we headed back down to the crowded part of the beach and found a place amongst the merely topless women to toss our towels. After awhile on the beach we were all laying out and a huge wave came out of nowhere and tried to take our stuff out to sea. Luckily the only thing we lost to the wave was a toy rake, but our towels were soaked since I'd had to chase them down so it effectively ended our beach day that day. That night we wandered Las Ramblas which is a busy pedestrian zone with street performers and shops, but after dinner Nate, Reese and I called it a night because I was having some contractions and figured it was a sign that I needed to take it easy.

On Wednesday we hopped on the train a little ways out of Barcelona to the monastery at Montserrat. It's high up on a mountain so we had take a cablecar to the top which was fun. We went to the Basilica there and then Nate and I just relaxed while our friends hiked down to see where they'd found a statue of Mary, after the contractions the night before I was trying to take it easy. When they finished with that we took a funicular higher up the mountain for some nice views and by then it was getting late so we took our train back to Barcelona.

On Thursday we went back to Las Ramblas to do some souvenir shopping and find churros con chocolate. The churros were good but I would have preferred a sweeter chocolate, still delicious none the less. After some shopping we were going to head back to the hotel and go to the beach but while on the metro someone stole my wallet, burn on them that they only got 10 euro, but burn on me that they got our only credit cards (long story short Nate and I each had one but I'd taken his when went to the beach and forgot to give it back) and my ID cards. We went back to the hotel and cancelled everything and then wallowed for a bit in the fact that we had a day and half left on vacation and absolutely no money, luckily we were traveling with friends who were able to loan us some money for the rest of the time but by the time we had done all that some bad weather had set in so the beach was a no go for the day. That night after dinner we went and saw the Magic Fountain show complete with lights and dancing water, Reese really enjoyed it.

Friday was our last day and since we had to check out of the hotel in the morning we decided not to go to the beach and be covered in sand until we finally got home at midnight, which ended up really sucking because it was by far the hottest day there. We went to Parc Guell and it was a massive hike up to the top, I felt bad for poor Nate pushing a sleeping Reese in her stroller to the top and then when we get there and Nate is pouring sweat Reese wakes up and tells him that it's hot, it was really funny. It was pretty cool but it was so sweltering hot outside that we just skimmed through it and headed back to some air conditioning. That evening we caught our bus back to the airport and flew home. Despite the whole stolen wallet thing it was a really fun trip, perhaps the best part was where Reese finished potty training while we were there. She'd been good on peeing in the toilet for awhile but was fighting me on pooping in it but she pooped in the toilet everyday we were in Spain, I had been worried about it but somehow it just clicked and I was immediately de-stressed.