Barcelona

The bus ride to Zaragoza was uneventful, and during our layover we grabbed our bags and walked across the street behind the bus station to a park, where we cracked open crackers, tuna and apples for lunch. Then we walked back over to look at a chair-lift ride that we could do, but would cost about 5 Euro, so we didn’t. Instead we just walked around outside the bus station talking about pets we had as children. :)

Got back on the bus and were immediately met by the most obnoxious buzzing sound I have ever encountered... It went on for about half an hour before the Spanish boy across from us went up and asked the bus driver to make it stop. We arrived in Barcelona and were met by an army of taxies that were painted like bumble-bees... we got off at the station and took the metro and train directions to our hostal, which was “at the top of a mountain.” We thought it was a mis-translation until we got there... because it is in a national park outside city borders, literally at the top of the forested mountain!! Very pretty, and a nice place, but really creepy at 11pm at night to walk up there... Checked in and pretty much went to bed right away when we found the internet wasn’t working. We were tired and hungry from traveling, but didn’t want to eat any more Maria cookies (which was about all we had left for food – no nutritional value at all).

Mon, Dec 28th: We got up early to shower, repack and eat before check-out at 10. Breakfast was included, and served by a line-up of workers (so we were unable to eat as much as we’d hoped). Then we checked out and used the computer in the main lobby until we had a little more planned for Italy... since that was where we would be by nightfall, and we still didn’t know where we would be going after Venice. Amelia made copies and bought an envelope from the front desk for her medical insurance forms (from her sinus infection, which she still needed to mail) and then we began our decent from the mountain. Upon reaching the bottom, we decided we weren’t ready to go back to main Barcelona... so we proceeded to walk back UP the mountain, on the trails. We got almost to the top before deciding our bags were too heavy and heading back down to the train stop. Got back into town, and went to the main square in Barcelona: Plaça Catalunya. We needed to find a Correos for Amelia to mail her letters, so we asked directions from a few different people before finally almost walking right past it. So she got everything squared away before we returned to Plaça Catalunya and spread out on a bench for lunch. We had run out of saltines, so we had to eat our cans of tuna on Maria cookies... which was remarkably good! Surprised both of us... kinda a sweet-and-savory combo. And apples. Amelia had eaten 6 APPLES the day before, and then was on her FOURTH of the day when I finished mine. It was pretty funny... :) Walked to a Metro station to catch it to the Cathedral de La Sagrada Família, Gaudí’s masterpiece. Right at the Metro station though, was one of ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ Gaudí's Houses! Way too expensive to enter though, so we took a picture from the outside and went to the Cathedral. The cool thing about the Cathedral is that each generation works on their own side of the building – so it is under eternal construction. It was supposed to have been done in 2000, but now the estimated completion date is set for 2050. :) It is cool though because each side has its own style, because it was done by a different person. Then we went back to the Metro and out to the airport to be there early for our flight. Got checked in after Amelia sat on my bag and reduced its size to half of what I had been carrying it at all day. Before security, we had to get rid of the large bottles of shampoo to make sure everything was appropriate for carry-on, so we filled all our little bottles with her shampoo. We finally got on the plane and flew the 1.5 hours to Venice, Italy. There we followed directions to our hostal from the airport... we were supposed to take a bus to Plazziali de Roma, and from there take the “Vaporetto” to a particular stop. Neither Amelia nor I speak Italian, so we were joking that the “Vaporetto” must be a vapor-run train or a boat. ;)