A Saturday in Barcelona

Today we woke up late and didn't have anywhere to go! What a joyous experience it was to leisurely eat breakfast and wander out to La Rambla around noon.  The walk there took us through an Islamic part of town and the smells were delicious!






Today we went to La Boqueria - Europe's largest and most famous food market.  It was a cacophony of scents and sights. Everything from saffron to octopus, chocolate to skinned goats' heads.  We also happened by a stall selling a whole sheep brain.  It was an experience.  The kids were equally enthralled and disgusted.  We bought a kilo of cherries for 3 euro.  Seemed like a safe choice!  Wouldn't know what to do with a sheep brain or a goat eyeball, Twitch....

Such fun.













We went home to have a relaxing afternoon. Had lunch and let the kids chill out and watch Disney all afternoon.  When the kids got hungry for dinner I decided to try making Spanish hot chocolate again, and this time it was a success! So I won't be winning any awards for mother of the year today, but my kids had Churros con Xocolate with fresh cherries for dinner tonight. And they think I am a rock star.  To finish out our kids' choice day we went to watch Font Magica one more time.

When we were there earlier this week we got a good idea where people could see the best, so as soon as we arrived we landed some prime real estate for the kids to watch the show.  Eventually Michael got up there too so that no one bumped them off and I could relax.  Doesn't look too high, until you see this picture of the other steps below.  Now my fear of heights made it impossible for me to tolerate being up there (reference the first Grand Canyon entry from last year if you want a recap of my phobia,) so I stood next to them initially.

But I kept having to take deep breaths if I stood near them, so I went down to the bottom of the steps behind them and ended up chatting with a very drunk Welshman.  As with most drunk people when one is sober, he was highly entertaining and he thought I was fascinating.  I felt a little maternal towards the poor guy because he paid 40 pounds for a couple packs of cigarettes and a six pack of beer. Now granted he made the street vendor go fetch him a couple packs of cigarettes, but I did want to protect him from himself a bit.  (Just for reference the conversion for that today is 40 pounds to 55 ish Euro to 65.25 US dollars.)  The street vendor shook his hand when he was done.  Tried to shake my hand too, but I just laughed and waved him off.  The Welshman was dressed very nicely, so perhaps that made him an easy mark. Pretty sure that guy could have been a stand in for James Bond if we had needed one, right down to the cream linen suit and British accent.

Either way the experience was amusing and poor Michael missed the whole thing stuck up on that wall with the kids.

I love days like this!

Tomorrow we are going to try to make it to church.  Should be interesting!