April 15th, 2014

I woke up at 11 am with everyone else, it seems we all got up way too early and stayed up way too late and just needed a good rest. I had yogurt and fresh fruit for breakfast and it was very good.

I decided to wear my blue flowy dress today. It’s really hot plus it feels appropriate being in Barcelona. We walked up La Rambla to wear the CitySightseeing tours started. The lineup was huge so I grabbed a place in line while Franny’s parents went and bought us tickets. I had barely moved when they came back. We stood there for a moment and noticed that the tour buses were leaving with only the top floor full, not the bottom. So Franny walked up to the guide in charge of loading the buses and asks if we could go onto the bottom of the double-decker and he brought us to the front of the line. So we skipped the entire line. We sat on the bottom deck for one stop, then climbed to the upper deck at the next stop. It was probably not a nice thing to do but its’ not our fault no one else thought of that, and at least we got on the bus.

The tour took us everywhere in the city, up to where the Olympic stadium was, down to the port. 

At the port we got off and walked along the beach a bit, dipped our feet into the Mediterranean sea, and enjoyed the sun and sand. It was a little awkward at points as there were plenty of women on the beach who were topless, not us though so don’t worry! 

For lunch we stopped at a seafood restaurant. They all shared the Paella while I had a greek-type salad. Then we continued on the bus tour up past La Sagrada Familia. We were going to get off and go in but it was closed for a specific renovation at the time. It’s Gouvy’s masterpiece and it has been under construction for the past 100 years, funded by private donations and the entrance fee to see it. 

Instead we stayed on the bus and it took us up near the top of the mountain overlooking the city (the amusement park is up there, but that’s not where we were headed). One of Franny’s friends here in Liege is from Barcelona and she told us of a small café up the mountain with breathtaking panoramic views of Barcelona, and it was not touristy at all. It is called MiraBlau and it lived up to everything she told us.

We had tapas there and enjoyed watching the shadows decend over the city (the sunset was behind us). We caught the last tour bus back to the city centre and walked back down La Rambla to our apartment. Where we had snacks in the livingroom and watched “The Lincoln Lawyer” starring Matthew McConaughey. We didn’t get to bed until 1 am.