Our last day in Spain March 20, 2016

I guess I’ve been putting off writing the last day because it’s almost felt like reliving the trip.  Anyway here goes.  We pack our bags for a picnic and take the metro down to Park Guell.  We walked uphill the entire way and entered the park.  If you go you should absolutely pay to get into the ticketed part.  The free part of the park is beautiful but it doesn’t compare to the colours and exploration you can do in the ticketed part. We walked around, had our snacks, named a lizard Harry and just took in the sunshine on our final day. We went back, took a siesta, Sabine did squats in the elevator and shopped a bit.

Our stomachs started to grumble and we were DETERMINED to get to La Paradeta so we walked halfway there, to the general area and then we took a CAB!  Which brought us right to the door of the restaurant.   We realized that we were so close the first time, we just couldn’t figure out the right street.  Anyway we ordered the seafood fresh at the counter and they grilled it right there for us.  We had a massive portion of : tuna, calamari, mussels, clams, shrimp and oysters.

After we ate what was approximately our combined weight in seafood we walked back to our suite and Sophie and Sabine did some acro  yoga.   And once again we had a knock on our door, a hopefully young guy asking for a hair dryer and once again was disappointed that 4 girls didn’t have one between them.

We went to bed that night, unsettled by the thoughts that we would be abandoning this fantastically slow and sweet lifestyle tomorrow and back to our reality.  Ciao Spain- you were amazing.

Cheers

La Rambla and the biggest market ever January 23, 2016

We woke up and had breakfast at the hostel.  Unfortunately there was none of that delicious sponge cake (and that must have been important to us at the time because I have it written in my notes).  Because of the construction still happening on our side of the suites, Ally and Sabine got temporarily locked outside.  But it’s okay because we were in Spain and not in the current -20C weather we’re having at home. I digress…We got dressed and were on our way down to La Rambla, which we were told is fantastic during the day and a dangerous outdoor brothel at night.  We walked along with millions of other tourists looking at the little pop up stands and the beautiful trees lining the street.  Then we finally got to mercat de la boqueria. This is one of the biggest indoor food markets and I seriously mean big.  Every edible item you could imagine and more was being sold there.  It was absolutely amazing and completely overwhelming.  Just when you thought you had seen everything another hall appeared and there were even more vendors.  We bought some snacks and had to drag Ally away from the seafood vendors.  We grabbed lunch where I ordered “muslo” off the menu thinking it was muscles.  It wasn’t. It’s a turkey leg. After that we shopped along the stores on our way back to our suite.  We hung out in our suite for a bit, tried to watch TV on what was clearly a paranormal possessed TV set and then had our siesta.  We woke up hungry and asked our hostel what the best seafood restaurant was.  They told us about this delicious place where you choose the seafood from the counter and they cook it fresh for you.  It was called La Paradeta and it looked to be walking distance from our hostel.  On empty stomachs (dangerous) and following verbal directions (even more dangerous) we set out to find this amazing restaurant.  After walking for about 30 minutes and not being able to figure it out, we tried asking around.  No one seemed to know what we were talking about.  We finally got so fed up and hangry we just decided to walk back and stop in the first place we saw. We stumbled into a sweet family owned restaurant where the owner was really kind and gave us a free dessert. After that we called it a night.

Cheers!