Barcelona

Today was challenging. We set our alarms for 6am as we needed to be on a train at 8:06. Everyone woke up cranky and tired after a VERY late night thanks to one of our children... We ate some cornflakes (and Sammy's tooth fell out as he was still too asleep to eat carefully) and made it to the station with 15 minutes to spare! That has to be some sort of record for Tom aka Mr last minute. His motto in life is; if you're there five minutes early that's five minutes wasted, or for flights; if they aren't calling your name over the loudspeaker then you aren't late. (Grrr)
We found our first class seats and Samuel made a comment about how much he loved first class and how we should always travel first class. Apparently when Tom booked them there wasn't much of a price difference between first and second.

We decided that train travel was the way to go, so much less stress that flying; no security, baggage checks, take off and landings, waiting for bags at the other end, passport control. And it is so scenic! We admired sun flower fields, hay bales and remarked on the different landscape as we traveled closer to Spain. Well Tom and I did, and poked the children who were fixated on their iPads.

Our first impression of Barcalona was the heat, very warm and humid with a haze to the sky. We opted for a taxi to transport all our luggage to our accommodation which turned out to be an expensive 4km.
There was no conceirge at the accommodation, only a sign informing us to go to a different location to pick up the keys. We decided that Tom would leave me with the kids and luggage and walk alone- a much faster option. Before leaving he said "if I'm not back in half an hour, panic." Silly Tom, as soon as he said this Sammy started panicking. Every five minutes Sammy would fret. I tried to assure him that daddy is always late, and that I wouldn't panic until daddy was over an hour late, but it didn't help things that at the half an hour mark Tom was nowhere in sight.
I began wondering what I would actually do if Tom didn't reappear. I had no way of calling anyone. Anyway I didn't need to worry, Tom was back at the 45 minute mark, and relayed the strict hotel instructions; we were not to enter before 1pm or we would be fined, we could not hang anything over the balcony or we would be fined 350 euros, we could not have parties or we would be fined.
As we were leaving to find some lunch another family arrived with the same confusion regarding check in, and Tom broke the news of the long journey to the concierge.
I went for a short walk up the street to look for food. I found a market with raw meat, and the chickens and rabbits still had their heads on, their little eyes were terrified!
We bought some croissants, one with jamom, some bread with sugar on it(?) a doughnut and what I thought was an apple turnover but ended up being pure pastry!
After eating it was 1pm so we entered our room which had literally just been cleaned, the floor was still wet. But it was lovely and spacious, two bedrooms, lounge/dining/kitchen area and two bathrooms. We ha been in much smaller rooms so we were all pleased to spread out, and the kids were so excited to have their own beds!

We set out to experience Barcelona, making our way first to their massive Sagrada Familia Basilica. There are no words to describe such a monstrosity, except gaudy; a not so funny coincidences that the architect responsible for it was named Gaudi! It pollutes ones view of the sky with its towering concrete turrets that have coloured baubles atop. Every facade is different, there is no harmony of design or even colour (and they say I'm not arty). It's gothic architecture at its worst.
We decided to walk the perimeter (after stopping for the mandatory play in the park) but it was so big and ugly we ended up in souvenir shops but were disgusted with their prices.

We caught the metro to the coast. Everyone was tired, most of us were holding it together but the littlest one was not. We bribed her with gelato which worked initially, but after the gelato, which wasn't even good, she went crazy. There were tantrums, screaming, stomping and general hysteria. Tom and I pretended not to know her at one point, with Sammy and I walking away (more for fear that I would start crying too!)
Threats were made and she calmed down. She even walked for the next half an hour, silently with a stiff lip. She can be so determined when she wants to be.

This next part of the day was my favourite. We walked aimlessly through alleys that led to vast openings and grand buildings. We commented on smells, mostly bad and noticed little things like patterns in sandstone, the bumpy paths so iconically European. We saw a wedding party and the photographer was using a drone to capture the memories, and we tried more gelato which was equally as bad as the first.

We were hot, tired and ready to go back to the hotel when we stumbled upon the greatest find of all; some produce markets. These were mesmerising, fruits boasting vivid colours, nuts in abundance and giant fish and prawns. But the items that caught our interest were the meats and cheese. We bought paper cones filed with jamom, cheese and chirizo, all lukewarm and slightly sweating in the sun, but delicious. Unfortunately even the kids liked them- less for me. We also bought some chopped up fruit for the kids and reluctantly left via the back door. This opened up to a piazza that had people preparing to make a human pyramid! We wanted to stay but they were nowhere near ready and both children were complaining. We caught the metro back to our room, showered the kids and gave them their fruit. This refreshed them enough to happily walk to find dinner.

We had planned for an early night but once again this was not to be. We walked for a long time in search of pallela and tapas, but most restaurants only had tapas. I was about to snap (maybe that's where Adalia gets it from?!) when the road opened into a piazza with restaurants and one had pallela!
Tapas, pallela and a mojito, does it get much better? Even the kids who had been chanting "chips! Chips!" to the waiter, were happy with our selection. (Adalia wanted a mojito and growled at the injustice of the world that she wasn't 18, but I couldn't really blame her, it did look good).
Tom had promised more gelato, but I had to be bad cop and over rule. It was 9:30pm! They needed to be asleep, not hyped up on sugar. Tom was shocked at the time as it was still sunny, and quickly agreed.
Thankfully, all our walking to find a restaurant had been in a circle and we were a very short walk from our hotel, so the children were quickly in bed and asleep before the sun had set.Read more