Mediterranean 1: Barcleona

We had long planned to go to Italy or something for our 25^th anniversary. Plus, this year I was turning a certain age that rhymes with "nifty", making it especially urgent to be somewhere. But since we joined the Kartchners on the Italy trip the year before, we were at a bit of a loss as to where to go. We considered Costa Rica, Tikal, St. Kitts, Hawaii and Korea, but nothing seemed to be right. We also already had a lot planned that summer, so vacation time was getting low.

One day, however, Linette said, “A Mediterranean cruise would be nice.” That was all the encouragement I needed to dive into it. We considered hitting Greek islands, but their letters are all backwards and stuff, so we ended up choosing a cruise going out of Barcelona down to Naples and up Italy and France back to Spain. It helped that Jared would be at EFY for part of the time, and Sienna would be at girl’s camp for an entire week of it.

Thursday: Los Angeles. On Thursday, June 8, 2017, Sharon picked us up to take us to the airport. I greeted her with “Buon giorno!” and off we flew to Los Angeles.

We had an 11 hour layover in L.A., because I wanted to make really sure we didn't miss our flight on Iberia Airlines to Barcelona if something went wrong with Delta's flight to L.A. So we rented a car and did a session at the Los Angeles Temple, which was great.

We watched a couple of movies on the flight to Barcelona, and I was able to sleep on the plane for once, largely due to not sleeping at all the night before our trip (too much freaking out about the trip, probably).

Friday: Barcelona and La Rambla. On Friday, June 9, 2017, we landed in Barcelona, Spain, at 6:30pm.

We took a metro into the Gothic Quarter and walked a few blocks to our hotel, passing one of the many old churches in the town as we walked along.

Basílica de la Mercè, Barcelona, Spain

That evening we rambled around La Rambla, a street thronged by people, especially in the evenings.

La Rambla

There you can buy tapas (appetizers) for 4€ each. That's probably a rip-off, but each one was surprisingly tasty. We got a Peruvian empenada, some curry chicken, and a little "atomic chicken" sandwich.

Atomic chicken sandwich tapa on La Rambla.

The energy in that place was fun. And having been warned of pick-pockets in the area, we took precautions and were fine.

We ended the evening with waffles with chocolate sauce and mint ice cream. ¡Que bueno!

Saturday morning we got churros and hot chocolate, since our niece Shaylee had recommended them so highly. (She is on a mission in Madrid). They were indeed tasty and the chocolate was really thick and rich.

We had 9am reservations to visit La Sagrada Familia (“The Sacred Family”, meaning Mary, Joseph and Jesus), which is a basilica that has been under construction for 130 years. The famous architect Gaudí designed it (after it had already been started), and I don’t know if the word “gaudy” comes from his name, or if that’s just an amazing coincidence, but his designs are nothing if not gaudy. The outside of the church was so packed with ornate decoration that you could barely make sense of it, and it seemed really random.

However, when we walked inside, it was breathtaking. The morning light was shining through the amazing stained glass windows, casting colors on the inner walls that was unworldly.

The massive pillars holding up the roof split into branches near the top, purposely making them look like giant trees. So the interior made it well worth the visit.

My favorite thing was the stained glass, which was more blue on the morning side of the church, and more red on the evening side.

All of the signs were first in Catalan, then in Spanish, and then in English. We were surprised by how powerful the Catalan influence was there. There were Catalan flags everywhere and most streets and other places were named in that language.

One exhibit showed the upside-down model of the church that Gaudí used to check his calculations as to what shape the arches needed to be to hold the weight of the building. By hanging sandbags of the right weight from strings, the curves settled down to the naturally strong shape.

Here's a selfie gone photobomb.

Interesting building. They're hoping to finish it by 2026, the 100th anniversary of Gaudí's death.

Across the street I found some ice cream while Linette read her book in a park.

Then we moseyed up Diagonal Avenue (Avinguda Diagonal), which has a tree-lined pedestrian path up the middle of it.

We came across a church and had a look inside. The cathedrals in Europe are old and awesome.

We also came across a couple more Gaudí creations, including Casa Batlló, which had unusual colors and balconies that looked to me like masks.

Casa Batlló, by Gaudí

 It was a warm day, so we stopped in a café for an apple and a smoothie (and some A/C), and stopped again in the shade at the Plaça de Catalunya, where there were a million pigeons.

We came across some fun street performers. This guy was awesome on the piano.

We saw the Barcelona Cathedral, but didn't feel like going in enough to pay 7€ right then.

I did hang out with Galileo for a minute, though. (He is a real person painted like a statue).

And we poked our heads into a place that had the history of Catalan art in Barcelona or something.

At that point, we were worn out, and we decided to join the rest of Spain in having a "siesta" back at the hotel. We had an excellent nap. When I woke up, I had no idea where I was, and it took a few seconds to realize which continent I was on!

That evening we went back to La Rambla and looked at the artists painting and selling their wares.

Then we went to see Flamenco dancers at the Tablao Flamenco Cordobes, which was right on La Rambla. The event started with a big buffet dinner where we got to try all kinds of tapas and paella, which was a perfect way to spend the evening. 

We had a seat overlooking the street so we could enjoy the energy down below.

The dancing itself was performed in a small theater (holding 150 people), so it was very intimate and authentic with no need for microphones. The people clapped and sang and watched the feet of the dancers to know what to do. Sometimes the dancers’ feet clicked so fast that I didn’t think it should be possible. They also said and yelled "¡Olé!" a lot.

We ended up buying a little street scene painting from the guy who painted these.

We walked around La Rambla a bit more that evening, and sat and watched some live music by a Latin band. We went back to the same lame ice cream place, and again they were out of most of their flavors. They explained one and we didn't understand so we asked for a sample. It was smoked salmon!! Isn't that a violation of an international treaty or something?

Back at the hotel we did FaceTime with Jared. We were ready for bed and they were getting ready for the day.

Sunday morning we took a metro to church.

On the metro, Linette noticed that a girl was wearing a young women's medallion, so she asked if they were "members", and they said yes. (The answers are either "yes" or "...of what?"). They showed us where to get off and took us to church, and it was a wonderful experience. There were 4 wards packed into that building, and the one we were in was very full. A guy sitting next to us was from Namibia, and he had been baptized the week before. He gave a short talk (in English) in sacrament meeting. We had fun talking to some gals from Ecuador and Peru afterwards, too.

One American lady there translated for some of us during Sunday School. She had come to Barcelona after graduating college because she wanted to travel the world. She got a teaching job there, got married, and had been there for 9 years now.

After church we wandered around and happened to come across the Barcelona Cathedral again.

Apparently on Sunday it's free to get in, so we had a look, and enjoyed the amazing voice of a guy singing during their mass.

I had heard that the people would gather to do traditional Catalan dances, so I was tickled to come out of the cathedral to find several big circles of people doing their dancing to a live band.

And here is a video showing several groups dancing along to the music.

One of my favorite things in Europe is the narrow streets between tall buildings.

We really loved Barcelona, and bid it farewell until we were back the next week.

Incidentally, my daughter Erika, who was serving as a missionary in Peru at the time, e-mailed and asked me to write her a song while I was in Spain. I came up with the chorus while there, worked the rest of it out when I got home, made a recording, and turned it into a video. I wanted it to sound like a big crowd singing for the schmaltzy reprise, so I recorded myself 20 times using all different voices (low and high), and it ended up sounding hilariously like a big choir.

Click the video and go full screen for full effect:

In the next installment, we head out on a Mediterranean cruise and visit Pompeii and Herculaneum.