Barcelona: Take A Break

It's now Thursday, Day 3 in Barcelona. We had 9 am tickets to Park Guell (pronounced Goo-Ehh). It was originally thought of as a housing development for the rich, but it failed in that arena. Today, it's a vast public park that boasts its beauty in the mosaic tile details along with an expansive view of Barcelona.

We arrived at the park by 8:20am and we didn't know if we would be allowed to get in since the tickets had a specific time for entry. By 8:30am, they opened the park. There must've been just under 100 visitors around 8:30. That clearly did not last very long. By 8:50am, throngs of tourists arrived and I could just imagine that they must've been dropped off via tour buses. We had already started to take pictures with the city as a backdrop.

We then walked down to view the "salamander" - one of the park's main attractions. I've seen it in pictures and didn't realize that salamander was no more than 5 feet or so. It was still beautiful nonetheless. We took dozens of pictures with it in the background, and walked around the grounds as well.

We've now been in Europe for a week  and we've been non-stop. By 10:30 am, we debated where we should go next, but without any argument, Nancy and I decided to head back to the hotel for a much needed rest. We were back in our hotel by 11am. We all took a nap, and not a quick one either. We were gone in la-la land!

I woke up first around 1:30pm. By 2:30pm, I woke up Nancy and she knew it was time to get up. We decided to buy tickets to Picasso Museum. Our tickets were for 5:15pm, so we had a bit of time.

No Uber, use Hailo
Since Uber was not allowed to operate in Barcelona, I downloaded an app called Hailo and it worked here in Barcelona.  It works just like Uber, it kinda gives you an idea how much the ride will cost, and the payment also goes directly via the app instead of giving it directly to the driver. If you're in to the points-earning game, make sure you use a credit card that rewards you with extra points for "transportation or travel activities." For this type, I used my Chase Sapphire since it gives me 2 points per dollar.

We got out of the hotel and made a quick left to get a cab. There were cabs waiting outside so no need to use the app. The ride to the museum was only 10 minutes. We arrived an hour earlier than scheduled. The museum security advised us to come back at our scheduled time. This gave us a chance to walk around and stop for crepes and espresso outside the Santa Maria del Mar church.

That little break gave us enough time to hang out and it was time to go to the Picasso Museum. Photography was not allowed inside. The first section was all about his work that looked like rough drafts or sketches. They were not painted, but it gave you an inkling to the amount of art work that he's done. We were led from one room to another, some images were small, while others were larger than life.

I'm not big on art, but it was quite rewarding to hear Evan and Caitlin talk about art. Why? Or, how so? Well, every year, there is an art show at the school. They focus on different artists such as Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, and Matisse. To hear them mention their names while we walked around the museum was music to my ears and Nancy's. I'm sure we will visit another museum or two as we continue our trip in Europe.

El Rey de la Gamba
It was time for dinner and we walked towards the beach and checked out El Rey De La Gamba. I had to have another seafood paella. Nancy ordered El Chipirones (or fried squid), and the kids got steak and fries. I enjoyed my paella a lot. Maybe it was the yellow rice, something about the flavor on this one compared to the one I had the other day. This was also loaded with lots of seafood.Nancy and I also enjoyed our fried squid. We're so Pinoy, we asked for vinegar as our dipping sauce. Perfect.

Let's get lost
That's exactly what we did after dinner. We knew that it'd be nice to end up in Las Ramblas but we just kept walking and walking. Took lots of pictures from the many streets and alley ways. Again, it was another aimless way of going around the area. It was already close to 10pm when we finally decided to call it quits....hailed a cab, and went back to the hotel.

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