Sangria! Oh yeah, and Barcelona too.

During our visit with Tay, we decided to leave all our troubles behind and hit the road to greener pastures. Barcelona was our destination, or as I like to say it.....Barthelona. It was lovely, (which is a very British thing to say). The city is ginormous with lots of stuff to see. Thankfully, we didn't spend too much time site seeing. We were after something much more valuable, something highly sought after, and generally elusive back in our home land. We after that good 'ol Spanish sunshine. We found it, and it was awesome! Unfortunately we arrived in the evening, so we got about an hour of sunshine, but it still counts!

Our first night, we hit the town, in search of some serious Spanish food. We're looking for paella, tapas, you know......the good stuff. As soon as we sit down, we order Sangria, of course. It arrives in a huge glass pitcher with giant straws sticking out, and we quickly realize that we are in the heart of the tourist district. Thankfully, a couple of blissful sips later, and all that embarrassment slowly slips away, and then there's nothing but yummy, fruity, refreshing, giant-strawed giddiness. We ordered food, and Pete and I played it safe....Paella, and keep it comin'. Tay likes to think she's adventurous, so she ordered the all you can eat Tapas option.

(Note to all my readers out there: In general, when something is "all you can eat", it's safe to assume that you're not getting the highest quality, 'best of the kitchen' ingredients. They're buying cheap, and in bulk.)

So Mom's first round arrives, and it essentially looks like meow mix on lovely slices of french bread. YUM! But my mother is a soldier, she's a fighter, and dammit, she's in Spain! She's gonna eat that cat food, and she's gonna enjoy it. She polishes most of the plate, and with each bite, turns a paler shade of pea green. By the time the better stuff comes around, Tay's tummy is dunzo, so we slam the rest of our sangria and get out of dodge. We avoided Tapas for most of the rest of the trip, mostly b/c every time we pass a sign advertising tapas, we can hear Mom's stomach start doing loop d'loops in protest. But the Sangria had already got its claws in us. That devil drink had hooked us, and hooked us good.

So, rather than share our photos of Barcelona architecture, which I should note were all taken from the top of a tour bus....I give you: Sangria in 3 Acts.

Act 1:

The arrival. Those jugs are huge! :)

Oh yummy, yummy.

Act 2:

What is she doing?

Half way done. Notice the flared nostrils? This is serious business.

Act 3:

No comment.....except that this was a set up! They said something really funny right before this photo was taken.........I just don't remember what it was. (also, no comment on the out of focus state of this pic....even though our camera uses 'auto-focus'......)

That was fun!

So for all you culture vultures out there, here are just a few pics of the sites we saw.
The Pyrennees from the plane
Inside the Picasso Museum

The Sagrada Familia, still under construction/ The mosaic lizard at Park Guell. So cool!

Oh yeah, and this photo SO doesn't do them justice, but check out this guys' ears! They were huge, like 3 inches at least! He was definitely British.

That's all for now! Next up.....Road trip to France!