Our time in Barcelona was really nice. Barcelona is a happening international cosmopolitan city. Just about in any restaurant or shop you can hear 2 or 3 different languages being spoken. Even with Spanish here there are distinct dialects. This region of Spain is very proud to be Catalonian, which, is the proper language they speak. 2 differences just show what I am talking about: "more" the spanish we are all used to is "mas." Here is it "mes" with an accent over the "e". "Thank you." "gracias" of course. Nope, here "gracies" accent over the "a". So, some differences but especially between Amanda and I we have enough command over the language to get by 95% of the time in Spanish.
Thursday and Friday we got around Barcelona with me driving the rental car. That made Amanda a nervous wreck. We finally agreed that she would not pay attention to traffic but to the floorboard. Cars, motorcycles, they seem to come from nowhere but at the same time everywhere. No hits no runs no errors though with the driving. A good defensive inning. What has been a life/trip saver is the gps Tomtom we have. We bought it with preloaded European maps. Man oh man that has been super! Everything we have wanted to see we have been able to find by address or it was already a point of interest Tom knew about (yes, we refer to the gps as Tom). We went to couple of cathedrals, Castle Montjuic, and a really strange park, Park Guell before heading out of the city to Tossa.
Again, Amanda did great on our hotel room. Third floor with nice patio facing the Mediterranean and the old city walls. The walls look like the outside of a castle but, not the case. Still makes for a great view though.
We did hike up to the top of the cliffs and around the lighthouse. Not a bad walk but I elected to be a tad more adventurous and climb down the cliff a bit. That wasn't bad either. Getting back up the cliff with a backpack full of camera gear was a little more challenging. I'm betting on being a wee bit sore in the next 24 hours.
After our hike we found THE BEST gelato I have ever had. Coco Sorbet it was called. Man that was good. Amanda and I only had a small wrestling match to pick who got to eat more of it. It was a draw and we were both content. Next was a small snack and then clean up for dinner. Dinner was good and reasonably priced. Appetizer, couple of drinks, paella, and desert for 35 euros. Unfortunately because the U.S. dollar is so poor, that translates to about 50 bucks.
So, that brings us to this point. 4:47 a.m. Spanish time. Why on earth am I awake?? It seems even in this little sleepy tourist town people never freakin go to sleep. There have been people having conversations 3 floors down on the street up until an hour ago. There have been no less than 10 loud, annoying little vespas or other loud scooters that have gone barreling past our hotel. It seems to have quit now but it sounded like a motor-cross earlier with the riders giving there power machines full throttle. I'm sure full throttle got them up to a hair raising 20 miles per hour. Now, I can clearly hear the garbage trucks. Looks like a siesta is definitely in the future today.
I did plan on being up and on the beach for the sunrise. It looks like I don't have to worry about sleeping through it.
From an early morning in Tossa Del Mar...God Bless.
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