Adios Barthelona

Our last full day in Barcelona was a busy one!  We decided to take a train and a funicular over to Montjuic, a small mountain that slopes along the west side of the city where a lot of the 1992 Olympic stuff is located, and then took a cable car even higher up the mountain to check out the castle!

Beautiful sweeping views of the whole city! 

I hate these pictures, where I'm sitting in front of Drew and look three times the size of him.  Ugh!!

Gotta get the cannon pic in every city we go to.

Spectacular sea!

The castle was originally a military fortress from the 1600s and now it's a "municipal facility".  Cool!

Money shot.

After you take the cable car back down to the middle of the mountain, you can walk along a street that will lead you to the Olympic stadiums, pools, basketball courts, a huge courtyard with a Calatrava radio tower, and a playground!

What's special about this lone merry-go-round, sitting along on a dusty playground, you may ask?  Well, I'll tell you.  

When I was here in college with my best pals, we stumbled across this weird-looking merry-go-round, climbed on, and proceeded to have the best hour of our lives spinning around and around and laughing hysterically at nothing except our child-like happiness.

All 3 of us would get on, and one person would start running as fast as they could around it, and then jump on (like I'm doing here) and enjoy the ride.  It. was. awesome.  

I tried to recreate this now, as I did so many other things about this trip, but...it wasn't the same.  Drew wasn't as obliging, though he did smugly suggest that the merry-go-round probably went faster with me on it now as I was packing some extra pounds in college.  

(If my Spanish madre only made me deep fried cheese croquettes and buttered pasta every day, what was I SUPPOSED to do?  Not eat it!?)

Not as fun without Meredith and Nell and Steph.  Dangit.

There was also this amazingly huge fountain we'd read about (we being our college selves) and we desperately looked all over this mountain side for it.  It was supposed to be enormous and full of lights and music was supposed to be playing as the water shot out.  We came to this dinky fountain and assumed it was it and sat and stared at it sadly.  But also laughed a lot because this dinky fountain was so miserable looking.

But then we climbed down a huge set of stairs and FOUND IT - the Magic Fountain!

Yay!!  Victory!

 These stories are silly and uninteresting to anyone except the 4 of us but I tell them anyway because I'm nostalgic and missing those times.

ANYWAY.  Drew and I went on a tour of my past and then headed over to Camp Nou - the home of the FC BARCELONA Futbol Club!

These guys are evidently the best in the world and this was a bucket list/birthday gift for Drew to be able to check off.  Woohoo!

There were no restaurants around the stadium so we had a bocadillo and a couple of Estrella Damm beers on a hill outside the stadium.  Spanish tailgating at it's finest.

Also, Camp Nou doesn't serve alcohol at their games.  WHAT!?  How am I supposed to enjoy a sports game without a little beer buzz!?  Maybe their Spanish fans get way too crazy and out of control.  That wouldn't surprise me.

Cutie in his new birthday FC Barcelona scarf.

We won!  Yay!

Then I made Drew go back to watch the Magic Fountain performance with me with some more street beers.  It was lovely.

We cabbed it over to a cozy little tapas bar, La Pepita, in the Eixample area, and then walked home beneath the Christmas lights all over the city.  

We stopped back by El Quatre Gats for wine and churros, Drew broke a glass framed picture on the wall by our table, and we got the hell out.  Whoops!  Lo siento.

Barcelona was, and still is, pretty damn magical.  It was clean and beautiful and pretty and Spanish.  And I don't think I've visited another city thus far on this adventure that I want to live in so badly.  One problem I have is often trying to recreate trips - trips other people have taken, trips I've taken in the past,  etc. And I did a little bit of that this time.  But I'm starting to see that I can't really do that anymore, and I gotta create my own memories with my own people (Drew), and embrace the present!  But I like reminiscing too, so sue me.

We left early on Sunday morning and got back to Dublin in time to Skype with our fams and get things done.  It was an increible birthday trip and I can't wait to move to Barcelona!  (In my dreams.)