Couldn’t sleep any longer and we had to make sure we were up and getting out to catch our train. I made oatmeal again and we were off! We walked to our train, got to see all the Sevilla kids walking to school-everyone in school wears the same uniform. The train left promptly at 8:50AM (love out on-time these trains were). On to Barcelona!! The train ride was 5.5 hours. We past huge pastures, trees, olive oil fields (Spain is the largest producer of olive oil), and sunflower seed fields. The train was very smooth, comfortable ride, went fast so I napped, read, stood in the cafeteria cab to stretch my legs out.

We arrived at 2:30PM and walked to our hotel. It was about a 25-30 minute walk to Axel. We didn’t know this in advance but the hotel seemed very metrosexual. Very European, drag, gay! Very clean, large rooms, but seemed very gay-friendly. Had a sign which you put on the doors for DND, and then one for Please Disturb……yikes!! Inside the room there was a picture of a naked back of someone on the wall and of course condoms in the bathroom. I am not sure how I felt about this place. The notes in the room all said hetero-friendly, but we for surely in a gay community.  Barcelona right of the get-go felt much larger than Madrid and Sevilla. Blocks were much much longer and to commute took a little bit longer that the other two cities. Cooler in temperature too which was nice.

We dropped off our stuff and then went out walking right away to check out the neighborhood and famous sites. There were tons of tourists, traffic, skyscrapers, tall gothic buildings, we were definitely in a city (much different from Sevilla—it was very congested and busy). We walked by the Casa Batllo (masterpiece designed by Goudí) and went to Segrada Familia (astonishing unfinished church in Barcelona designed by Goudí) which was just brilliant. The architecture being carried out it just mind blowing. Wow I was just stunned at how intricate and detailed each angle of the church was and how much of the bible is inside and outside the church. It is still being worked on and costs money to get in so we bought tickets online and got right in (there was a line of hundreds of people so we just went online and cut the line and got right in). Being in the church was just amazing---beauty and genius at its finest.

After we looked around for a couple hours, we walked back to the hotel, cleaned up, and went to dinner with a couple that Emily knew at 9PM. We walked to the restaurant which was about 20 minutes or so away. It was an exquisite dinner-my favorite so far. It was a 4 course meal:

1.       Champagne, water, bread

2.       Appetizers-asparagus, veggie fried chips, calamari rings, something with fish

3.       I ordered a modado (white) fish with a potato block underneath—delicious!!

4.       Dessert-dark chocolate mint mousse mmmmmmmmmmmm it was so good!!

I learned I had to make sure I clarified if I wanted distilled or sparkling water at every restaurant and café I went to. Sparkling water (Carbonated or fizz water) was something that was very popular but something I am not used to and prefer distilled (normal drinking water).

The couple we ate with were very very nice. They both spoke English so I could engage in full conversation and surprisingly I missed talking a bit. We talked for a couple hours, treated us to dinner, and drove us back to our place. It felt nice to be in a car because I hadn’t been in one in over a week. It was 12:30AM by the time I laid down---exhausted!