June 24, 2010 - Spain in Detail

Ok so i had this long email written and john knew about it and he said it was too detailed for the blog but it was supposed to be posted yesterday so please bare with me...

Wow! What a day so far! We stayed up till midnight to look at the stars and wish our friend a happy birthday. Then went to back to our rooms to try and fall asleep against all the excitement for land. Then woke up at 6 a.m. to see the sunrise and to watch us come into port. Although we were tired it was very much worth it! Then we got ready before our diplomatic debriefing, a guy from the US Consulate who was from cu boulder. Then our boat was cleared of customs and the mad rush to the buses followed. We can not walk from port because of some construction but there is a complimentary bus service. So once we got to our drop off place, by the biggest statue of Christopher Columbus, we started walking to find an internet cafe and since it is a holiday and yesterday night spain partied there wasn't anything open. So we had a cappuccino and headed back to our port to catch our city tour. Now we're not gonna remember all the spots on the tour but we'll try: Our bus first took us to the top of Mt. Marmora which had a great view of the city and over the MV Explorer. Next we went to a replica city that symbolized the different regions of Espana. From there we traveled to the infamous Sigriada Familia Church ("The Holy Family"). It was incredible!!! If you don't know, it's a church started by the great architect, Gaudi. It has been in construction for over 120 years and has included the designs of many other great architects. It was so awesome. We'll try to post some pictures...but if not Google it. After picking our jaws off the pavement, slowly moved on to the last stop, Barri Gotic or the Gothic Quarter. It's a really cool part of the city with ancient buildings and fun vendors. We finished the tour and decided to get lost...the best way to explore is to get lost and wonder without having any time commitment. However, we kept walking in circles finding the same streets several times...we'll work on the getting lost part. We went for dinner and walked down Las Rambles which is basically like Pearl St or 16th St...on steroids! It's huge and has a ton of vendors on it and is a lot of fun. Then back to the ship to rest for a few minutes before dinner. We went to this sweet restaurant called La Quince Liz which has a new chefs making awesome dishes for wicked cheep. We walked around La Rambles and found some fun bars and pubs to duck into and hang with the locals. After the long night we headed back to the ship for a couple hours of sleep before tours in the morning. Yawn.....
So John went to the markets and I went a monastery up in the mountains it was beautiful but I'm not going to lie once u have seen one really big church u have seen them all! No it was so beautiful on the mountain looking over Spain. I took some hikes, tried some amazing cheese and just be a good old tourist taking lots of pictures. When I got back to the ship john was laying out on top enjoying the warm weather and sunshine. We have really lucked out with weather here! I think john already talked about his trip so now we just left the port to sit in good old Mcdonalds to get free Internet for the short time we have before going back to he ship to pickup more friends and head to a pub to watch some Spain in the world cup. Otherwise early night, which here is between eleven and midnight, since we are so tired and then we will see about tomorrow...

Hope it wasn't to boringly detailed

Love you all!

Mally and John