Barcelona. Recapped.

Annnnnd I'm back.

Every time I renew my commitment to blogging, I promise that I will write every single day, and then other things get in the way, like 1. working 2. completely cleaning and reorganizing the apartment (2 rooms down, 3 to go...) and 3. falling asleep at 8 p.m. Yes, that's right - I'm a child. I've fallen asleep at or before 8 p.m. two times in the past 4 days. I think I have mono? I think I'm a hypochondriac.

Anyway, the first order of business on this blog was to recap our LOVELY honeymoon to Barcelona, so that's the task for tonight. It's already 8:06, so let's see if I can make it long enough to hammer this out.

Our trip began on Friday, December 17. O'hare to Heathrow airspace to a tarmac in Dublin to a hotel in Dublin, back to the Dublin airport then all the way to Barcelona. It was a long trip. At least, that's what I thought until we watched BBC news on and off during the trip, and saw that people were stuck in London until 2013. So, I guess the slight detour to Dublin wasn't too bad, in comparison. The most exciting thing about Dublin was staying in a hotel right next door to the national... Gaelic Football Stadium. Here was our exchange with the concierge at the hotel:

Us: What is that huge stadium outside for?

Concierege: It's where our team plays our national sport.

Us: Soccer? I mean, futbol?

Concierge: Gaelic Football.

Us: What?

Concierge: Look it up.

Us: Awesome. Will do. Oh hey! We're on our honeymoon! Can we get an upgrade?

Score. BTW, I just watched some youtube videos of Gaelic football, and I'm pretty sure my elementary school gym teacher made that up... But seriously, it looks really cool, and I'm not sure why it hasn't spread further than Ireland.

Anyway, a mere 12 hours later, we were in Barcelona. At our 5-star hotel that we clearly didn't belong in. How did we get a 5-star hotel for a decent price? Travelocity. I don't ask questions - I just accept the awesome fares. That hotel could NOT have made money on us.

Here's how crazy the hotel was - there was a doorman, which maybe isn't that weird, but what IS weird is that he would give the revolving door a little "head-start" for us. Like, I'm already going to push the door the rest of the way, because I have functional arms and I'm motivated to either enter or exit the hotel. But yeah, sure, give the door a little push for me.

Although it was a little uncomfortable, I did appreciate the star service.

Here are some of the highlights of the trip, after the doorman helped push the door open so we could leave and explore the streets of Barcelona -

Monday -

- Parc de Montjuic - beautiful. Easily my favorite place we went.

- Barcelona 1992!! We saw the Olympic stadium, the Olympic pools, and the basketball arena where the Dream Team was forever immortalized (in the eyes of 8-year-old boys like Dave was, at least). I have a bit of an Olympic obsession, so obviously I loved seeing all of this stuff. I saw people running by the stadium, and was immediately jealous of them. How much more motivated would I be to crank up the workouts if I were running by the stadium where GOLD MEDALS WERE WON? I would just play Eye of the Tiger on repeat on my ipod and run all over the place. OK, I'll move on - this is already the longest section of this post. See? I'm crazy.

- We took the subway. Keep in mind - Neither of us had ever been to Barcelona, nor do we speak Spanish, and their subway system was STILL easier than the el. I mean, it was so easy. What is Chicago doing wrong? I don't understand.

- Favorite quote of the day, after Dave went to the bathroom at the Olympic stadium: "Have YOU ever pooped in an Olympic stadium??"

Tuesday -

-As with all other days, this day started out with a croissant and cafe con leche. From what we could tell, the accepted coffee to sugar ratio is about 1:1.

- The CCCB (Centre de Cultura Contemporània) - a cool museum/art space that was, like most other museums in Barcelona, hidden in a maze of back alleyways. We kept thinking we were going to get mugged, and then, BAM! a beautiful museum with world-famous art inside. This place was pretty cool - there was a neat exhibit on labyrinths (although not ONE mention of The Shining, which I found to be quite a glaring hole, but whatever) and a recycled art exhibit. At one point, we wandered into one room of the recycled art exhibit, and I said to Dave, "OK look. I love looking at art, and I try to understand modern art and be open to the emotions it can evoke in other people, but this crap LITERALLY looks like it was made by children. This wall looks like a bulletin board in an elementary school." And then Dave read the sign on the wall and was like, "Lauren, it WAS made by children." Oops. At least I'm an accurate critic?

- The afternoon ended with paella, which was actually not very good. But then I realized, we may have just picked a bad place. It may have been like someone coming to Chicago for pizza, and going to Sbarro and saying, "Gross. I don't get all the fuss about Chicago pizza." So yeah, I think that's what happened there...

- Also, the Picasso museum. AWESOME.

Wednesday -

- Another day of cafe con leche. Only this day, there apparently was some sort of "Christmas lotto" that was a huge deal all across Spain, so during our breakfast, the TV in the cafe was tuned to the Christmas lotto coverage. Kind of looked like CSPAN coverage of Congress, but instead of a politician speaking, there were school children drawing lotto numbers. This is what it was like, for 30 minutes:

Little School Girl: (picks a numbered bead out of a huge ball and sings the number)

Little School Boy: sings "millionaire" in Spanish

At each restaurant we visited that day, we tried to get someone to explain this Christmas lotto to us, but everyone gave us a different answer. Why was the little boy singing "millionaire" so many freaking times? Do ALL of those people called win a million euros? We'll never know.

- We also had great pizza that day. I even wrote down what kind I had, so I could repeat the recipe at home. Thin crust, olive oil, basil, salami, pepperoni, capers, peppercini, mozzarella. DELICIOUS. Make it. Thank me later.

Thursday -

- Back to Montjuic. Seriously, we loved it.

- Museums and castles.

- Tram car.

- Dream Team shoes.

Friday -

- Oh, Friday. We rented this thing: http://www.gocartours.es/. Dave let out his inner little boy, and I let out my inner tightly-wound anti-risk-taker. As if I even needed to mention it, Dave did all the driving that day. Would I like to drive what is essentially a go-cart around a busy, foreign city with totally unfamiliar traffic laws, street signs you can't read unless you have binoculars, and roundabouts (or as I liked to refer to them, deathtraps)? I'll take that question and raise you a "was I PMS-ing that day?" So, yeah. I let Dave drive.

- After freaking out because I couldn't navigate properly (shocker. It took me a good two years to figure out how to drive from Wheaton to Portage without directions), we ended up on the freeway - and thankfully, very quickly got off. That was a rough part of the day, but thankfully, it got much better, and included:

- The FC Barcelona stadium. I know almost nothing about the team, except that their best player is apparently the best in the world. Didn't see him hanging around the gift shop, unfortunately.

- Sagrada Familia. AMAZING. Unbelievable. I'd never seen anything like it.

- Casa Mila. Again, Amazing. Gaudi, again.

- The night was capped off by our first Christmas Eve dinner together, at a delicious tapas place. We went there because it was the first open restaurant we could find, but it ended up being amazing. The best gin & tonic I've ever had (how is that possible with a drink that includes 3 ingredients, one of them being a garnish?), squid, beef tenderloin, duck, and a ham, cheese & truffle sandwich. And, the best part, the dessert - chocolate mousse with a bit of sea salt and olive oil. Mmmm I wish I could just erase it from my memory, it was so good. We ended up spending quite a bit on that dinner, which we kind of felt bad about, and then we realized that we hadn't given each other Christmas gifts. So we were like, OK, that's your gift! Hope you remember that squid for a LONG time.

OK, this is super long. Dave can't believe I've been writing this for so long. I'm done. Hope you enjoyed this, and that you now want go to Barcelona (or go back).