Barcy: Part Docy

Once again, I'm going to try and just let the pictures do all the talking (maybe more pics with me and emma photo-shopped in the next post...  This is the second half of our trip to Barcelona!  We hit up the Barrio Gotic, Monjuic, the Picasso museum, more awesome fooood, Barceloneta and the beach, the Boqueria market, a niceee romantic dinnnnner for our 6 month anniversary (thank you) and Park Guell!!!!  We miss you, Barcelona.

Doing a little jig in the church square.

This is why emma wanted to come to barcelona.  Floating boxes of men everywhere....

Sooooo this photo I shot from inside my jacket....

this photo too... woooooooooops.

Best pizza in Barcelona.

Cutest girl with an ice cream in Barcelona.

Cutest guy who will probably have diabetes from eating too many delicious waffles covered in chocolate and ice cream in Barcelona......

just going for a walk.

askldfjiowergjkflv. 

On a hot date with the mrs.

mi amor.

We went to the top of Monjuic for an incredible view of Barca.

More Barcelona.

I definitely went blind after this pic.........

Me likey the markets.

I originally put this photo up for the obvious....  but then at second glance, what does "all for eat" mean?...

Raspberries on the beach.

Raspberries and bread.  the poor man's food.

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

mmmmm.  Good thing it was 50 degrees outside, super windy, and about to rain or this guy might have needed clothes.  Also, I guess it's a lot easier to use the bathroom when you don't have to worry about unbuttoning your pants....

Parc Guell!!!

Basque food.  You pay per toothpick. 

Our awesome hosts!!!! They coooked an awesome dinner for us and took us out to dinner!!!!!!!!  It also looks like we are in the forrest....

adios troutschky.  adios Barcelona!!

Barcelony Baloney: Part Ony

I'm going to try and write as little as possible on these next 2 posts and just let most of the pictures do the talking for our trip (because there are soooo many!)  We went to Barcelona a few weeks ago and absolutely loved it!  I can't say anything else except that it was coooooolio! Food was great.  Sights were neat.  Weather was so, so but not freezing.  People were super interesting.  The trip overall was a 10 out of 9!!

We left at 5:45am for the aeropuerto!

Barcelona.

How many other mid-20 year olds do you see playing with dirty birds and trying to catch them??.....  Call me the bird lady.

Gaudi architecture everywhere!!

Look at 'er go!!  my little tourist.

Excited to be at the most visited construction site in the world!!!! The Sagrada Familia.

Super excited.

We did some couch surfing in Barce.  This is our nice little room.

Trouchtsky.  The fattest cat ever = the happiest girl ever.

We went to the weekly market and I discovered these bad boys.  There you can buy Sega Genesis games, stamps, postcards, magazines from 1990, and movies.  I almost bought some Sonic the Hedgehog and a keychain. 

The other largest cat in the world = even happier little girl!!!!!!

Hanging out on La Rambla.  It's the main tourist district with a gazillion shops and restaurants.  Plus it had the worlds best waffles.

I'll be the judge of that......  

We had breakfast in a different place everyday!  We ate churros and chocolate here at Cafe de la Opera.

My personal favorite.  and one of the few street performers you might not have to pay to take a photo.... b/c emma is sneaky.

Here is the statue of Columbus in the downtown port area.  They always want to depict 'ol Christopher as Spanish/Catalan, but he is definitely Italian.  He did however report back to Barcelona after his most famous trip to the Americas.  Also, Columbus is suppose to be pointing to the "New World" in this statue, but he is pointing to Italy or somewhere east... 

If I was playing Tony Hawk for PS2 right now, I would be tearing up this famous downtown pier on a skateboard.

Where we park our yachts.  It looks like rain....

Not what you want to be doing with piegons and seagulls flying overhead.....

Emma's favorite little cafe... that we never tried. but it was stillllll superr cute!!!

Morocco:: deux

The day before we left for Spain, we took a short day trip about an hour outside Marrakech to the Ourika Valley.  We wanted to take a sweet camel ride into the desert and go on a 2-day, 1-night excursion, but who knew the actual "desert/sandy" part of the Sahara desert was 10 hours outside of Marrakech....  so we settled for an hour into the mountainous part of the desert.  We liked it.

We visited a few Berber villages, saw 1/2 a waterfall, several dromedaries (not camels),  haggled for rugs, visited a donkey market,  and relaxed in the nice weather.

Berber village in the background.

I see a dromedary toes.......... get it?! klasdjfklasmnvuiaejrkfdm

Emma could pay 15 Euros to ride one for 15 minutes.  But we can do that at the county fair...  for free.

friends.

 Earlier when I said we saw 1/2 a waterfall, I meant that I flush more water down the toilet sometimes than what this waterfall trickles down.  When we booked the tour, our transportation AND tour guide were both "included" for a flat rate..........  He seemed nice and reasonable and I even told the man, in exact words and kind of joking but not really, "Now I better not find any surprises at the end of this trip and have to pay more when I get to Ourika.  I am paying XX amount and that's it...." He laughed and reassured me that he gave me the best deal he's got....

Sooooo when we got to our destination, the tour guide said if we paid 4 Euros, he would take us to this waterfall.....  "transportation AND tour guide included" probably meant we had a guide, but that didn't mean he would take us anywhere for free...   haha needless to say, we didn't go to the 2nd waterfall that was further up the mountain for 4 more Euros.  We decided to explore ourselves.  Take that.

The faucet/waterfall.

Me scaling the waterfall.  And blending in with the rocks.

The donkey market.  The only place in the world where donkey's trade and buy stocks.  hehaw.

My broker here tried to get me to invest in some mutual funds, but he ended up being a jackass.  Hehaw.

Snow in the desert desert.

On our tour, we ended up being the only Americans.  There were Canadians, Germans, Australians, Spaniards, Brits, and many other people who spoke three times as many languages as we did.  It's definitely great getting to communicate and share with a gazillion other cultures, even though Canada doesn't really count.

Emma and our friend from Germany talking about life.

Me probably looking at some kid using the bathroom in the creek next to me... 

Our last night we took a few more laps around the Medina central square in town to mark the last few things off our list.  We ate some tanjine, kabobs, and snails!  We even saw an underage, free-form boxing match between two 7 yr olds.  I might have tripped up a few old ladies too with the mounds of nuts.  I thought they might have been following us...

What a joy it would have been to knock these over......... until next time, large mounds of nuts.

Snails are a delicacy here in Morocco, as well as Sevilla.  We haven't tried them in Sevilla b/c they are not really in "season."  Who knew?  But we definitely had to try out these guys as an appetizer for 50 cents!! 

The top half is the best part.  The bottom half might have been poop.... oh well.

MMMMMMMMMmmmmmm!

They were really punching each other.  Hard.

Dancing in the streets.

We can never get away from them.  She's the cat lady.  Even in the airport.

She named him Miel (honey) awwwwwww.  Good thing he didn't have a ticket to get on our plane.