Barthelona! Yes... BarTHelona... Very lispy.

So here we were in Barcelona, Spain on the 1st of January 2010. The home of paella, great red wine, flamenco dancing and tapas. What a way to begin the new year! We arrived very tired in the early evening and went out for our very first real Spanish paella. It was yummy, but still not quite as good as the one at Bar Bosh. Ridiculous but true!

We met up with Cam that night and the next day the three of us went to see La Sagrada Familia... Gaudi's very famous and very UN-finished church. It was beautiful and ugly at the same time. On one side it looked as if it was melting and on the other looked like the base of a massive tree. Very odd but interesting.

This is the side that is a little more 'finished' if being finished can actually be measured.












And this is the other side... I don't really know how to explain it. It's very strange.

















Next we met up with Meg and Andrew at the apartment close to La Ramblas, Barcelona's very busy and highly touristed main street. We had tapas for lunch and wandered around the area for the afternoon. We saw another one of Gaudi's weird works of art, this time as an apartment. The plan was to go inside but 5 euro was 5 euro too much for us financially 'savvy' budget travellers.

That night Meg, Andrew and Cam went to the soccer whilst Pru and I cooked ourselves some dinner. It was nice to cook as we hadn't had the opportunity to do so for quite some time. We had a very relaxing night in.

The following day we hired bikes. We rode along the water and then underneath Barcelona's very own Arc De Triumph. We rode up, and by up I mean almost completely vertical, a hill to see one of Gaudi's parks named Park Guell. The house he'd lived in for a time was also in this park.














Another strange creation by a very strange man who, by the way Dad, kind of looks like you. He is pictured below.



We spent a bit of time wandering around this odd museum-like park then rode back down the humongous hill to our apartment.

We had a lovely dinner that night which was pretty pricey but definitely well worth it. I tried carpaccio for the first time and loved it.

The following day Pru and I shopped a little and enjoyed our time in one of the greatest stores on the face of the earth; Zara.

After that, on the 5th of January, Pru and I left for Zaragoza.