Spain

We went to Barcelona, Spain a couple of weeks ago for the International Environmental Film Festival. The people from the festival were all extremely nice, and we felt like we made many new friends there. After the festival was over, we decided to explore the Costa Brava which is the coastline of the Mediterranean north of Barcelona. Because of our failed attempt to go to Mexico for our 10th anniversary, we decided this wouldn't be a bad back-up trip! Of course it was so beautiful, and we both loved exploring the medieval villages, cathedrals, monasteries, beaches, and learning all about the history of Spain.

The Spanish way of life is much different than ours, and that made us feel old at first because it was hard to get used to eating dinner at 11 o'clock at night! On our first night there our cab driver kept turning up the music and telling us it was too early to go home. By the end of the drive he was calling us "sad Americans" because we were tired and it wasn't even midnight. (It was too hard to explain that it was 7am to our bodies.) But by the end of the trip we realized we would fit in well in Spain since we are both night people, and we ended up staying out until 3:00am on the night before we were supposed to fly home. We only got three hours of sleep, but we just weren't quite ready for our Spanish holiday to end.

We took 991 pictures and movies on the trip. I'm serious. I've edited them down to about 350 on our Flickr page. For the one or two of you who are interested, it takes about 20 minutes to watch the slideshow. I've picked out just a few of our favorites.

A scene inside the La Boqueria market on the famous La Rambla pedestrian mall


An authentic bodega we were taken to with film festival people


Barcelona Cathedral



Sagrada Familia



Park Guell


One of the highlights for me was the monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes



Sunrise in Cadaques


Roman bridge in Besalu (I met another family from South Austin in this town!)


Medieval Village called Peratallada


Medieval Village called Pals


Castle ruins in Begur


View of Tossa del Mar


The Born district back in Barcelona


Wine! It was everywhere...


This was an epic trip. I can't believe we were only gone for one week since we were able to see so much. I'm sure we'll remember our first trip to Spain for the rest of our lives!