Chitraroff Family Blog: Barcelona, Spain. Our first destination.

Barcelona, Spain
Our First Destination
December 30th, 2018

Our flight into Spain was easy but the 10 hour flight challenged us from getting a numb butt and legs. There were lots of choices for in-flight movies. While my headphones were broken it wasn't anything that I couldn't order from our flight inservice...only 3 Euros.

We lucked out on the Peugeot car rental. It was a diesel minivan that held Kahlo's bike box and all of our luggage perfectly. Luckily we all drive manual, because that is all they offered. With Leslie as my chief navigator, we negotiated our drive to Barcelona without too much difficulty. Now finding our actual Air BNB apartment and parking in Barcelona...that is a totally different story. After rounding the block 5x or so looking for our meet-up person we finally decided to drop off Leslie and let her find it on foot.

Heavily jet-lagged, we got our belongings to the 5th floor of our Air BnB, dropped them and then took a little nap to get equalized. Once we woke up, we were in view of one of the great and iconic Barcelona landmarks...La Familia Sagrada! This basilica is the amazing work of Antoni Gaudis. Through stone and glass he tells the story of Jesus in a way that you could only imagine in dreams. His masterpiece, which has been continued since his death is one that must be experienced in person and pictures can in no way do justice to his creation. The light that emanates from the interior is ethereal like the most magnificent sunset you could ever imagine laying eyes on. Experiencing Gaudis masterpiece on the first day in Spain was a great kickoff to this trip.

After walking around the plaza, we were hungry and sought out a place that served Tapas and Paella. It is not difficult to find as these two culinary delights are the mainstay for Spanish cuisine. Both tapas and Paella are regional and the Barcelona version of these dishes were very tasty. Tapas are small bites that are best shared and paella can be shared with as many people as needed. Restaurants have a wide variety of pan sizes to accommodate one to ten people in size. Most paella dishes are focused around seafood as the main protein but you can get sausage, ham, and veggies to meet your desire.

Since we arrived on New Years eve, the plan was to take the metro down to Plaza Espana. The family was not motivated to go out but I was able to rally Kahlo to go with me. We got down to the metro station, bought our 2-day passes but we ended up sitting on the train waiting for it to depart for so long that we abandoned it all together and just went back up to street level to participate in the local events. We settled on a sidewalk cafe where I ordered Kahlo and I a rum and coke (Cuba Libre) to celebrate the last day of 2018. (Drinking age in Spain is only 16 years old). We watched some fireworks and saw groups of people ringing in the new year. As the events slowly died down, Kahlo and I headed back to our apartment to recharge for the days activities to come.

Happy New Years to you all and may 2019 be a new opportunity for us all to bring lots of love, joy, success and happiness to the people we love most in our lives. We love you!