Barcelona, Baby! (Day 1)

As soon as Matthew got off work last Friday, we headed south to Barcelona to meet Amy and Trey. They had flown in that morning, and spent the day soaking up the Spanish sun on the beach and perfecting their pronunciation of "cerveza, por favor". Saturday we spent the day walking around Barcelona, starting at the Sagrada Familia which was only a block from our hotel. After a quick stroll past Gaudi's Casa Batllo, we took a metro, then a funicular, and then a teleferic (cable car) up to the Montjuic Castle. From there, we had an amazing view of the city. Once inside Montjuic, we found the Olympic Park, walked past the Palau Nacional, down to Placa de Les Cascades, past the Font Magica ("Magic Fountain"), and to the Arena bullring. Next we headed to Las Ramblas for lunch. We found a great restaurant where we enjoyed tapas and sangria (well, I enjoyed some sangria). After lunch, Amy and I continued down Las Ramblas to do some shopping, while the boys walked down Las Ramblas (without the shopping) and walked through Port Vell.
After a quick siesta, we got ready and headed towards Poble Espanyol for a flamenco show. We managed to be walking past the Font Magica right as the nightly shows started. The fountain is constantly changing forms to the tune of classical music. It was beautiful. We continued to Poble Espanyol, a group of buildings that were constructed between 1926 and 1928 for the Universal Exhibition. The original idea was to create a picturesque Spanish village that brought together architectural characteristics from all of the different regions in Spain. Poble Espanyol also has lots of little shops and workshops that offer a variety of craftwork and souveniers. The flamenco show was at a place called Tablao de Carmen. There was a single guitar player, 3 male singers, 3 women that took turns dancing, and 1 one male dancer. The music was incredible and the dancing was intense. After the show, we had a quick dinner and then walked to the central square in Poble Espanyol where there was a concert going on. The group was 4 men with the corniest choreographed moves. They were so cute! The main singer (this was all in spanish) kept introducing "special guests" to come sing with him. This was very late at night, and as tired as I was, it was very entertaining. We got back to the metro just before 2 in the morning. At one of the stops, our metro stopped for about 15 minutes while the timing between trains was increased because of the late hour. After changing metros we were stuck waiting for our train for quite a while. The sign kept saying 7 minutes, but as it counted down, it would reset back to 7 minutes. Amy was starting to feel a little claustrophobic deep down in the metro tunnel, so she kept us entertained (and kept herself distracted), by acting out TV shows and movies. She was very entertaining, and I think everyone else waiting for the metro thought so too! :)