It was the Bestelona it was the Barcelona

Alt title: John Brittney Barcelona (we watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona just before our visit). John felt like a Vicky where I’m more of an insane Penélope Cruz. “No pistola en mi casa!” – favourite line from the movie and generally good advice.

We went to Barcelona for our last stop in Spain! It was beautiful, wonderful, magical, and painful. Barcelona is filled with fantastical Gaudi architecture. We stayed half a block from the Sagrada Familia! I enjoyed staring at it a lot, despite all the tourists swarming around it. John was at some fancy mobile future conference… alls I knows is that thur be robopuppies.

John’s conference was most of the week, so I had to entertain myself! *le gasp* What did I do? you may ask. Well I decided to walk everywhere within one day. I walked something around 15km. Which is really nothing if you’re thinking marathon, but who’s thinking marathon?! I really didn’t mean to walk that far, it was just one of those Forrest Gump moments where “I just felt like walking.” Barcelona is just a really interesting city! Due to all the walking my old lady hip popped out and I was in some pain for a few days. Luckily the metro is really good in Barç and I could use that for the rest of my stay. Even though I took it the wrong way… twice. Don’t shake your head! Everything is in Spanish and Apple maps doesn’t have transit info!

IMGP3005 — at JohnCon getting his badge! Look, something cool!

IMGP3013 — We found a blue haired friend! He came adventuring with us!

(click here for the panorama if the embedded one doesn’t work, or to see it full screen)

IMGP3020 — These two are too cute! Not pictured is me punching Peter for making moves on my man!

IMGP3039 — view! I love pidges on statues.

I caught John and Peter being cute again *barf*.

what’s in the hole? an empty coke can and cigarettes. mystery ruined.

(click here for the panorama if the embedded one doesn’t work, or to see it full screen)

But Estrella sooo good 😉 We found beer and my dear Board Room alum friend Hannah! (not pictured).

I found the egg tower on my epic journey.

My top fav things we seen/did in Barcelona were:

Visit friends!
GAUDI!
Exploring neighbourhoods. Especially the Gothic Quarter. It was filled with tiny winding streets and interesting old buildings.
The Beach! It goes forever and has a really nice walkway next to it.
GAUDI!
The food! I didn’t get pictures but we tried a sampling of traditional Catalonian food and had delicious Mexican food. You can never go wrong with Mexi food. I’ll never get tired of tapas either.

(click here for the panorama if the embedded one doesn’t work, or to see it full screen)

there was this cute little Mexi restaurant across from our apartment. We would’ve eaten there everyday if it wasn’t always packed.

It started hailing so we hid under the “birds nests” at Park Güell.

That’s about it for Barcelona! We were there for about a week and really enjoyed it. As always we could easily have stayed longer. There is just so much to explore!

Bye Barcelona! We hopped on the train to travel through the Pyrenees and into France.

Bonus Slider Time Travel Time!

As it happens, John was in Barcelona for MWC a few years ago. Back then the full conference was held at Fira Montjuïc, but now it was much quieter because only 4YFN was at that location. We managed to get some photos from the same spots to do a then/now comparison!