Month: April 2018

April 1-2

Very sad to see Betsy and crew head back to the states, we traded in our huge minivan-ish rental and got a super small Peugeot. We have about 3.5 weeks before we have to be in Florence and decided that we like the flexibility that having a car will give us. So we piled our stuff into the trunk and the entire back seat and took off for Nice. Michael had been under the weather the past few days, so we were looking forward to some sleep and relaxation. And since we haven’t been in close contact with a child in over five months, when Johnny headed back to the States, he left me with a nasty cold. I can drink tap water in Namibia but hold a baby and apparently I’m toast.

On our way to Nice, we drove up to Andorra to see what’s going on. The answer is: not much unless you like to ski. Everything was really beautiful with picturesque ski towns. We grabbed a pizza from one of the towns and continued the drive.

In an effort to avoid the cold, and continue chasing summer, we continued on our merry little way to the Riviera.

We started one of the many beautiful drives that were coming our way. Not that I noticed. I slept almost the ENTIRE WAY. Michael said it was beautiful. We can all take his word. I did, however, wake up to this incredible moon. Now the picture doesn’t do it justice. It’s blurry and seems much less brilliant than it looked in real life, but here it is anyway:

Looking at this picture makes me want to delete it and any reference I made to the moon in this post because the picture is so pathetic. But too bad. You get a pathetic picture this time around.

We got into Nice late and went straight to bed. The next morning we got up and took a train to Monaco. I had been to Monaco more than 10 years ago with my family, but it was Michael’s first time. We grabbed a 15 minute train that took us through the mountains.

Monaco is… beautiful, and fancy, and expensive! We planned on about 7 hours in the country and it proved to be too many. We went to the famous casino, but they were charging people to enter. Not so the last time I went with the fam. We showed up in fancy dresses and jackets and spent about 15 minutes gambling. My brothers lost their money fast at blackjack and I won about a hundred Euros and took it all off the table immediately. Definitely better to walk away a winner in Monte Carlo!

But Michael and I weren’t dressed up and were definitely not looking to do any gambling, so we just wandered around the lobby before heading out to grab lunch. After lunch, we just spent the rest of the afternoon walking.

We saw this yellow submarine outside the aquarium that was too expensive to enter:

And we got espresso. The picture was to show off my new kicks – Betsy helped me buy them in Barcelona. They’re nonverses and they only cost 10 Euros. Boom! That coffee from Monaco probably cost me more.

So. Fancy.

So that was Monaco. It was beautiful, but not much to do unless you want to burn a ton of cash. And we don’t. We had dinner back in Nice that night and came to the consensus that we preferred Nice to Monaco. It was still fancy, but a little less expensive. The streets were beautiful and active. After being in such a quiet Easter week Spain, it was nice to see people out and about again. That said – we don’t have a single picture from Nice. So use your imagination or google it. It’s nice. Nice is nice.

The next morning we were back on the road. Next stop: Italy!

March 31

So as previously mentioned, the day was super windy and pretty chilly. We were about 15 minutes early for our tour and the wait outside Sagrada Familia was tough. Johnny was none too please:

Was it the cold or the architecture that he was unhappy with…. we’ll never know.

Our guide found us and we moved to the front of the church to get started. Our tour guide was awesome. She was very knowledgeable, quick and to the point. I took a few notes about things that I thought were cool. It is by no means a comprehensive list, but I’ll point out what I can. There is a TON of symbolism throughout the sculptures and architecture of the building. I’ll mention what I can remember.

So from the front, there are three porticos. The middle is dedicated to Jesus, the one on the left is dedicated to Joseph and the one on the right to Mary. The tour guide stressed the importance of the holy family in Gaudí’s design.

The above scene is the nativity with the three wise men on the left, the shepards on the right, the angles slightly above playing instruments.

Sagrada Familia was designed by Antoni Gaudí and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was started in 1882, which is 136 years ago for anyone doing that math, and is still far from being finished.

More views of the front:

Originally, Gaudí wanted this facade to be painted a wide variety of colors. I think we can all agree that would have been a huge mistake. Gaudí is already pushing gaudy as it is. Come on… the joke is funny. You know you laughed and I had to make it at least once in this post. It’s just too easy!

Here is a column near the door with a huge turtle which our guide stated was a symbol of continuity – continuing slowly and steady – very similar to the state of the construction.

Also out front is a cypress tree, which is the tree of life, and a pelican at the base of that cypress. I can’t totally find it right now. Our tour guide mentioned that a pelican is the symbol of ultimate sacrifice, willing to tear her heart out and feed it to her babies in time of famine. Definitely nothing that I had ever heard before. But catholiceducation.org is telling me that the symbolism is rooted in an ancient legend that during famine, a mother pelican will strike her breast with her beak to feed her young with her blood to prevent starvation. Our guide was stating more as fact than legend, but you know I deal only in facts on this blog (and my own wonderful opinions).

The church is 90 meters long, 60 or 45 meters wide depending on what section of the church you’re standing in. There are 18 spires, but only 8 of them are built yet.

The spires are for:

Jesus

Mary

12 apostles

4 evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke & John)

Jesus’ spire is going to be the biggest with a giant cross on top at 170 meters. Wikipedia is telling me something that I think is awesome: 170 meters is one meter less than Montjuïc hill which is in Barcelona. This is because Gaudí believed that his creation should not surpass God’s. Apparently, the completion of the spires will make Sagrada Familia the tallest church building in the world.

Interesting fact is that Gaudí wasn’t the first architect. There was a more famous architect at the time who started it but quit because his design and fees were too expensive. Gaudí promised to do it cheaper (and radically different). I’m not sure if the guide was joking or not, but since the church still isn’t finished and Gaudí has died already, she made the joke that it ended up being cheaper because they never had to pay him. But if nothing else, Gaudí used local materials that were less expensive. The below is a quote by him that is written in the school next to the church. Many years ago, they had a school building built so the children of the workers would have a place to study while their fathers worked.

“When the building simply has what it needs with the resources available it has character, or dignity, which is the same thing.” Antoni Gaudí

Gaudí died at 73 in 1926 when less than a quarter of the church was finished. Here is a picture of what was finished when he died. The open space is the inside of the church. It was really just the front facade that was completed.

The tour guide was very specific to say that the church is designed with Gaudí in mind, not by Gaudí, since he didn’t have the most specific plans laid out when he died. He had some models built, but much of them were destroyed in the Spanish war.

Sagrada Familia’s construction has been funded completely by private donations which is the reason why it is taking so long to build. Also, construction stopped during the Spanish civil war. Computers have helped speed up the process in the last 20 or so years, but even so, there are still 10 more spires to create and our tour guide told us about a larger issue: the main entrance. Here it is:

(Note: I’ll talk about this door later on in the post, so take a glance at the words on it now.)

Doesn’t seem like that big of an issue, right? So here is the issue: that is twenty or so feet off the ground and stairs need to come out of it. The design assumed that the entrance would start on the opposite side of the street. But there are apartments there that will need to be demolished before this can happen and apparently the people that live there don’t want to sell because they are reasonably priced apartments in a great part of town. So our guide told us there was zero chance that it would be completed by 2026 which is currently the date being promised (and 100 years after Gaudí’s death).

So… let’s go inside.

The first couple of steps were incredible. I don’t think any of us could have expected the inside to look like this. It was so different in style from the incredibly ornate facade outside. Huge. Open. Bright. It was overwhelming in its simplicity.

Here is Johnny about one minute after entering and about one minute before falling asleep. He may actually already be asleep in the above picture.

The first picture below, you can see four columns (well you see a bunch, but look for just four) that have ovals between the main column and where it branches off towards the top. One oval is yellow, one is orange, one is green (facing away a bit) and one is blue (facing away even more – you can just see the blue outline). These four columns are for Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Each name is with the Evangelists’ traditional symbol: a winged bull (Luke), a winged man (Matthew), an eagle (John) and a winged lion (Mark). Never knew they had symbols!

Here is the altar above. Notice that Jesus’ head is pointing up to heaven instead of down to earth. Apparently that’s not standard. My religious scholars can chime in, but what I found online just led me to a slightly graphic explanation of death by crucifixion that I will not repeat here.

The main nave was covered and the organ was installed in 2010, which allowed this unfinished building to be used for religious services. Note the organ behind the altar in the above picture which is also not normal. Pope Benedict consecrated the church in 2010 with 6500 people inside and 50,000 outside. More than 100 bishops and 300 priests attended. There is now mass every Sunday and every holy day of obligation that is open to the public. I was surprised that they only celebrate mass once a week.

I was surprised by this tidbit of information and I cannot find confirmation online, but our tour guide told us that visitors weren’t allowed in until after the church was consecrated. So visits just started in 2010. With over 3 million people visiting each year, the foundation that runs the church and oversees its construction no longer has a funding issue. Now it’s just a matter of the logistics of building it.

Now, the most incredible parts, in my opinion are these stained glass windows:

That’s right. Johnny is done for. You’re missing it, kid!!!

Ok – so the windows are incredible, but I’ll show you a better view towards the end of the post. For now, we’re heading back outside to see the back of the church. Since the front had the nativity, the back obviously has… the passion.

A different feel, am I right? It is incredible how the tone can be so different and so appropriate. Hard edges and straight lines made already intense moments feel that much more intense. Above you can see Jesus carrying the cross and Veronica with the imprint of Jesus’ face on her cloth.

I think this is Mary:

And the soldiers casting lots for Jesus’ robes in the back part of this picture:

Judas’ kiss of betrayal on the right:

Jesus being whipped below. Also notice the alpha and omega in the upper left hand of the picture. Our tour guide noted that the way it is depicted there makes it look like a free mason symbol which you will see in a few places around the church.

And this is Pilate’s scene. You can see him seated and Jesus to the left. What I think is interesting is that they also included Pilate’s wife in the scene. She is shown to the right with her back turned on Pilate, presumably after she tried to convince him not to condemn Jesus to death in the Gospel of Matthew.

After seeing the passion and taking a quick stop in the museum/former schoolhouse, our tour guide left us and we had some free time to wander around. Also at this time, Johnny woke up. We went back in to spend a few more minutes gazing at those beautiful windows. And then the best thing happened.

Johnny was amazed by the windows! It was such an incredible sight to see how excited he was by how beautiful they are.

This is what he’s looking at in the above pictures:

His face is exactly how all of us felt when we saw them.

All of the pedals and circles have names of saints and holy places in them. The red windows, which Johnny was looking at, has typically hot weathered locations such as Guadalupe shown below in the center of the flower and Nazareth and Ephesus shown in the second picture.

And Johnny’s opinion of the blue windows? Still awesome. These pictures don’t even do it justice. He just kept pointing at them, making sure we all saw what he was seeing. It was very moving.

The blue windows were my favorite.

In the second picture, the center is Loreto. I was initially pumped to see it since I was taught by the Sisters of Loretto, but apparently the Sisters of Loreto are a different congregation that had Mother Teresa of Calcutta among their ranks. So I’m going to pretend they just misspelled Loretto, Kentucky, and you all can take from it what you wish.

One final thing to end on. Everything in the church was written in Catalan which is the dominant language in Barcelona. I though that was really cool. So when you see the main entrance (which I told you to make note of above), it has the Lord’s Prayer in Catalan. But behind the Catalan, the prayer is also written in 56 other languages to reinforce that everyone is welcome in this church.

We had a wonderful visit to Sagrada Familia. This face was definitely the highlight of barcelona and of the past few days for me. It was amazing to have this sweet baby, my awesome sister and wonkandy with us for a few days.

March 30 – April 1

We started Good Friday wandering down La Rambla in search of some breakfast. First we came across an outdoor, intense rosary session.

Then we found some breakfast – or at least some dessert disguised as breakfast. Waffles covered in cream and chocolate… totally healthy! At least Aunt Jane and Johnny were able to get their hands on a banana to share. I’m not sure why I don’t have a picture of these waffles… But we enjoyed all of it and a few espressos out in this courtyard. Where are all the people?!?! Good Friday. Everything is quiet.

After “breakfast”, we walked the mile and a half or so to Sagrada Familia which is the super famous cathedral in Barcelona.

Johnny wants to know why everyone is looking away from the church that we came to see.

Sister selfie:

Accio wand!

We went to get tickets and found out that they were sold out for the day. What!? We have to buy these in advance?!? Ok. Fine. So Michael bought tickets for the following day and we went on our merry way. But first… it’s always important to get the BEST angle:

The rest of Good Friday, we basically just ate and walked a TON, checking out the city.

We popped into a flower shop and Johnny was super excited to pose with me and my favorite flowers.

Is this Johnny trying ibérico ham? Maybe…

Johnny loves Circus Pizza almost as much as Andy does!!! Michael was just playing it cool.

Seeing all these sights is exhausting!!

But the good news about Johnny falling asleep is that we finally got to put my turban wrapping skills to use!

Tell me that isn’t awesome. The moment he woke up it got pulled right off.

The next morning, Holy Saturday, we got up and took a walk into the park before breakfast. There was a great view despite it being incredibly windy:

Then we wandered off to Sagrada Familia, take 2. However…. I’m going to put those pictures in another post. There are too many good ones!

After Sagrada Familia… you guessed it… we spent the rest of the afternoon walking around.

Of course, we picked up some gelato. I can’t decide which one of these three pictures I love the most, so you get all of them.

Is it Johnny staring down the gelato:

Johnny taking a bite so aggressively that he may actually fall forward into the gelato:

Or the finale where Johnny is loving the gelato and totally ignoring Aunt Jane’s attempts to get him to look at the camera:

We stopped at the market in case Johnny was interested in picking up any artisanal olive oil or goat heads.

After so much walking, we were ready to head back to the AirBNB and get Johnny ready for bed. The guys ran out and picked up some delicious tacos for us to have for dinner. This is only relevant because Michael and I have been craving tacos for months! Then we spent the rest of the night relaxing. The next morning, super sad, Johnny, Betsy, and Andy flew back to St. Louis. We were so thrilled they were finally able to make it to Spain and wish they could have stayed longer. Thank you for making the long trek!

Did I really just end our time with Johnny, Betsy and Andy with a picture of skinned goat heads? That I did. But don’t worry… a Gaudí email is coming up next so it’s not really the end!

March 27-29

They made it!!! Michael and I did the long drive back to Barcelona on Tuesday morning to meet Andy, Betsy and Johnny at the airport. We were sleepy time, but we got this nice sunrise:

This was definitely a hurry up to wait moment. The hour or so that we waited for them to come out from customs and baggage took FOREVER!!! But they finally made it out and everyone was super pumped… especially Johnny. No pictures of the welcome, but we got a picture of wonky Andy:

OK – into the car and off to San Sebastián! This was about 7 hours in the car, broken up by a stop at Conde de los Andes which is a winery that is built on top of caves that have been used for making and storing wine since the 15th century (although the wine back in the 15th century wasn’t anything like what it is now). Johnny loves old vines and bottles of wine that are as big as he is:

So we headed into the caves, which were super chilly. Sorry for some of the slightly blurry pictures. It was super dark down there.

There were three highlights of the tour.

1. That we were actually on it and that the entire group was in Spain and together.

2. The caves had massive rooms filled with unlabeled bottles. Our guides took us into one and actually opened a bottle in there for us. It was a 2005 grand reserve and it was delicious. That said – the beautiful setting and the excitement of them opening an old bottle from their collection definitely added to the taste.

3. Ernest Hemingway had visited the caves in the 1950’s. So they dedicated a small portion of the caves to him and some other guy (sorry I don’t remember and the google machine won’t tell me who he is). You can see they put some wine glasses, one of his novels (in Spanish) and some great chairs to enjoy the space. Being a fan of Hemingway, it was cool to me to be reminded of his love for Spain and to geek out a bit about him.

Looks like Johnny’s first chapter book is going to be The Sun Also Rises:

Let’s take this opportunity to note how after two days stuck in Newark with an ear infection and a fever, followed by a red eye flight, followed by being put immediately into a car to drive for 4.5 hours and then another 2ish…. Johnny is killing it.

Another thing that I wanted to mention is that the woman who led this tour was extremely complementary of the French and how it was the French that pushed the Spanish to make great wine. When the phylloxera epidemic hit French vineyards in the mid 1800s, the French had to go to Spain to buy their grapes. With nothing else to do, many French winemakers came to Spain with all of their expertise and methods and built major infrastructure to support wine making, in the French style. Another thing that Michael and I had learned the day before at Contino was that when phylloxera hit Spain by the end of the 1900s, Spain recovered by taking old vines from the United States and grafting their varietals onto the rootstock. He was excited to tell us that our country is responsible for his vines. I thought that was cool. Especially since google just told me that is how French vineyards were saved as well since apparently US vine species have evolved to have several natural defenses against phylloxera. However, I would be shocked for a fancy pants French vineyard to be as excited to show off their US roots.

Some tastings, some running around, and then onward to San Sebastián. It may not be clear from the video, but Johnny LOVED this.

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San Sebastián!!! We are excited to be here. Or if nothing else, we are excited to not have to drive or fly anywhere for the next couple of days!! After parking and getting settled into the AirBNB, the girls and Johnny hung out with a bottle of wine and the boys went out to find food. They hit up a number of tapas places before bringing us some burgers home. I’d like to say that Betsy and I were sad to have missed the glorious food posted below, but I assure you we were just pumped to be in sweats and relaxing with Johnny.

That night, Johnny slept something crazy like 12 hours, (BOOM!) and woke up ready to see the sights!

Just the guys checking out a restaurant…

And the guys walking on the beach…

And Johnny wishing the sun would come out so he could take off his hat!!!

But then it did warm up a bit and we found a great cafe to drink some espressos while Johnny got to run around the plaza. His favorite thing? To stare at all the dogs and birds (conveniently all called “ball” by Johnny). Here Johnny is hanging out with the birds and his Spanish friend:

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Second favorite? To push a chair into empty space. Tell me this doesn’t look like an art installation. We’ll call it “Child in Chair”.

Next off to eat something… because clearly we haven’t had enough to eat since arriving. We popped into a restaurant called Ibea that Michael found great reviews for online. We were a little nervous taking Johnny in because it was a bit fancier and SUPER QUIET, but the food was amazing, Johnny slept for half of lunch and we had a great meal. Plus the owners were really sweet with him.

When in Spain, you learn how to drink out of a wine glass. It’s just water! Don’t worry! No vino blanco for Johnny for a few years. In addition to drinking out of a wine glass, Johnny also tried chorizo (which he loved) and woke up in time to eat a tiny bit of the steak pictured above (which he loved). That said, both were some of the best meat all of us had ever eaten, so the bar may have been raised a bit high on what he believes chorizo and steak should taste like. Johnny also loves super crusty bread – both to eat and to throw on the floor. To balance out all of this super rich food, we ordered the mixed vegetables which were served in a pool of delicious butter. Super healthy.

After lunch we needed to walk around a bit, so we did that… and wandered around the city for a bit before we happened upon this craft beer shop.

The interesting thing about this place is that they have taps that fill up plastic bottles (similar to how a place in the US would fill up glass growlers) and also you can’t drink there. You can drink directly outside on the bench, but not inside the store because they don’t have a permit. So we ordered a few bottles, the owner gave us a few glasses to borrow and we sat outside on the bench. The beers were great, the fresh sea air was great and Johnny was great.

So you get the gist of our time in San Sebastián – lots of walking around, lots of eating and drinking. But we also had some time to teach Johnny some new skills. Like this… Aunt Jane taught Johnny how to cheers:

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It is these types of skills that are really going to take this kid far.

The next morning, we had just a few hours in San Sebastián before it was time to head back to Barcelona. Since it was Holy Thursday, it was time to visit three churches, a family tradition where you visit three separate churches on Holy Thursday to pray for three separate things, one prayer for the world, one prayer for another person and one prayer for yourself. It is symbolic of the three times that the apostles fell asleep while Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. We stopped into two churches in San Sebastián and then one church later that night when we got to Barcelona.

Our first stop was a real treat as the choir was practicing for their Easter Sunday concert. Amazing.

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This is actually a good time to mention the difference between Holy Week in Spain verses Holy Week in the US. A lot of stores were closed in Spain the ENTIRE week leading up to Easter. Everywhere we went things were closed without any note or mention. Also, can you imagine having a choir practice on a Thursday mid morning? No one in the US would be able to attend – they all have to work! It is definitely a different approach to living. And I won’t say that the Spanish are more religious. A tour guide that we had in Spain noted that only 17% of people in Barcelona are practicing Catholics. I am not sure what that percentage is in the US, but that was shocking to me considering how everything shut down for the WEEK of Easter. Moving on.

The second church was a bit less eventful, but still overwhelmingly beautiful:

After one more breakfast of croissants and espresso, it was time to leave San Sebastián. We definitely didn’t have enough time there, but Johnny had to go explore a new city! One of the cool things about the otherwise boring drive from San Sebastián to Barcelona is that you cross the Greenwich Meridian which is 0 degrees longitude.

Once we arrived in Barcelona, we settled into another AirBNB and headed out to see what we could see. First stop was La Rambla – a very famous street in Barcelona where Johnny got to hang out with a submarine.

We did some wandering around, grabbed dinner and then popped into our last church for the evening, Basilica de Santa Maria del Pi:

Although this church was beautiful, I think what will be most prevalent in our memory of that church stop was the musician in the courtyard right outside playing No Woman No Cry and Redemption Song. Strange and super funny as we were trying to have a moment of silence, but also oddly appropriate as we approach Good Friday. Feel free to google those lyrics.

March 24-26

The plan: we arrive in Barcelona on the 24th, while Bets, Andy and Johnny arrive on the 25th in the morning. We pick them up from the airport, rent a van, drive to Logroño, enjoy Rioja and tapas, drive to San Sebastián, enjoy an amazing city with amazing food, drive back to Barcelona, spend three days there and then Betsy and crew fly home and I’m sad they have to leave.

Now here’s what actually happened:

With all of my passport issues sorted, we flew into Barcelona from Casablanca with no issues on Saturday. Boom. We had one night in an AirBNB in Barcelona, so we went out to explore the city.

First stop was this awesome meat shop:

That’s right – they just slice the meat right off the leg like that. If PETA didn’t have a problem with me after our snake and camel issues in Morocco, then they definitely do now. It was incredible and delicious. Apparently you can ship one of those legs to someone as a gift or something for a few hundred euros… but not to the US. They cannot ship meat to the US – I think it’s FDA rules from that whole mad cow era.

Next off to see more of the city. It was super rainy, but not too rainy to have an entire street of tents selling palms in anticipation of Palm Sunday. Look at how intense those tall palms are! Definitely like nothing we had ever seen!

Around this time, Johnny was getting ready to come visit me!!

We hit up a few tapas bars and walked the rainy streets.

Then we got the news… Johnny made it to Newark without any issue but then got sick while waiting in line to board the next flight. Betsy and crew had to adjust plans and grab a hotel room in Newark for the night to wait this out. They were not sure if he had the flu and if he was ok to fly or not. So, super upset, Michael and I went back to the Airbnb.

The next morning, Johnny seemed to be feeling better, so they were planning on taking the overnight flight that night (now with an added layover in Munich, unfortunately). With an extra day in Barcelona, Michael and I decided to make the best of it – by drinking beer and being sad that my sister wasn’t in town yet.

Started with the most insane Irish coffee I’d ever had. Also look at how delicious that tapas looks!

Then onto beer and meat shops:

As the day got later, and we got closer to Johnny’s flight, Michael and I got word that Johnny had a fever… and it was getting higher. After a failed attempt to visit the Newark airport clinic (apparently it’s not a real thing despite what the internet says), they decided to push the flights again and go find a real doctor.

Now it’s decision time again – none of our airbnbs are able to be canceled at this point, so Michael and I decided that the next morning we would grab the rental car, drive out to Logroño and stay in that airbnb for Monday night. So bummed, we picked up the car on Monday and started driving. It did not take us long to realize we made a huge mistake. The drive was 4.5 hours but it felt much longer. Super long. Plus there were tolls that we didn’t know about (aka didn’t research) which made the drive long and expensive. Plus I was really sad and Michael was bummed. So that made the drive much worse on everyone.

We stopped into Contino winery which was a great tour. The guide showed us around the cellar and gave great detail into the three different wine areas within the Rioja region.

But then… we were walking through the cellar and walked past this:

The tour guide said nothing and kept walking, so I said, “umm…. did someone paint that on the wall?” and he said “ummm….. no.” So I said, “ummm…. it looks like Madonna and child.” And he got excited and said, “I know, right?!?! That just appeared! I never point it out because one time I pointed it out and people got weird about it.” And then he directed us to another spot a bit over that looks like Jesus on the cross:

That one is smaller and a bit less obvious. But still totally there. Felt perfectly in line since it is Holy Week. It also felt a little comforting after having a few bad days in a row.

Besides divine intervention, we had a great tasting also. Mmmmmm cheese and sausage, plus delicious wines!

After the wine tour we headed to Logroño and the town did not look that cool. Ugh. What are we doing here!?!?!

We checked into the airbnb which at least had laundry (definitely being really glass half empty at this point). The guy who rented us the place suggested we go to Calle del Laurel which is one square block of tapas bars. Part of me just wanted to go to bed. It was a long day and Johnny had gotten some antibiotics (ear infection, not flu) and was scheduled to fly out Monday night (again!!!!). Nothing says healthy baby like casually lounging by a hotel fire in Newark.

So this meant that we were going to be driving those 4.5 hours back to Barcelona on Tuesday morning at 4am. But we went out anyway, mostly because we felt like we had to.

Thank goodness we did! It was a really neat area that was a ton of fun and really just what we needed to lift our spirits. Our Airbnb host directed us to some of the “best” places and we didn’t go everywhere, but we’re pretty sure he’s right. So here’s how it works: there are two types of tapas bars. The first, you walk into a bar, you order a glass of wine and one tapas. They serve only one thing, so you don’t have to make decisions. They give you the food, you eat it, it’s delicious, you pay them next to nothing and go to the next bar. (For those interested, “next to nothing” is about 5 euro for 2 tapas and 2 glasses of wine.

Mushrooms only bar – Bar Soriano:

Guy cooking mushrooms:

Patatas Bravas bar – Bar Jubera:

The second type of bar has options which makes it harder, but still delicious and still super cheap. Here are some tapas that we had to select:

This is the ‘Tio Agus’ from Bar Lorenzo. It’s basically just a great meat sammie. Mike went back for round two.

Meat on a stick:

Calamari:

Great experience, great food and great town. We are really glad that we made the effort even though it was definitely a mistake and silly to drive all this way. The airbnb was a sunk cost and we should have adapted to the change in plans. But despite all our sadness and mistakes over the past few days, Johnny and crew were on their way!!!!! For real this time.