Wow... I've been here about 2 days now and have a lot to cover! Our 10 hour flight to Paris went by much faster than expected, and we barely made our connecting flight to Spain. I sat next to a precious man named Xavier on the short flight to Barcelona, and got to get the down low on great local places to go, and insider details such as asking for the owner to come to your table at the restaurant "Mufins" because he's a magician. He travels throughout the year to America for his candy company that he started, and he said he'd consider going to Texas next. :-) Had really neat conversation about financial security/family/God "balance." We definitely had different views, and I really look forward to hopefully more conversations like this with the people here.
Yesterday afternoon we went on the Fat Tire Bike Tour of Barcelona (company started by an Aggie!), which was absolutely incredible. Highlights were Sagrada Familia, many cathedrals, a lot of Gaudi Architecture, and the beach.
Later last night we went to watch Barcelona play Manchester United in the Champions League Final (REALLY big deal in the world of soccer) at crowded local pub called L'ovella Negra (the black sheep) where people were going absolutely crazy. Caught some footage of the reactions after Barcelona scored. Barcelona won 3-1 and the city went NUTS... never seen anything like it before. People hanging on lamp posts, setting of firecrackers and packed like sardines celebrating along the major street Las Ramblas. Barcelona, Spain HAD to have been the most loud, chaotic place on planet earth the night of May 28. (In case you were wondering about the title, Lionel Messi- FC Barcelona's forward whose a BEAST- scored in this game and was given huge credit for the big win!)
This was all fun and games until a crazy >3 hour adventure of being stranded in downtown Barcelona trying to find our way back to our university when the busses and certain train routes had been cancelled. Will probably be able to look back and laugh, but at the time was a bit terrifying. God definitely protected us and we finally made it in at around 3 AM safe and sound.
Set my all time record for sleeping in (3:00 pm!) and had a very relaxing day (and by day I mean being up for 7 hours). Kristina and I went on a run and explored the campus and refused to take the train into Barcelona for that day… enough adventure for one weekend for us. :-)
