Spain! : Matt

We are just finishing up our time in Spain. In a couple hours we will be boarding a cruise ship/ferry that will take us to the west coast of Italy near Rome. We will arrive about 20 hours later and we will be all over Italy for about a week (Rome, Cinque Terre, Florence, Venice)!

We are super exhausted from all the traveling we have been doing. But it has been completely worth it! It has been a lot of work planning and walking all over the place. It especially takes a lot of energy because the weather has been hot everywhere we have been. However, Barcelona was just the break we needed from the busyness found in the previous cities we have visited. I like Barcelona and the greater area probably the best of anyplace we have visited so far on this trip. It might have to do with the fact that Linnell has lived in the area for 9 months and recommended fun things to do as well as joining us while we did them! I think that helped a lot because just seeing brothers or anyone else for that matter for an extended period of time is difficult. Now we are trying to split up occasionally and give each other time to be alone. It has definitely helped us get along better and have more fun.

The day after we arrived in Barcelona we went to a beach up north on the Mediterranean. We spent the entire day there as the water was the perfect temperature and the sun was out! In fact we all got burned pretty badly that day (and yes we kept reapplying sunscreen) and are still recovering from that. It was definitely a European beach as well...and by that I mean lots of topless women. I don't know what else to say about that... Here is a picture of us with Linnell and some friends at the beach (Tim went back earlier because he was getting burned faster than the rest of us). Hopefully there are no topless women in the background...


Yesterday, we woke up later and walked around the waterfront a bit with Linnell. In the afternoon we took a siesta...siestas are great! After that we bought some sandwich fixings and took them up to Montjuic. Montjuic is a hill overlooking Barcelona. It has a Castle and a bunch of Olympics things like a stadium from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. We met Linnell up there (because she had to go back to her host family's house to take care of the kids for a bit) and watched "No Country for Old Men" which was projected by a real movie projector onto a screen attached to the side of one of the Castle's walls. Everyone had dinner and drinks in the grassy area where we sat watching the movie which started at 10pm. There must of been a couple thousand people there and it was a great atmosphere. Thankfully it was also in English. The walk down from the Montjuic was great as well as the city was lit up.

And on a more random note...as we have been traveling around we have noticed lots of different people and different languages being spoken. One thing is pretty common though and that's kids throwing fits and mothers trying their best to make them stop. I feel like this is common across cultures and we just see a lot of it in touristy areas. It's funny because you don't need to understand the language to know the kid wants something and is not getting their way. Today, Tim actually brought that point up at the KFC (we needed a break from all the ham we have been eating) across the street from La Sagrada Familia (one of the sweet looking churches here...and it's still not completed and probably won't be for another decade or so!). So I just wanted to give a shout out to all the moms out there, you all are awesome! Especially our mom! She had to put up with a lot of our crap (and she hates that word...but I can't think of another word to describe our actions) while we grew up. Whether it was being ungrateful, disrespectful, or just plain hard to deal with...we salute you mom! and we love you! we also kinda wish you were here to do our laundry for us... :)

Here's a picture from today when we visited Park Guell. A park designed by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. It also had a great view of the city. Oh and I almost forgot... We got to see the rain in Spain! But since we were on a hill in Park Guell when it happened, it didn't fall mainly on the plain...(that one was for you dad!)


Hope you all are doing well! We love reading your comments!