aventuras thus far...

so i´m really hoping that i can finish typing this in under 30 minutes because that´s how much the 3 euros i just handed over to the hotel concierge is going to get me... this is the ultimate test of my typing abilities, i´ve been training. i will go ahead and apologize for any mispelled words, since some of the keys don´t work muy buena, and the lack of capital letters. but i think it gives it a bit of spanish charm, si si? (it just took me like a solid minute to figure out how to type that question mark, just saying.)

okay, so here it goes. SPAIN IS AMAZING!!!!!!!!! i thought that barcelona was one of the most beautiful cities i have ever been to but now that we´re here in madrid i think it might be a tie. maybe cadiz will top both of them, we shall just have to wait and see. where to begin?? for our first full day in barcelona we went on a walking tour of the city which featured the modernista architecture and took us all through the bario gotico (gothic quarter). the tour was very informative... but blatantly touristy as we found ourselves traipsing around the city sporting individual audio headsets with bright blue earphones that screamed I AM AN AMERICAN. i really wanted to let people know we were in fact listening to our tourguide firing off tons of information in rapid espanol as our little spanish lady guided our group around barcelona, trying to make sure none of us got taken out by buses, cars, mopeds, locals, etc. we ended at the casa batilo which was the designed by gaudi and the most surreal and colorful piece of architecture i have ever seen... i feel like i would get sea sick living there with all the wavy walls and blue tiles. then we were on our own for the afternoon and a group and i decided to embark on a trek to la sagrada familia, gaudi´s famous unfinished cathedral which he started in 1893 and worked on until his death in 1926. they found the blueprints in his crypt and continued construction on it after that... they´re hoping to be able to hold services there by 2010 and be completely done by 2030. although it´s quite likely that it will always remain the unfinished cathedral forever since they still have 13 towers left to build (with the tallest one aiming for 169 meters, twice as tall as the ones alredy there) and the metro runs right underneath the building, so it shakes every single day. amy and i are planning on coming back with our grandkids to see how that plan ends up. the five mile or so round trip there was totally worth it since that´s one of the biggest sites in barcelona.

on monday we went on a bicycle tour of the city, courtesy of fat tire biking tours. our guide, michael, had the most epic cut off tshirt tan i´ve ever seen (and after4 hours on a bike in a racerback tank top, i did indeed acquire my own awkward tan line. i love it) we rode all over the city, slowly but surely mastering the use of the little bells attached to our handlebars and trying to earn points by hitting birds, squirrells, locals, etc. since michael promised us he would buy the person with the most points a lemonade at lunch (just kidding... sort of)