Portet and Barcelona...goodbye to Spain

We loved Portet! Our condo had amazing views of the hillside and the water that we could not seem to capture in a picture. The beach was so beautiful and we got to swim in the Med for the first time. There were tons of little schools of fish that would swim past us and the water was such a sweet relief to the blazing hot beach. I was sweating like I was at the gym! We didn´t understand why were so hot, then later we heard the weather report at it was almost 100 degrees! And it was really humid, but that was a nice change from super dry Madrid. We spent most of our time on the beach, going to the market and cooking our own meals. It was a great recharge. We drove from Portet to Valencia to catch a train to Barcelona. The drive was not too bad, but it took us about 30 minutes to get gas because we couldn´t figure out how many liters we needed to fill up the tank. Finally the woman (who spoke no english) told us to just pay more and she would give us change. She was a little annoyed that we kept giving her 5 more Euros for just a bit more gas! When we got to Barcelona from the train we had to figure out how to get to our hotel, which wasn´t too bad because all of the cab drivers here have big map books. Our hotel was great...with a king sized bed! It has been amazing to sleep here!

We have many things we love about Barcelona, but there are a few highlights. We got to visit IESE and ESADE, two graduate schools Jordan is applying to. The people there were so nice and very helpful. And the schools were in a great part of town. We also were able to do some shopping around as we are staying in the Eixample district that had beautiful, wide, pedestrian streets. We have loved the food here because it is more mediteranian that Madrid and Seville. There are so many more vegetables to be had! We also got to see the Sagrada Familia Church, designed by Gaudi. It was really beautiful, but very crowded. There are continually working on it because Gaudi´s orginial desings for the building were lost in a fire. ´Then we went to Gaudi park. We had to climb a million stairs to get there! The park was originally planned to be a housing community, but was later turned into an urban park. There were some really neat buildings designed by Gaudi and a crazy archway that was completely tiled with white mosaic tiles. Today we went to the Barcelona Cathedrial and the Boqueria. The Cathedrial was designed in the gothic style, which is very different from any buildings we have seen in other cities. Jordan and I both agreed that although it was very beautiful, the church we saw in Madrid had a much more awesome feel about it. After the Cathedrial we went to the giant market to see what we could eat! They had tons of fresh squeezed juice (something we have been craving), every kind of fish you could imagine, fruits we had never seen before and olive stands on every corner. We bought some crazy fruit (like a tiny yellow tomatillo, but tastes like a lemon cherry) and a ton of fresh olives. Now we are off to the beach for a relaxing afternoon. Tomorrow we are off to France.