Barcelona!

The flights to Barcelona could have been worse.  Once we got there Mallory and I were just so darn proud of ourselves for making it with all of our little ones and gear that we were on a bit of a high in spite of not having slept the night before.  We left SLC early in the morning and stopped at LA, then Calgary, and then on to Barcelona. On our very first, short flight to LA, RIGHT after the pilot announced that we had to stay in our seats for landing Finn told us he urgently needed to use the restroom.  Perfect.  So the poor kid had to try to hold it for about 20 minutes and he did not make it.  Luckily we had a change of shorts in his backpack so it wasn't a total failure.  Getting through customs twice with four tired kiddos was hard.  And that last flight across the ocean was on an air canada flight and there were no TVs.  And even though I had called and reserved the bulkhead seats so we could have bassinets and be able to put the babies down once in a while, they didn't give us the right seats.  It was rough.  Mallory, as always, was a miracle worker.  Making jokes and inspiring smiles when all the rest of us took turns having a grumpy minute.  Here we are on the other side.  TONS of luggage and four sleepy but pretty happy kids.  No idea what I would have done without her.  

We got in a taxi and our driver dropped us off at our rented flat.  Mal and I got all our stuff into our place and crashed for a minute.  Our apartment was rad.  It had three bedrooms one full bathroom and one little closet that they turned into a shower.  The main room had a couch, table, and TV.  We had a washer in the kitchen so we could do a couple of loads and have everything clean to start the cruise.  The owner even set up two cribs for us so we didn't have to bring pack and plays on our entire repat. And it was one block away from the Sagrada Familia.  It was perfect.

You know it's going to be a great place to stay when these are the stairs to your apartment.

And these are your keys!

We headed back out pretty quickly to find some lunch.  We walked around a bit before settling on a pizza place just down the block.
Right after lunch Glenn texted saying that he was on his way so we went back to the apartment and met him there.  We were all SO excited to see him.  It was a long two weeks apart!
That first night we took taxis up to Park Guell and discovered that all the tickets were sold out for the rest of the night.  So we found a little playground and let the kids get worn out for a bit before heading back to our neighborhood.  We walked to the Sagrada Familia to see if we could get tickets for the next day and sweet Finny passed out while Glenn was carrying him.  

It had been a LONG day with very little sleep the night before and he was just done.  Tate and the girls were troopers and stuck it out til the end.  We went back to our place and had dinner outside at a cafe called the Chocolate Box.  It was a very good choice and a place that we frequented the next couple of days!  Finn slept in his chair, completely out to the world while we ate dessert for dinner.  He woke up briefly to try on his Darth Vader pajamas that Auntie Mallo brought him for a surprise!  Tate's surprise was a minions seek and find book that he spend the entire trip looking at and Finn was so excited about his new PJs. 

The next morning Finn and Glenn went to the chocolate box to get us some breakfast.

And by breakfast I really mean palmeras, napolitanas, churros and chocolate, and gofres (crunchy waffles) covered in chocolate and whipped cream.  Yep.  It was ridiculous.

Here's a picture of our little main room.

That morning we decided to head to a festival in another neighborhood.  We got on the metro, changed trains once and then came up intending to ask directions to get to the correct block when we looked up and, oh, there's La Pedrera.  One of the bizarre and beautiful houses designed by Antonio Gaudi!  Well, don't mind if we do.  We got tickets and audio tours and explored this beautiful creation for about an hour.

 We started on the roof.  It's amazing how Gaudi could make even the functional parts of the buildings beautiful.

I loved how the rooftop went up and down in smooth waves.  Everything in this house was rounded and wavy.  Walls, ceilings, even the roof. We got a children's book later in the day about Gaudi that talked about some tenants of La Pedrera complaining to Gaudi about their apartment.  One woman complained that there was no where to hang a painting because all of the walls were curved.  And she said there was absolutely nowhere to put her piano.  Gaudi replied that perhaps she should play the guitar instead.  Ha!

After the roof we explored the attic.  The way Gaudi managed to create durable structures with such beautiful shapes was so impressive.  We saw one display that showed how he would hang chains in different arches upside down and then put a mirror underneath it to see what they would look like right side up.  Then he would use those as a model of the arches he used to support his creations.

Tate had fun making shadow puppets on the walls.

Last we explored one floor of the residences.  Everything was so unique.  I wish I had a brain like Gaudi's.  I have no idea what it must feel like to have completely original ideas of how to create a building and a space that is so beautiful and functional.  He designed every doorknob, every cupboard pull, and a lot of furniture too.  Based on how humans interact and how they use a space.  These knobs were designed by having people grip clay and then using that as a cast for pulls and doorknobs that fit perfectly into a person's hand.  So cool.

After La Pedrera we headed home through the subway and stopped for some pastries and Spanish tortilla sandwich!

We let the littles have a little nap and then we went to our afternoon tour of the Sagrada Familia cathedral.

It was astounding, humbling, and inspiring.  Such an amazing building.  Begun in 1882 and still under construction with no current completion date, it's truly a marvel.
The front facade was the story of Christ's birth.  Angels singing and playing instruments, doves, wise men, animals, and of course the holy family.  All in intricate detail.

The back facade was the story of Christ's betrayal and crucifixion.  The style of the two sides could not have been more different.  The side depicting his death was so austere, harsh and dark.

This picture is Pilot, contemplating his decision.  The expression captured in the simple lines of his faces is just so cool.

Finny was tired of me taking pictures of the church so he said, "Mom, take a picture of me!"  And this is the resulting pose.

The boys had fun playing "i spy" on the enormous doors.  They were covered with carved metal vines which were hiding tiny creatures like bugs, snails, lizards and frogs.  A busy's boy's dream.

The girls were very well-behaved overall during their first big cathedral tour.

The light streaming in from all the beautiful stained glass windows was so gorgeous.

A couple token selfies.

The square below is a magic square.  The sum of each row of numbers is 33, the age Christ was when he died.

The same square is in this scene, behind Judas betraying Jesus.

So much to take in.  We spent maybe an hour in the cathedral and the boys were SO done being reverent!  They tried their best but we needed to be done.
Kenna wore herself out as well.  Sweet little girl.

That evening we had tickets to get in to Park Guell.  But due to a miscalculation of military time, our tickets were at 8pm.  There was no chance of us getting in any sooner since the tickets had been sold out for hours so we took taxis to a restaurant that was recommended to us and had an amazing assortment of tapas to pass the time.

I couldn't stop taking pictures of the food.  Everything was beautiful and so delicious.  Perhaps with the exception of the squid below.  That's just for Glenn.  Though, it was pretty cool looking and the boys thought it was cool/gross to see Glenn eat the curly little tentacles!

Tate was thrilled with his mini-hot dogs.  We thought they might possibly be a little bigger...or maybe come with more than one.  But it's okay.  We just ordered more!  It doesn't take much to make Tate's day and finding tiny hot dogs in Barcelona made everything better for this tired kid.

Taryn, on the other hand, just needed her Auntie's arms and she was happy as can be.

After dinner we walked around, found a pharmacy to get some creme for some weird bite looking welts on Finn's legs, it's always something, right?  And stumbled into the Plaza Catalonia where the boys chased pigeons until it was time to catch taxies to Park Guell.

We'd watched videos and read stories about Park Guell and the boys were the most excited to see the mosaic lizard near the entrance.  It got dark really fast so we rushed to a couple of places where we wanted to take pictures but it got too dark for picture taking really fast.

Makechnie family pictures from the patio on one of the beautiful curved mosaic benches.  What a stunning view of the city!

These two sweet babies were little angels.  Being dragged all over a hot city all day long and they were so good.

On the way down the boys and I played hide and seek for a bit in the columns as the sun went down.  It got really dark and at the end we had to use my phone flashlight to see each other but it was a really fun memory.

That night we paid another visit to the chocolate box after the kids went to bed.  We had to give their chocolate and churros another go.  No regrets, yet again.

The next day we had to catch a taxi with all our gear at 11 to get to the cruise ship so we just had a few more hours to spend in Barcelona.  Tate and Finn were getting kind of tired of all the walking but we couldn't just sit in our apartment so we made a quick trip through the subway to La Rambla, a long pedestrian street with shops and markets to browse.  

We stumbled into La Boqueria which, after living in Saudi, looked like heaven.

It was a glorious fresh food market filled with meats, produce, breads, sweets, and lots of fresh cooked food too.

Mal, Glenn and I fantasized about living just around the corner and doing all of our grocery shopping at La Boqueria every week.

Amazing.

And just like that, our couple of days in Barcelona were over.  I loved Barcelona.  We should definitely go back and try to explore different areas.  There is SO much to see that we didn't get to in just a couple of days.  Our kids were exhausted after the long trip but they did pretty well trying to hold it together even with all the walking in the heat.  The food was incredible and the company couldn't have been more perfect. What a lovely start to our European adventure!