Barcelona

Larry and I have been in Barcelona for the past couple days and loving it. Larry has even said he thinks Barcelona has been his favorite city so far. Right away the feeling is so different from Seville. It definitely has more of the big city feel but what´s so great is that there is still so much character. The architecture is beautiful and interesting as is the green landscape that is scattered everywhere throughout. If you look up some of the big streets you can see mountains (they may not actually be mountains but as a midwest girl used to the flatness, they are mountains to me...) so that is a very cool contrast.
Our hostel here is nice again. Very social and largely American. We stayed the past 2 nights in an 8 person room, there are probably 10 bathrooms and showers, 2 kitchens, a den, dining room and balcony.
When we first arrived we went right to get something to eat! As recommended by the staff here we went to a restaurant (one of the only ones that were open on a Sunday evening) called TappaTappa. We ordered lots of little dishes and enjoyed it all. The 3 cheese rissoto and brie with truffles was probably my favorite. That night we went out with the people from the hostel to a club called Roxy. We both had a great time and even knew pretty much all of the songs the DJ was playing.
Despite being exhasted the next day we had a full day of walking and exploring to do. We went to the market here at the end of La Rambla and bought some cheese, bread and fruit. In search of the botanic gardens we found a neat ¨jungley¨ feeling park where we ate and then continued on. We saw the olympic stadium and kind of by accident ended up on some smaller soccer fields. We were definitely outside of the main city so this whole area was surrounded by trees and plants. We made it to the botanic gardens, located on the side of one of the ¨mountains¨and walked around it. My favorite there were these plants that looked and felt like thick aloe vera leaves but they formed little rossettes. It looked like a bush of green rose flowers that would be on top of a cake!
After a long day of walking for hours we came back in search of a long leisurely dinner. We found it at Taverna de Catalana. We had the house wine, carpaccio (which was soooooooo good), potatoes, payella and truffles for dessert. It was delicious. Exhausted from our long day and big meal we went to bed pretty early. Today we have a few palces we would like to visit and will be heading to Nice for the next 3 nights.
Looking forward to it!