Barcelona!

What a lively and exciting place!  It's such a large city and so much to see and do...I went exploring on my own today, as I wasn't going to meet my tour group until 6:00pm, and managed to get lost several times.  Not a problem though, as I just pulled out my trusty map and managed to figure out where I was and get back on track.  There are so many parks and squares; it seems like there's a park on every other block, all well maintained and most having some kind of statuary.

I strolled down the Las Ramblas, a pedestrian street that is filled with street vendors as well as established brick and mortar stores, and it seems like everyone in the city was there.  There were also a bunch of living statues--the kind where you're not sure if it's a statue or a person until they blink or do something to freak somebody out. They ranged from genteel ladies of the eighteenth century to more modern day monsters with wings, etc, like you might see in a cartoon or comic book.  Some of the costumes were pretty elaborate, and I saw one guy getting his together and it appeared there were 3 or 4 main pieces to it.   Las Ramblas terminates at the oceanside, where there is monument to Christopher Columbus.

It's also a very busy city, and a lot of the drivers seem to think they're in Formula 1.  When crossing a street it pays to have your head on a swivel looking for traffic and your feet busy getting across in a hurry.

I also hit a beach for a little bit today and gave myself 30 minutes without my shirt.  That's all it took to get my belly to a pale shade of pink...glad I timed it or I could have wound up with a painful burn in a very short period of time!  It was crawling with people and once again it seemed like everyone in the city was there.

I got back to my hotel (a very nice place, by the way) and grabbed a quick shower before meeting the other members of my tour at 6:00pm.  It seems like a very nice bunch of people and I'm sure we'll all be fast friends by the end of this 2 weeks.  We all went to dinner at a restaurant where they served us a tapas style meal...the potato and octopus was my favorite!  Tomorrow is going to be a busy day, starting at 9:00am with a local guide taking us on a tour of the Gothic Quarter and on to Gaudi's Sagrada Familia church before turning us loose to be on our own for the rest of the afternoon and evening.  The architecture here is amazing and I will be snapping pics like crazy tomorrow.