Barcelona

Up next on the trip was Barcelona. Barcelona was a place that I have always wanted to visit, probably influenced by 10 years of Spanish classes. I wasn't disappointed. This was my favorite city on the trip and I hope to make it back for another weekend (or two) while I'm in Stockholm.As you'll see in the pictures, we had great weather in Barcelona. It was warm (but not too hot, except for in the un-air conditioned aquarium) and sunny.

Barcelona harbor

We stayed in a hotel off of Las Ramblas. Las Ramblas is a main road with a large pedestrian area in the center. The road is lined with shops and restaurants. The pedestrian path is lined with newstands and street performers. Most of the street performer were dressed as interesting, often colorful, statues. People bunched around them to see how (if and when) the would move and interact with people getting their pictures taken with them or dropping money in their baskets.

Church of the Sacred Family

We saw a lot of tourist attractions in 3 days. We probably spent the most time at the Church of the Sacred Family and Guell Park. The church was beautiful, although far from finished. It is still under construction, which began in the late 1880s. Construction crews were working in the middle of the tourists. We spent a while in Gaudi's Guell Park -a good part of the time there, we were lost. We climbed up a huge, steep hill to get there. And, gradually worked our way down to the other side of the park, taking in the art as we went (we should have done this the other way around!).

house in Guell Park

Other than the attractions, we wandered through the streets in different areas of the city and enjoyed lots of Spanish tapas, paellas, and sangria.

Barcelona harbor

The boys headed back to NY from Barcelona and the girls moved on to Rome......

Running of the Bulls

The second stop on the family vacation was to see the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain.

For whatever reason, I expected Pamplona to be a small, remote town but it was much larger and more populated than I thought it would be. Of course, the city was super crowded for the festival. During the evening, the city reminded me of Bourbon Street - wall to wall people, most of them pretty intoxicated, and cheap alcohol being sold out of store windows (ie. a 1.5 liter bottle of sangria was 3 euro). There were spontaneous parades popping up and blocking off streets. There was even a fake bull with fireworks shooting off of it that pushed through the crowd at one point. Every place was crowded with people dressed in white with red bandannas and sashes.

Mom and Dad in the spirit.

(Both realized what I was capturing on film just as I snapped the picture.)

We actually watched the running of the bulls on the morning of the 12th. My mom had secured us balcony spots. Basically, those that live on the street the bulls run down get their rent money for the year by charging tourists to watch from their balconies. However, it's the only way to get a good view. Runners (including my uncle) started lining the streets a bit before the run. The cops came through and pulled the intoxicated, shoe-less, bag or camera carrying, and women off the course. We were watching near the beginning so we saw the bulls go by (my picture above) pretty quickly and then watched the rest on television. They held nothing back on the video footage. Seven people got gored and several others were injured that day. The problem was that one of the bulls got separated from the pack. That was the bull that caused the trouble.

Uncle John getting gored the night before he ran.

We left Pamplona that afternoon for Barcelona. My suitcase arrived to Pamplona (from Stockholm) just in time for me to check it in for my Barcelona flight. (I did get to use my Spanish immediately on arrival in Pamplona - mi maleta no esta aqui!)

Anyway, I found the video of the Running of the Bulls from the day we were there on You Tube. Here it is, if you are interested......

My family comes to Stockholm....

My parents, sister, and uncle came to visit me in Stockholm in early July - the first stop on the family European vacation. The weather was pretty horrible (rainy and chilly) over the 3 days they were here. We still trucked around anyway. We did a lot of wandering to see as much of the city as possible in a few days.

Uncle John in Old Town with his new penguin umbrella.

(The lady in the background of the picture wasn't the only one staring - jealous, I'm sure.)

Unfortunately, seeing Gamla Stan (Old Town), the parks, an outdoor photo exhibit, and the boat tour of the city weren't quite as nice as they would have been in better weather but we had a good time anyway.

Courtney on the wooden horse outside City Hall.

(There are several pictures in this series of her trying to climb onto the horse.)

We did do plenty of indoor things, like the Vasa (famous ship that sank) Museum and the City Hall (where the Nobel banquet is held). The Absolute Ice Bar was one of the big hits of this portion of the trip.

Mom, Dad, Uncle John, and Courtney in the Ice Bar.
(I believe this is round #3.)

July Vacations

My building (and most of the city, for that matter) is a ghost town. It seems that the entire country takes the month of July off for vacations. I'm heading off to do some traveling myself. I have some catch-up blogging to do when I get back (ie. Midsummer, my family's visit to Stockholm, etc.) and then I'll post about my vacation too, of course.

I haven't forgotten about blogging. I've just been busy.
Check back later this month!