Barcelona Day 13

Today we slept in...until nine...and a teacher had to come knock on the door...and the bus ended up leaving at 9:10...so at least we got ready fast! :) Mandi and I accidentally wore the same shirt and seven people pointed it out. But everyone said we looked great for just waking up!!

We got to Barcelona and picked up our guide, who was extremely annoying. She laughed at everything she said and not everything she said was funny. Actually most of the things she said weren't funny. She also talked REALLY slow, like we were in first grade, and repeated herself a lot. But I learned that Spain has 40,000 residents and 4,000 of them live in Barcelona. Also, that Spain's main industry use to be tiles or something and is now tourists. She said China's prices for tile are way lower and Spain couldn't compete with China's low quality cheap tile. Well her repetition was annoying but I learned something.

This is called the Temple of the Holy Family. It is the most visited place in Spain and will be finished in 2026. It has been under construction since before World War I. The man who created all the blue prints for the Temple died before it was finished. The instructions he left for how to finish constructing the Temple were burnt in a small fire that had happened in the temple. Now the workers are using computers to find ways to finish the final design that was left from the fire. Pretty incredible, I will definitely be visiting this when it is completed.

Also, this temple is owned by the people and none of the money used for building it has come from the government or religious groups. So the temple is being built for everyone, no matter what religion, age, or ethnicity. I think this is the best thing about the Temple's creation.

The guide told us, three times, that this building was based on a dragon. The roof represents scales and the white chimney looking thing is a sword that killed the dragon, saving a princess that isn't represented from what I saw (Maybe she was the side walk.).

So we got to visit this really cool site that was going to be an area for the rich and famous, but it was never finished and is now a Heritage Site.

This is underneath the REALLY long bench!!! I know! Crazy! The ceiling of this construction is all tile and has some colorful scenes. It was B-E-A-UTIFUL! :)

So we were stuck with her until 1:00 and then Mandi and I finally got to explore Barcelona on our own.

We saw the creepiest statue on our way to the Market, which had tons of fruit, fish, and CANDY, and there was another guy sitting without a chair!!!! The market had tons of fruit and Mandi decided on pineapple, kiwi, and strawberries for 2.50 and I got slices of mango! YUM! The mango was A-FREAKING-MAZING, so I only shared one piece with Mandi. :)

We walked all the way to the beach in Barcelona and ran across this HUGE lion. Mandi decided to climb on top of it and once her bare skin touched it she yelled, "IT'S FREAKING HOT, TAKE THE PICTURE!!!". Hilarious. :)

The best part of today, maybe the second best, was Mandi and I both found SHORTS!!!!! What is way surprising is Mandi found JEAN shorts and she hates jeans!! But she said they are way comfortable and she looks cute in them. :)

It was time to go so after the lion, lunch, and candy we walked back to our meeting place. While we were waiting for the bus to take us back to the hotel there were some boys that were muy CALIENTE!!!!

On our way back to the hotel Mandi and I were talking, I know - who would expect that, and she wanted me to tell everyone that she made a to-do list for the next time we come to Europe and Marine Land is at the top.

We went swimming tonight and it was WAY colder than last night. But we still had a lot of fun and we remembered to bring a camera to take pictures!!

I know...bad tan line. Tonight is our last night here and tomorrow we hope to catch some breakfast, I heard it was delicious. :)

Carcassonne - Spain Day 12

The beds were AMAZING! Mandi and I wish we could have stayed longer. But we packed up our bags after breakfast and headed to Carcassonne. Carcassonne is still in France and we were heading to Spain after our stop. The fortress of Carcassonne, which is a REAL fortress, had tons of shops and we stopped here for a couple hours. Lunch came before any site seeing so we stopped and ate. Mandi had spaghetti and I had pizza, they were both tasty and the little area we ate in was nice and shady.

Before we went to lunch we got a map of the area, like a map you can get at Sea World or Disneyland pictures and everything. After lunch we went to a couple areas and took some pictures. But the best part was when I came across a chocolate shop!!!

Mandi and her Gelato!!!!

Foreign countries have the cutest dogs.

This is where you can buy tickets to go into the castle, but we have gone into so many castles it wasn't worth paying for another tour. After we went around the fortress and bought some chocolate Mandi and I got split up. I got pooped on by a pigeon and Mandi got locked in a bathroom while it was disinfecting itself.

So this is the bathroom Mandi got locked in...as you can see there are three lights that show when you can go into the bathroom. A girl had just come out and Mandi went in, but the yellow light was blinking. She walked in and the toilet starting rising, so she tried to leave, but the door was locked. Then water started squirting all over the floor and Mandi was hopping all over and banging on the door, there was some screaming. The group outside told her to push the red button but when she started to look for it the lights went out! She screamed and banged some more and found the button but nothing happned. Finally everything stopped and she was let out. After both of our terrible experiences I have decided that we should stick together, because I needed some emotional support after being pooped on (I got poop on my face, new scarf, shirt, shoes, and down my pant leg) and she might have needed some comforting or something. :)

We left for Spain at 2:00 and got to the hotel at 6:00. After dinner which was at the hotel, buffet style, YUM! We went to the beach which was tons of fun, the sand dropped off in the water and you couldn't touch after walking 5 feet into the water. The water was a little cold and it was windy. So, after twenty minutes everyone was tired and we headed back to the hotel for Karaoke! But we came down to Bingo and Drag Queens, then there was this weird skit with a sea monster, nun, business man, lip singer, half naked man, and gay guys.

Well, curfew is in thirty minutes. We get to stay up until 11:00 because we aren't leaving for Barcelona until 9:00 and the drive is going to be an hour long. We are shopping and going to the beach all day tomorrow after a tour of Barcelona!!!!!

Nimes & Provence Day 11

TODAY IS FATHER'S DAY AND I WANT TO TAKE A SECOND TO SAY

WE LOVE YOU PADRE!!!!!!!!!!!! WE MISS YOU AND MOM!!!!!!

HOPE FATHER'S DAY WAS A BLAST!

So our father's day started at 6:30 and we loaded everything on the bus at 8:15. The drive was WAY long and we got to Nimes around 12:30. When we got off the bus we saw the huge Colosseum of Nimes. Our tour of the amphitheater wasn't for another 45 minutes so everyone went to lunch. On our way to lunch we saw all these little gold circles on the ground. Kathi explained that these coins were souvenirs the soldiers brought back from one of the places they conquered. I guess they liked alligators because this symbol was all over the place, there was even a fountain made to match the coin.

After lunch we headed into the Colosseum. There was a audio tour that Kathi had us all signed up for and Mandi and I learned about the history of Nimes and the Colosseum. The best part was learning about the Gladiators and the weapons they had.

I wish we could of had more time here because they had a great souvenir shop with all the Gladiator stuff. But we had to quickly get on the bus and drive 45 minutes South to Pont du Gard. This is the place where Nimes Aqueduct is still preserved. This Aqueduct was also a bridge over the river, Mandi and I almost jumped in, but we didn't have enough free time to get dry and we still had to visit the Popes' fortress. :(

Our free time was over really fast and we had to rush back to the bus to head to the fortress. The drive was an hour long and we got a short nap. When we got to the fortress we waited in the shade and Mandi got bored so she started snapping pictures. :)

There was also an audio tour for this place so we walked around listening to interesting things that were done at the fortress and blah, blah...zzzzzzzz. Well to say I got bored is completely true. This was the lamest "fortress" EVER! The best things was we saw some frescos that covered entire rooms and then there was some modern art in a huge hallway at the end of the tour. We ran out of time because we weren't really in a hurry to learn more about all the Popes and what they did in their fortress. So we got to cut through to the end by opening these huge wooden doors!!!! I felt special. :)

After we left the fortress we had dinner which consisted of salad, potatoes, hamburger meat and chocolate stuff for dessert...Mandi had salad, hamburger meat, and then a bigger salad with no dessert. We had some time to waste after dinner so we watched some street dancing that was fun and Mandi wanted to run out there and dance too. But we were worried she might hurt herself because she wasn't warmed up. :)

Our hotel is nice, the room is a little small and we can hear our neighbors talking. But the bathroom is way better than the last one!!! This one has a blow dryer. Hopefully the beds are as good as the last two hotels. :) Night!

LOVE YOU MOM AND DAD!!!!!!!!! HAPPY FAHTER'S DAY!!!!!!