Sunday, June 15, 2014

Love and Basketball

So, as it turns out, there aren't a lot of well-known films that are set or filmed in Barcelona.  The only other one was "Vicky Cristina Barcelona", which would have been a bit too obvious.  And I haven't actually seen either of these films, but I thought this one made a more interesting blog title.

One of the things I found myself doing during most of this trip was the touristy stuff.  Things that I had, in the past, avoided like the plague.  In the case of Barcelona, I found myself on a Hop-On-Hop-Off double decker bus.  You know, the ones with the open roof.  I see them all the time downtown and I use them as a gauge to determine if it's a busy tourist period or not.  I had never ever considered getting on one of these before.  But, with limited time and a large group, it made the most sense.

The buses I've seen have always had a person on a microphone, talking about what you're looking at on the left or right of the bus.  In the age of technology, it seems that the person has been replaced with an automated recording in about a dozen different languages.  You just plug the provided earphones into the jack by your seat and choose the channel that corresponds to your language.  It makes so much sense.  However, the problem remains that by the time they tell you about the thing you're looking at, there's almost no time to get a decent photo of it.

We were able to see pretty much the majority of the city, if only for a brief moment.  We did stop at the Basilica de la Sagrada Família, the church that will never be completed.  Gaudí was a stickler for details, that's for sure.  We also took the cable car up to the top of the hill to Montjuïc Castle.  Finally we were able to walk around Las Ramblas before heading back to the boat.  Not a lot of shopping to be done, but we did get to eat.  Mmm...paella...

"I had this perfect dream, this dream was me and you"

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