Spain

What a great birthday and amazing weekend.

Day 1:

We left extremely early in the morning to get to the airport. We probably went to sleep that night at 12:00 am and had to be and ready to leave by 3:45 am. We got to the airport and were soon off to Germany for our connecting flight to Barcelona. We got our rental car and were off to the hotel, which was awesome! It was very modern and Japanese inspired. We found our room and put our bathing suits on to hit up the beach. 

The beach was very...interesting to say the least. Benjamin and I were discussing the differences between this beach and the ones back in the states. 

States: seashells, lots of anticipation getting to the ocean (ie walking up the stairs and hearing the ocean roar), loud waves, no topless women

Spain: no seashells, no anticipation getting to the beach (you could see the water from the street which was literally a few feet from the water) not so loud waves, lots of topless women

While Benjamin and I were discussing the differences, I had a great quote:

"It doesn't sound like an ocean...oh wait, it's a sea."

We finished the day off with a great dinner.

Day 2:

Birthday!

My birthday started off with a great breakfast! We headed to the beach once again to enjoy the Mediterranean Sea. Benjamin and I did some shopping and found an interesting vase, as to be able to say oh we got that Spain. We didn't have to say a word and the lady behind the counter knew we spoke English because she pointed to the total on the receipt. It was pretty obvious though. We spend some more time on the beach. Ben built a sand castle. We both fell asleep and my legs got wicked sun burnt. We ate dinner at Los Vikings and had one of the best pizzas I've ever had in my life. It had mozzarella, chorizo (spicy sausage), egg, and sun dried tomato...delicious! Benjamin and I shared some ice cream to end dinner. We got back to the hotel and went out for the night but nothing was too exciting. The Spaniards must have been having a siesta....on my birthday...really?!

Day 3:

We got up early and drove to Barcelona. We had an interesting time trying to park in the car park. The little guy was trying his best to help John park the car but it wasn't working. We did finally get the car parked and we were on our way to Sagrada Familia. It is a is a massive, privately-funded Roman Catholic church that has been under construction in Barcelona since 1882 and is expected to continue until at least 2026. WOW!  It was an awesome church we great detail. 

Side note: We went into the gift store and then realized to get back out to the church we needed to show them our ticket. Rebecca had our tickets and we were trying to explain that to the man. He just stared at us and opened the door. We can only imagine what was going through his head as we were speaking English! 

Side note 2: They have Starbucks in Spain.

We drove to the airport and only almost died once. We had a connecting flight in Milan and we were just about to make it home smoothly when....

I was told by everyone that if I was going to be traveling for pleasure I was supposed to travel on my tourist passport. Simple. However, for future reference I will ALWAYS be traveling on my military passport because they were too happy that I didn't have my visa (which is in my military passport). The guy was funny though and really nice about it. It ended with him not stamping my passport and then saying that all he could give up was a smile. 

Best...birthday....ever.