GAUDI'S BARCELONA. Bliss.

We both fell in love with this city immediately. I personally, was SO giddy, being in my dream country to visit and a city that right away blew my mind.  There can't possibly be many cities more beautiful than Barcelona.  I wouldn't hesitate to attribute a majority of that to the incredible Gaudi, whose presence is everywhere. His work takes your breath away.  

We arrived late (and starving) so after dropping off our bags we headed right down our 5 narrow/steep flights of stairs to go for some tapas and red wine! Delicious dishes using avocado, fish, potatoes, garlic, olives...etc. Some of the best wine we've ever tasted. AND here's the kicker, good beer too! Estrella Damm. Not too shabby at all.  Taberna Blai Tonight- a fantastic tapas bar filled with locals just happened to be two blocks from our apartment.  We were sure that after stuffing our faces and having THREE drinks each, our bill would be outrageous.  20 Euro....uh oh, this is dangerous.  Haha.

The next day, we didn't hesitate to go straight for La Sagrada Familia, the most talked about work of Antoni Gaudi.  I truly hope everyone gets to see this some day.  From the outside, it's so impressive. From the inside, it's mind-blowing.  The man spent 43 years of his life working on it- he died in 1926- and it is estimated to take another 50 years or so to complete.  He was so inspired by nature and you can see it in everything he does.  That with the mix of geometric shapes and concepts....it's truly magical.  This quote of his explains it well, "The great book, always open, and which we should make an effort to read, is that of Nature".  The building also tells the story of Jesus's life and the Bible so beautifully...I honestly think believer or not, you'll be overcome with emotion while exploring.

Our other Gaudi favorites included the building he remodeled, Casa Batllo, which seemed out of Alice and Wonderland with no use of single lines. Totally remarkable.  And the Park Guell- a park he designed which made you think that he never lost the imagination that we've all had as children.  I can't say it enough: so. beautiful.

Strolling through Barcelona you find yourself in some amazing neighborhoods such as El Born and Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter), where there are still remains from the days of Roman Settlement and the beautiful Church of Santa Maria Del Pi. AHHHH I JUST LOVE THIS CITY!

We checked out the touristy street of La Rambla, which I didn't find too remarkable, but we did enjoy the farmer's market at the Mercat de la Boqueria, which is believed to date ALL the way back to 1217!! Super great prices on delicious fruits, vegetables, fresh eggs, seafood and of course sweets.  I had heard that Spain had great fruit, and that is certainly true. Fresh pineapple and coconut juice = YUM (for 1 Euro).

Oh and just in case you were about to argue that it can't be that perfect of a city- there is a beautiful beach.  Barceloneta is just a short stroll out of the city center where even in January we saw people in speedos playing volleyball on the white sand.  I would certainly be cold in a bathing suit, but the sun was shining and I felt warm in my sweater.  Wonderful.

We had such good food/drinks in this city, and incredible red wine:

-El Rincon De Cava: another neighborhood bar by our apartment, awesome simply because the cava (Catalonian champagne) is LESS than 1 Euro!

-Quimet and Quimet: insane and more gourmet tapas bar, literally packed shoulder to shoulder but with mostly locals, great place to get a true tapas experience. Our favorite was still the less fancy Taberna Blai.

-Sensi: my favorite restaurant during our time in Barcelona. Our favorites were the patatas bravados (traditional potatoes with spicy sauce) and PADRON PEPPERS (mmmmm). We had our first taste of paella.  We heard this place was a great place to get it.  The vegetarians in us were having a hard time with the mix of seafood, but can admit that the flavor was good.  Best Sangria ever.  EVER!

-Teresa Carles: fantastic vegetarian restaurant where we had EXCELLENT food.  If it was cheaper we would've returned for sure.

-Bliss: an adorable restaurant that we killed time at drinking red wine and having a very traditional Spanish tapa which is toasted bread with freshly pureed tomatoes on top.

You'd think that with all this bread and wine the Kaia girl in me would be complaining and while this behavior just can't continue (HAHA), we honestly got in such a workout everyday. Barcelona is full of hills and just soooo mannnnyyy staiiirs!  We stayed right by the gorgeous park Montjuic, where we went running a few times as we enjoyed a fantastic panoramic view.  You better believe we did some stair runs/lunges/jumping jacks in the park! 

I could live here for a while.  Absolutely.

Sagrada Familia- details

Sagrada Familia

Sagrada Familia- do you see the honeycombs?

Sagrada Familia- do you see the tree forest?

Casa Mila by Gaudi 

Do you spot the Gaudi?

Casa Batllo

view from Guell Park

Gaudi's Guell Park

Guell Park 

Guell Park

Guell Park

Church of Santa Maria del Pi 

Barceloneta

oh, those peppers.....

These birds are everywhere! 

I see London, I see Bath...and Windsor!

Totally slacking on the blog lately, I know.

We spent 5 days in London and it was FREEZING.  I will use this as my excuse for our abnormal laziness, because we spent a lot of time actually just at home. Well, at my uncle’s house, researching for our trip and also about life when we return….so much to think about!  We actually ended up being in England during the very rare time which occurs less than a handful of times per year, when it snows.  It was windy and painfully cold, but nevertheless beautiful.   Given that I have family in London, I’ve been there a few times, and Matt and I actually came here almost 5 years ago.  During our first trip, we covered most of the tourist attractions, when the sun actually came out.  So this time, we decided to take advantage of some of the other free museums (awesome thing about the UK, most museums are free), and just stroll around as long as we could before our fingers and toes went numb.  We walked through the beautiful Kensington Gardens, where we watched birds ice skate, explored the British Museum where they have the actual Rosetta Stone, and checked out more dinosaur fossils at the Natural History Museum.  Next door, the Victoria and Albert Museum had some pretty awesome photography exhibitions and a cool mix of displays.  We ate some more delicious veggie burgers at Patty and Bun, a cool little restaurant in Soho.  But most of all, we spent some time with my family, which we both really enjoyed.  Three of my mom’s brothers live in England, as well as three more of my cousins.  It’s such a pleasure to be able to see them, since such an occasion happens every few years. 

My uncle took us on a day trip to Windsor, a beautiful little English town with the famous Windsor Palace.  We strolled around, had some delicious coffee, and my favorite was walking along the river.  A little stand next to the river sells bags of bird food, and of COURSE I couldn’t resist, so I walked along and fed the geese and ducks.  Pretty soon, I felt like some kind of animal cult leader because I am pretty sure every bird in Windsor was trailing behind me. Cutest thing ever. 

Our final destination in England was Bath. Admittedly this was not the right time of year to visit but the famous Roman Baths were pretty spectacular nonetheless.  The first shrine at the site of the hot springs was built by Celts somewhere around 836 BC.  Eventually the site was invaded by Romans, and a temple was constructed around 60-70 AD as a bathing complex which was built over the next 300 years. The hot springs still exist, with water percolating down through limestone wayyyyy below the ground, raising it’s temperature to between 147 degrees Fahrenheit all the way up to over 200 degrees. Under pressure, the heated water rises to the surface along  faults in the limestone.  Crazy. The best food we had in all of England was at a little restaurant in Bath called The Circus. Incredible food, actually.

Oh, and it’s official that the beer in the UK was totally NOT impressive, but perhaps we should disclaim that statement with the fact that we DID just come from Germany, land of amazing beer.  We are blissfully happy in Spain right now, my dream country to visit which has certainly lived up to my expectations so far!!  Cheers!

Row of snowy museums in London

Missing one more bald uncle who took the photo :)  The lovely family!

My British following

Windsor Palace

Matt and my cousin Sufi having a snow fight :)

Rosetta Stone

Kensington Gardens, beautiful!

Figuring out this travel thing.....

Love the buildings in this town

Snow falling at my uncles!!!

Roman baths in Bath

Bath!

Backtrack to Vienna

I forgot to post about Vienna!! I think it's because while this was a beautiful city, I didn't love it.  I felt it was fancy, of course with much beauty, but nothing that stole my heart. That being said, we did really enjoy our time there, in one of the most fantastic apartments I've ever stayed in and exploring this grand city.  Highlights included visiting the Belvedere palace, specifically the Upper Palace where there is a seriously awesome art collection from artists such as Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Monet.....I had no idea how diverse the works of Klimt were- the man who claimed to literally paint all day and night for most of his life could paint so much more than I realized.  We walked through the Naschmarkt, a famous outdoor market which has been around since the 16th century! We had the BEST falafel wraps there, EVER.  We ate at the famous Cafe Museum, a beautiful cafe with excellent food, where some of the artists I mentioned before used to go and work for hours.  Another awesome find was Kolar, a super cool old bar with excellent beer (including an unfiltered Pislner, delish) and "fladen", which are really yummy pita sandwiches.  Can you tell that one of my favorite parts of travel is trying new food?  I found a really cool website called Spotted by Locals, where locals  weigh in on good spots to eat, drink, see...that aren't traps for tourists.

such a cool apartment!

our first snow! 

Belvedere

They conquered the liter!!

FREEDOM! (the Scottish slogan)

We keep visiting places that make me say, "this is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life"....but it's true, we really do, and Edinburgh is definitely one of them.  If I've ever felt as though I was going back in time, it was there, with the stone and brick buildings and roads with what felt like medieval architecture....surrounded by bright green grass. Oh. So. Stunning.  I just LOVE this city!!  It's rich with Scottish history but also full of young students, which makes for a cool and vibrant scene where I felt very safe, in awe and satisfied whether I wanted a quiet night or a more exciting one.  We stayed at the bottom of the adorable 'Grassmarket' with my cousin, an extremely central location with an incredible view of the Edinburgh Castle. It was quite mind blowing to walk out of our apartment every day to see that view, like...'is this real??'?

Anyway, I really enjoyed learning more about Scotland's history, much of which is still very real in the sense of their ongoing battle with England for independence.  They are very close to achieving it, as there will be a public vote in 2014 to finally separate or not.  We strolled through one of the most beautiful cemeteries I've ever seen, with a view into the cafe where J.K. Rowling spent many hours gaining inspiration for her writing, and you can see a school that is a borderline replica of the Hogwarts school when you gaze in the direction of her view.  The Scottish have a serious culture of ghosts and hauntings, and it was really spooky to learn of some of the ghost stories that they honestly believe to be true.  We also learned the origin of the term "graveyard shift", which came from back when the graverobbers were a real issue.  It was common for the body of a newly deceased person to be stolen and sold to medical research schools for a hefty chunk of change, so often the families of the deceased would take turns for the first few weeks (while the body was still useful) to literally sleep at the grave to prevent the theft of the body of their loved one.  Hence the term, "graveyard shift".  We learned that Scotch is the #1 export for all of the UK! I felt so inclined to go for a tasting, so Matt and I went, but I just could not bring myself to have more than two sips before I had to stop. YUCK!!!!  Speaking of yuck, we also learned about the origin of the term, "shitfaced".  Back in the day when there was no plumbing, people would throw their human waste out into the street, which typically would drain into a marsh or water area.  Well, in this particular neighborhood in Edinburgh, there were homes right next to the marsh, and you can imagine how disgusting and unhealthy the conditions were. To get a bit further away from the fumes, homes were built higher up, so when you threw your stuff out the window, you'd typically yell out a common courtesy call and if someone was passing by below, they'd have a few seconds to respond and let the person know to wait. Well, Scottish are also famous for their drinking habits.  So the drunk people at night would be stumbling around past these homes, someone would be getting ready to throw their business out the window, they'd call out, and the drunken fool below would not register in time....instead, they'd say something like, "HUH?" and look up......and you can imagine what would happen next to bring about the term, SHITFACED. HAHA.

I know this is an odd story for me to choose to highlight, but if you know me well enough, you know how ridiculous my sense of humor is, so I was thoroughly amused by this.  Anyway....a sweeter story was that of the dog, Greyfriar Bobby, who became famous in Edinburgh during the 14th century after he spent FOURTEEN years at the grave of his owner who passed away after just two years of them being best friends. He is somewhat of a local celebrity, with his own little tribute in the main cemetery. So sweet. Disney has been inspired by this story more than once.

We went for an incredible hike at Arthur's Seat, an extinct volcano with impeccable views of the city, the sea, the hills.....ahhh.   We had delicious (vegetarian) meals at David Bann, Brew Lab (also delish coffee) and more great coffee at Black Medicine.  We really enjoyed the National Museum which had such awesome natural history displays, the Botanical Gardens and the castle was one of the prettiest I've seen yet.

Greyfriars Kirkyard 

Bobby!

Hogwarts!

Scottish Monument

Our attempt at enjoying Scotch Whiskey

Edinburgh Castle

Stumbled upon this lovely garden 

Arthur's Seat 

Awesome remains of a chapel along the hike at Arthur's Sear

sunset :)

My beautiful cousin and host, Saba