Barcelona Dia Dos

La Sagrada Familia is probably the most famous attraction in Barcelona. Construction began in 1882 by Antonio Gaudi and his influence is almost everywhere in the city. The secret is to buy the tickets in advance to not wait in line. Good thing I did, because when we got there at 11:30 a.m. on Christmas Day, the line was outrageous! We went directly to the counter and picked up our audio guide. It may be a bit more for the audio, but it points out all the cool details of the building, which is as amazing as you've heard it is.

We also did a tour of the towers which took us up really high (2 football fields up!) Again, the whole heights thing scared me but it was good for pictures overlooking the city and looking down the staircase. 

After a few hours at Sagrada Familia, we headed to another famous Gaudi attraction: Park Guell. It was a short subway stop and then a grueling hike up. Luckily, most of it had elevators. (They must have had quite a few complains from lazy American tourists) We walked around the park, took in the sites, ate a jamon boccadillo sandwich at the cafe and saw other architecture. The park itself was ok, but I wasn't overwhelmed by it to be honest.

Elevators up to the park. It was like San Francisco!

After the park, we headed back to the hotel and decided when in Spain, take a siesta. A quick 2 hour nap and we were refreshed to go explore the city some more. We went and had yet more tapas for dinner, and decided to visit La Rambla, which is a street famous for shops, bars, performers and pickpockets.

It was so interesting, every person we told we were visiting Barcelona would always say to watch for pickpocketers. So, we were always on super high alert, carried our wallets close to us, didn't take our passports out with us (never needed it), and were always super cautious. Well, on the way from dinner to the bar, we actually saw a pickpocketer try to take some guys wallet! We weren't on a side or shady street, and there were plenty of people in front and behind us, but 2 guys were handing out flyers to a club and 1 of the guys went up to the couple in front of us and was telling him how they had salsa. We noticed he said salsa twice and each time would "kick" the guy lightly on his backside with his foot, pretending to be lively, but he would actually feel for the wallet in his back pockets. We were amazed that this was taking place literally right in front of us! It didn't help that we walked into a fancy hotel to look for the bar and found 2 American couples, one of which had been pickpocketed his 2nd night there! He had his wallet in his front pocket but it was still taken. It's not that we ever felt unsafe, it was just so crazy! So, if you go to Barcelona, be on alert!

So, that was my cautionary paragraph. Moving on....

Since we were well rested, we decided to visit a few bars on La Rambla and see what kind of people we could meet. People don't go out until LATE in this city, but I just can't hang like that anymore. We were enticed into a bar with a "free drink" which we're convinced was water, but stayed around because the bartenders were awesome. Didn't help that one was beautiful too :)

We wound up meeting Polly (Iranian from Canada), Harold (from Rome) our bartenders (from Poland and Norway) a couple from Denmark and 2 guys from Austria. I introduced my camera stick to the bar and everyone loved it!

Thumbs up for the camera stick!

I think I took way too many pictures of our hot bartender and creeped him out. Oh well!

We had a ton of fun at the bar (Patagonia Bar if you ever go!) and we were labeled "Obama" because we were from the US. We assume they pick 2-3 talking points about each country for all the visitors. We had a really good time meeting everyone, taking pictures, and introducing everyone to jager bomb shots.

Our night ended late, so we'll pay for it tomorrow....