{Flashback}: Day 3

The next morning we immediately hit it hard in Barcelona. We walked through Plaza Catalunya and walked down La Rambla and saw all kinds of street vendors and street performers. It is a very colorful street full of people and commotion. Flower shops, gelato shops, souvenir shops, street performers wearing amazing yet, odd costumes, solo performers, and of course, pickpocketers' sanctuary.
Trying to be savvy tourists and avoid being pickpocketed or messed with, we never stood around and watched the street performers or paid any attention to the whistling sounds of the Arabs who had various gadgets in their hands to show off.

Side note: One scam pickpocketers will do is have these very small whistles between their lips and tongue and whistle this high pitch noises to distract you. It is so small you can barely see it in their mouths. The Arabs had these while trying to get you to buy something or just plain distract you. Tourists will then look around and ask, "What is that? Where is that noise coming from?" And then before you know it, you are pickpocketed! My girls kept asking, "What's that noise?" and stop in the middle of the walk to look around. I very quickly said, "Nevermind, I'll tell you later, let's keep going!"
With street performers, same thing. There are a group of men usually waiting around to see you get distracted and then get you while you are watching the performance.

Anyways, after taking in all of the scenary of the busy street we continued to walk to Barri Gotic. This was one of Tim's favourite spots. It is exactly how you picture a European country to be like. Cobblestone road, pigeons mingled together all over the plaza, shops within colorful buildings lining the narrow streets...very fun atmosphere.
There we saw the Catedral de Barcelona...

Then stopped to take a picture of Carrer del Bisbe Irurita...

Our tummies were then beginning to grumble so we decided to check out the shops down the narrow roads toward lunch. On the way we bought the girls these darling flamenco dresses. I took these pictures today. Aren't they so cute?!

They love them. Natalie calls it her "red tutu" and is pretty protective of it. (She even insisted on taking a nap with it later on while we were in Andorra.)

For lunch we ate La Boqueria, which is an outdoor market that sells anything from, meat, to seafood, to sweets, to pizza. I love markets. Total eye-candy.

It started to get really warm during lunch so we went back to the apartment to get ready to go to Barceloneta beach.
According to wikipedia, "Barceloneta beach gained status as the best urban beach in the World and total third best beach in the World, according the documentary film 'Worlds Best Beaches' produced by Discovery Channel in 2005."
I didn't take my camera because first, I didn't want it stolen while I tried to bask in the Spanish sun and second, I didn't want sand in it. We took our iphones instead to capture pictures and video, but we all know what happened with those....

If you were to ask Marisa her favourite part about the trip she always cheerfully says, "The beach!" I have always said before that Marisa is 100% beach bum. Doesn't matter how cold the water is she will go in it. The girls loved playing on the sand and it was so fun to seem them so happy on a beach in Spain! I hope they always remember that moment because it was such a great afternoon. So instead of looking fondly at pictures and videos of us on the beach I'm just going to have to keep the images in my mind and in my heart of my two little girls' laughter and pure delight on the sand...

For dinner we headed back to Plaza Catalunya to eat at Hard Rock Cafe. Tim and I are very against eating American chain restaurants when you are visiting another country. I mean, really, that doesn't make sense! But, in Spain, local restaurants don't open until around 9 for dinner! Even the restaurant we had gone to the night before didn't serve certain items while we were there because the meat they serve for the night doesn't arrive until 7 at night. And we were obviously there before 7. 9 o'clock is my girls' bed time while on holiday and there is no way my children can wait until then for dinner after exhausting them the whole day.
Hard Rock doesn't even have good food and it is totally over priced, but I must say, we really enjoyed sitting in a place that was familiar, listening to American music, and giving our mind a break from Spanish and everything Spanish. My children didn't mind at all tasting American food either. They literally devoured, I mean devoured, their mac n' cheese...:)