Barcelona, Spain: Day 1

It's been a long day.  I'm going to do my best to be as detailed as possible, but we spent most of the day in airports and on planes.  Jet lag is setting in.  I realized that I washed my hair with body wash and my body with shampoo so my brain running on low.

Before boarding the plane in SFO we stopped for Japanese food at one of the airport restaurants.  The beef was rather dry for being in a soup, but the noodles were quite tasty. 

When we took a ten hour flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt, Germany lost a day, but were fed a couple meals along the way.  We were too groggy to photograph the oddly solid egg breakfast that they served us, but we did get a couple of pics of the dinner.  I got the pasta and Nick got the chicken and rice.  Standard airplane fare, but it kept us satisfied.

Vegetarian pasta

Chicken and Rice

Though we were fed twice on the plane, we stopped to have some bangers and mash at one of the Frankfurt restaurants. None of us were really that hungry, but we wanted to sample some sausage while in Germany, and sample we did. We are pretty much just bottomless pits when it comes to food and traveling.

I got an unfiltered lager that was pretty tasty, but the stein and bottle were pretty darn cool.  The stein was a heavy ceramic.  Nick forbade me for slipping it into my backpack. 

Sister got veal sausage that she so eloquently called "white wieners".  

Mom and Dad got a pork belly to share.

Nick and I shared Nurnberger Bratwursts.

At the Barcelona airport waiting for our luggage.

Mom reserved us a penthouse apartment near the downtown are.  This is our little room.  There are three other bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, living and dining room, kitchen and 180 degrees balcony.  Pretty comfy living, if you ask me.

Panoramic view from our balcony.

Living and dining areas.

The half bath.

First half of our balcony.

Second half of our balcony.

While searching for dinner,  we saw a little bit of Gaudi's elaborate architecture.  His work is the second building on the left.  We will be going to see it up close later on I'm sure, so I consider this far away view a sample.

I thought that the side of the Hotel Majestic was really cool.  Apparently, the Majestic is a really fancy hotel with a cool rooftop bar that Sister really wants to have drinks at.  Hopefully we go so that I can get some good pictures.  

After walking by a few different restaurants, we settled on Cafe de la Pedrera's outdoor seating.  It's nice to find that most people here speak English fairly well, but it's helpful to know a little Spanish.  It does seem to help even if we are a little timid at it.  Let the eating begin! Of course, we practically ordered the whole menu.  It was a little difficult to get all of the food onto the table at once.  Luckily, all the dishes were in the small bites, Tapas, format so we were able to quickly eat everything so that the servers could take away the plates as they brought out new dishes.  My personal favorite was the Iberian Ham Joselito, but the foie gras burger was a close runner up.

We ordered a pitcher of Sangria.  It was quite fruity for my tastes so I think I'll stick to red wine and local beers. 

From left: Iberian Ham Joselito,  Iberian Loin Joselito, Bravas Potatoes, and Steak Tartar 

Iberian Ham Joselito

Iberian Loin Joselito

Bravas Potatoes

Steak Tartar

Prawns cooked in Salt

Smoked sardines with roasted red peppers

Cantabrian anchovies

Chicken sandwich au poulet

Hamburger with foie gras

Housemade marshmallows

Carrot cake

That ends the first day of our 2014 family vacation.  Tomorrow, three more of our family members will be joining us and we will set off to do some touring, and of course, more eating.  We fully plan to go back to California looking like Butterball turkeys. Until then, good night from Barcelona, Spain.