The Big Game

Brad got us tickets to go see FC Barcelona play last week. The game didn't start until 9:30 p.m. so it was a little challenging getting Alexa there with us, but we all made it eventually. Ande we got great seats right at the very top.

The field is HUGE! I was surprised because they don't seem that big on TV. The stadium is enormous too. Who knew there were so many people in the world that actually like soccer?

FC Barcelona scored their 5000th goal during the game and won 2 - 0. It was fun to cheer even though I had no idea what was going on most of the time.

Don't we look like a happy, soccer-loving family?

Our Roommates

We’ve mentioned our roommates, Scott and Kirby, in a couple of other posts, but we never formally introduced them.


This is Scott and Kirby Fish. Scott and I became friends on our mission in Chile, and we ended up together again at law school at ASU. Scott is from Oregon (Salem, I think) but you can never get a straight answer from Kirby when you ask her where she’s from, because her dad was in the army and her family moved around a lot.

No one is really sure how we ended up living together here in Barcelona. We all kind of lost our minds after 7 days in the hostel (we shared a room there, too), and so we threw privacy and personal space to the wind when we were scoping out places to live. This apartment looked like a good deal to us, so we sprang for it and never looked back except for a couple of times.

A few of Scott and Kirby’s favorite things: Scott likes taking mate (pronounced mah-tay) and playing electronic yahtzee (don’t we all?), and, on a good day, you can catch him wearing a pink shirt. Kirby loves hot chocolate (Stephen’s is her brand) and is an avid blogger. You can find her version of our Barcelona Adventure at scottandkirby.blogspot.com.

Some of the positive aspects of sharing an apartment with another couple is that you’ve always got enough people to play a game. Only a few nights have gotten by without atleast a quick game. We play Phase-10, Skip-bo, and Ticket to Ride. Living together is working out pretty well. Alexa keeps the situation interesting, but Scott and Kirby are very patient with her, even tho’ sometimes she wanders into their room and other times she doesn’t want anyone to sleep.

So now when their names appear in our posts, you'll know who we're talking about.

Photos of Barcelona

We had a chance to go sight seeing this weekend.

We went to the Sagrada Familia, a church that was designed by Gaudi. It began construction in 1882, and is still under construction. This is an amazing building.

to the Olympic Stadium (the Olympics were held here in 1992),

and to the nearby botanical gardens,

and to the Museum of Art of Catalunya. This gigantic building houses all the Catalunyan art you could ever want to see. Catalunya is the state or province that Barcelona is in. People here almost consider it their country, and are very proud of that heritage and, apparently, their art.

From the front of the museum, you get a pretty good look at Barcelona and a great shot of what has become Alexa´s signature jacket.

Apartment

For those who are interested, here are some pictures of the apartment we share with Scott and Kirby.

Here are the stairs we get to walk up to get to the apartment - no elevator. There are 81. I guess it's good for us - forced exercise.



Small living room


Kitchen. No oven. Can't bake. We only eat rice, noodles, or potatoes. Feel free to send us your favorite stove-top recipes.

Bathroom. Yes, a bidet. Alexa likes to play in it.

The toilet is seperate. It's hard to fit in there, epecially for Scott. He's 6'4".

The apartment isn't very big, but we're getting along ok. It's fun to try to get all 4 of us on the couch to watch a movie.

Fun Park

We found this huge park by our apartment. It's called Parque Ciutadella.


We went and had a picnic yesterday since Brad hasn't gotten any homework assigned yet. (I love Spanish Law School!)


We really were having fun ... I promise.

They have this awesome playground that we've taken Alexa to a couple of times. They have a shed with lots of toys in it that anyone can play with. Mostly she just plays by herself, but she did make a friend ...



ok, maybe she was just stealing his toy.


Then, Daddy gave her a chocolate cookie.

We're having lots of fun.

Our New Apartment

We found an apartment on Thursday (1/8) and got all moved in on Friday. We're happy to be out of that hostel. It was small, loud, and very cramped. I would recommend staying in a hostel if you come here, but not if you have a 1-yr-old. Here we have some pictures of barcelona.

This is our hostel room. It's about 7 or 8 feet wide, and probably 10 feet long. That's me on the top bunk, where i regularly got less than 4 hours of sleep per night.

View from our hostel room. Is that a barcelona sunrise I see? Or the flash from the camera reflected on the window? You be the judge.

This is a street near our apartment that has an ancient wall running down the side of it. One of our tourist books states that this wall was left by the Romans.

If you look really closely, at the very top of this you can see the small balcony of our apartment.

This was alexa's reaction when we told her we were moving out of the hostel. I don't care who you are, that's happiness, right there.

Cassi took this picture, and I don't remember what it's of. Stay tuned for more pictures of old buildings like this that we see in our travels.

Starting Our New Adventure

We finally made it to our hostel in Barcelona after about 29 hours of traveling on Thursday/Friday. Traveling overseas with a one-year-old isn´t the easiest thing to do, but Alexa did great considering she had to be on our laps the whole time.

Yesterday we ventured out to see the school where Brad will be studying. We spent some time looking for an apartment, but didn´t have much luck. We went to the beach for a while, but it was so cold that we couldn´t stay too long.

Today, we tried to find the church, but the directions were wrong on the website, so we walked around for an hour or so trying to find anyone who knew where it was. We ended up not going.

So, hopefully things will start falling into place. The hostel is kind of cool, but Alexa hasn´t been sleeping well at all. And I´m ready to stop living out of suitcases.

To be continued...