To Spain, Hola!

Easter weekend arrived for us April 5th, and by the 6th we hopped into a car rental and drove our way to Barcelona, Spain. We invited with us our friend, Lida and her daughter, Daniella. Lida is Freeman & Grace's Italian tutor, and Daniella has become good friends with them both. Lida speaks Spanish also, so having her along was very helpful. Here they are:

We spent our first day downtown Barcelona, right on the Mediterranean: beautiful, busy and piu grande! We walked through Las Ramblas, a huge walking district in downtown Barcelona. Our favorite were the pet vendors and the mimes. We got a great picture with Freeman and "Edward Scissorhands". We checked out the beautiful sailboats at the harbor and then the architecture of Gaudi. We intended to get to the Picasso and Dali museums, but the kids needed time, so we headed out of the city for a day. We went inland a bit to a beautiful park, where we hiked up some beautiful mountains. It reminded me a little of home, but also of southern California. We also went to a gorgeous beach where the kids jumped in (yes, the water was cold!) and played in the sand for the afternoon.

Here the kids are at Barcelona's central plaza, trying to climb up this monument. It takes a running start!
I have to admit that the food is better in Italy, but we were fortunate to find a "churroria", yes mom, that's right, Spain is the birthplace of churros. We ordered us 2 sacks and snacked on them one afternoon. For those of you who don't know, churros are a long donut stick (although it was a long snake donut that was cut into smaller 6" pieces) sprinkled in sugar. In Spain, you won't find a churro quite as sweet as the ones you find at Costco, that's true of most of the sweets in Spain and Italy. Check out some of the photos we grabbed.

Here's the "churro man" making a batch for the crowd.




Freeman has just received a haircut from
Edward Scissorhands himself.

Grace, all smiles and shivers!

Freeman

And here's the family, over looking Manresa, Spain