Day 4

Day four was our "Barcelona-wandering-and-shopping" day. The weather was just great: about 10 degrees warmer than it had been in Madrid, and it was no longer raining. We returned to the neighborhood we'd gone to for dinner and visited, among other things, the really lovely plaza of a cathedral, the Barcelona Futbol Club's official store (to get gear for the game), and an excellent toy shop, El Ingenio, that had shelves and shelves of these fabulous masks, heads, and puppets.









We stopped for lunch at La Palma, a great place we found on a little side street. We sampled our first glasses of 'cava,' which is Spanish champagne. The food was great, and there were huge kegs of wine that weren't just for show (the waiter opened one up to fill a pitcher for the table next to us).




After lunch we walked up La Rambla, a huge boulevard in a busy part of town. There were "living statues" all over the place, and one of our favorites was a Ronaldinho look-alike. There were also a number of pet stands selling fish, lizards, and birds. These little guys were very excited to pose for Trevor.





We briefly visited the Museum of Chocolate, where everything under the glass cases was made/carved out of chocolate. It was tremendously exciting, and we got to see our second Ronaldinho of the day. This guy was most likely tastier than the first. Needless to say, we were getting very excited about our game!



After the siesta, we met up with Trevor's cousin Vanessa, who's been living in Barcelona for about three months. Unfortunately we didn't take any photos with her (I have no idea why!?), but we had a great time at dinner, and then we took her to the Ginger for a drink. Vanessa works as a location scout for a television commercial production company, which is pretty neat. It was really fun to meet her (she and Trevor hadn't seen each other since they were little) and hang out. She also lives right up the street from Sagrada Familia, the Gaudi cathedral we planned to visit on Christmas Eve.