Tuesday, June 2nd (Day 10)

Wow! Today is the halfway point of our trip! We're getting along fine in Barcelona. The weather is fantastic. We've forgotten what rain or cold are. We just assume every day is sunny and in the upper 70s. We started today with no plan at all, which is great! It turned out that Abel and I split up for most of the day, so I'll give my side of the story.

I went for a morning run of about 4 miles along the boardwalk by the beach. The sun was pretty high already as I overslept and didn't get out running until about 8am. We had breakfast at the hostel. It was missing fresh fruit, which really hurts. Otherwise it was fine. Toast and jelly, ceral, milk, lots of choices of juice. Basically a very high carb diet!

I took a nap after breakfast. I don't know why, but it lasted about an hour and felt good. When I woke up, Abel had left for his day's adventure. I took the Metro to the Sangrada Familia, Barcelona's most famous tourist attraction. I guess I've seen so much spectacular architecture on this trip that I wasn't as impressed as I should have been. This structure is still in progress and is predicted to be over 20 years from completion. It think what's missing is a courtyard or large garden around the structure. The building is impressive enough, but right across the street on all four sides are shops and restaurants (even a McDonald's!).

I'm glad I saw it, but I was told it would be breathtaking and it didn't do that for me. When I got back, I rented a bicycle and toured the city for a while. It was great fun to ride around the sidestreets of Barcelona. You can cover a lot of ground on a bicycle! I also missed riding a bike, so it felt good to pedal again.

When I got back, Abel and I went out for dinner. We haven't had many sit down meals on this trip, but we were both in the mood. We both had Paella, but different kinds. It was very tasty!

Today was a pretty slow moving day. No hurry to get anything done - a very nice pace. Tomorrow, if it works out, I plan to visit Parc Natural del Montseny, which is about 50 km from Barcelona and has some very nice hiking trails. The big cities are getting to me and I'm craving some trees and trails and water and open space!

That's all for now!