The ferry from Civitavecchia, Italy to Barcelona was an awesome change up from the trains we have taken for the rest of the trip. We spent time out in the sun, we played video games and we played the slots (and if Jon would have just TOLD ME TO STOP WHILE I WAS UP I maybe would have walked away “lucky”).
From Barcelona we will fly back to Amsterdam and the next train we will take will be from Amsterdam to Paris so that we can leave from Charles De Gaul airport. Before we left Rome we had a really awesome day seeing the Roman Forum, the Coliseum and the Pantheon. I loved seeing the Coliseum- It just seemed so much more intact than I would have thought. It was a great day and we persevered to see everything despite the ridiculously high temperatures and the inevitable sunburns.
Since arriving in Barcelona we have taken a lot of walks down La Rambla which is the main street in the center of downtown that has countless street vendors (like our guidebook says, from live chickens to blue roses). The number of street performers far surpasses that of any of the other cities we have been to. Literally every 15 steps you see another person dressed up and fully painted and they are expecting tourists to pay for photos and videos.
I of course bought a few more prints to add to my collection and I am excited about them. Homeboy drove a hard bargain.
So we rented a Go Car here in Barcelona yesterday, it is a little car that has 3 wheels that is actually legally registered as a motorcycle which means that essentially it has the smallest scooter engine that is available on the market and yet it is supposed to carry to individuals in a car like setting. At the starting line and up large hills the Go Car is rarely the quickest. There is a GPS Navigation system that actually gives you an AWESOME tour of whatever city you are in, a little robotic woman computer gives you facts, language lessons as well as directions everywhere you go, as long as you are on course.
Before we got lost we saw a couple of Gaudi’s works including La Sagrada Familia and Guell Park. La Sagrada Familia is a church that has been under construction for over 100 years and is not scheduled to be finished until 2020. It was cool to see how Gaudi’s style has affected the architecture of the whole city, I will post photos from the church in a few days when I have a bit more time.
While on the Go Car we encountered a few hills that we thought perhaps the little motor could not accommodate. If you are like my mom and you can’t watch videos at work, you HAVE to watch this at home. Seriously. And when you do, turn the volume up because the Go Car is pretty loud as it struggles up a massive hill. Mom, you will think this is so funny. As you watch, please note the following: The banter between Jon and I that starts at about 19 seconds into the video, And also the small robotic voice of the British woman commenting on the park we are headed to as well as how steep the hill we are climbing is.
While you might not see pedestrians in this video literally each and every person we passed (which was like 10,000 people) stared at us in this thing and a large portion of tourists took photos of us which means we are in the permanent album of their European vacation. One lady stopped us at a green light and Jon and I obliged her photo with matching THUMBS UP BUDDY.
Eventually we started asking for 2 Euros a pop.
Today is our last day here- we leave bright and early tomorrow morning on an Easy Jet back to Holland. Have I mentioned I can count to ten in Dutch now? Looking forward to incorporating that into our daily adventures.
Adios!
