Parc Güell

Hello family and friends :) Sorry we haven't been on top of posting. So here's an update on our last two weeks here. First, we went to Park Güell last weekend. Park Güell is a huge garden park on the hill of El Carmel in the Gràcia district of Barecelona. The park is full of architectural elements by the famous architect Antoni Gaudí. It was built between 1900 to 1914 and is one of the largest architectural work in Europe. It was beautiful. We have a lot of really cool pictures to post! Gaudí did a lot of mosaic pieces in the park as well as architectural pieces.

Entrance to the park

 

Mosaic pieces

 View of the city from half way up the park/mountain

 Gaudí's famous mosaic lizard fountain

Here are some pictures of Gaudí's architectural pieces throughout the park. First are some pictures of the escalators you have to take to get up to the top!

  View from the top

The view of La Sagrada Familia from the top of the mountain

 

Here's pictures of Gaudí's architectural work

Orange trees grow everywhere throughout the city!

As you can see, the park is beautiful. Erin really likes Gaudí's style. We got lucky entrance to the park is free, but next month the cost to enter the park is going to be 12 Euros. In other news, Erin got another class to teach (a children's class) and she got a babysitting job speaking English to a little 18 month old boy for two hours twice a week, which is very exciting. That brings her up to 13 hours of work a week :) And even more exciting news that we found out today- Rob went for an interview on Friday at a language school and he got the call back today offering him the job! So he will be working in a language school 4 hours a day doing a lot of private tutoring. So Rob will be working 16 hours a week :) which means savings will stay savings (what we have left in our U.S. bank accounts). Rob is nervous to start on Monday, but relieved to finally have some work. 

An update on trivia... we are pub quiz regulars now which is cool to have a "regular" bar/place to go where we know the bartenders and have friends who we meet there. We took 3rd place at our regular trivia bar (it was an extremely difficult quiz in our opinion), but we tried out a new bar for trivia on Thursday night and we WON!!! Winners at this trivia quiz receive a free bottle of Jagermeister :)

And last, but not least, we just booked our flights to PARIS for next weekend, which we are very excited about!! We both have never been there and it will be our first traveling experience here in Europe! 

Watching the Superbowl in Barcelona

Sorry we haven't posted lately, but here is a recap of the last week and a half.

Last Saturday began the 6 Nations Rugby Tournament. It is a round robin style tournament in which Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, France, and Italy play one another for the next 6 weekends and who ever has the most amount of points win. Rob went and watched it with a few friends at Ryans, the same place that we play trivia. Man, rugby is tough!  Rob could not believe how physical and exhausting it was. Football is still preferable, but he can now understand why those from countries who play rugby believe it to more impressive than our American Football. (they think American football is a joke by the way.) So now Rob pretends to be a rugby fan...

Last Sunday we went to "Sports Bar" on La Rambla which is the major street in Barcelona. It is the same street as the huge outdoor market that we talked about in a previous post. The game did not start until 1am here! Needless to say, it was another Sunday night out until 6 in the morning... which has not been helping our awful sleep schedule. It was also our friends birthday so we reserved a table and got there in plenty of time before the game started. We ate some food and were really looking forward to their chicken wings, until they came out and were the tiniest little guys we have ever seen. We miss Chicago pizza and bar chicken wings a lot. They also aren't big on sauce our here either. So no hot sauce for Rob. We ordered some pizzas which were decent, but nothing too great. The game was obviously very exciting. However, we did miss one major attraction of the super bowl....COMMERCIALS. Since the game was televised on a British network, we did not get to see any of the American commercials. We also had to listen the British telecast which was a bit different. We had Russian beer, Baltika, for the first time since it was the special and were very impressed by their tops. The beer was so so, but the tops were like nothing we had seen before. Instead of using a bottle opener like all the other beer here, (they don't believe in twistoffs aparently) the cap comes with a little tap that you peel all the way back and then the cap comes right off.... very interesting. Another late night, but a lot of fun.

Super Bowl!!

                                                 *Birthday Girl was the Giants/ 49ers Fan.

In other news, we finally made our first meat purchase at the fresh market. We bought 1 kilogram of fresh pechuga de pollo or chicken breast. For those who are a bit rusty on their imperial to metric conversion, that is almost 2.2 pounds...more than we were expecting to buy. So we've been eating chicken for a week straight. The fresh markets are so interesting. She sliced the chicken into nice sized filets, while the other lady was collecting chicken livers in a large bag for another customer. And they do all of the butchering right out in front of you. (kind of makes you lose your appetite, but atleast you know how fresh it is) The reason they do it in front of it you is so you can check to see that there is no blood in the eyes and for fish that the scales are clean. Makes a lot more sense when you think about it.

We made it back to our favorite tapas restaurant for the actual day of our friends birthday. We got many of the same items... sardines, mussels, patatas bravas. But this time we went with our friend from South Africa who talked us into getting Pulpo Gallego which is a Galician Style Octupus tapa. Galicia is the northwestern most part region of Spain located directly above Portugal. The tapa is usually one of the most expensive on the menus because of the prep work required. They have to thouroughly clean the octopus, boil it, and then beat it and stretch it so that it is tender. It is then boiled and pan fried and ours was served over sliced potatoes. Honestly, the smell is obscure and offsetting, but once we got over that we thought they were quite good. Here are some pictures...

                             Pulpo Gallego (Octopus)                                                     Mussels

The Table

Everything was delicious!!

We also have both been lacing up our running shoes more frequently over the last few weeks. Beate, our German friend, is running the Barcelona 1/2 Marathon this Sunday. Erin is going to jump in with her for the last five miles to give her an extra push. (She is not in the slightest prepared for it and will be a rude wake-up call that she is not in shape and should really consider running on a regular basis again). So we have been inspiring each other to get out and explore the city on our runs. So far we have found the sea front most enjoyable. It reminds us of running on the Chicago lake front, but it is much more wider and seems to be constantly busy. There is a boardwalk which stretches about 3 miles north of our apartment and is covered end to end with beaches. We can't wait for the summer and be able to enjoy the water!!