WE'RE ENGAGED!!!!

Hopefully all of you reading this by now have been told the news that we are engaged! We couldn't be happier! Erin was just starting to think it wouldn't happen during the remaining time in Spain when Rob surprised her on our five year anniversary. Erin was out meeting a friend on Friday afternoon. When she got home and was walking up those lovely 100 stairs to the apartment, she got a phone call from Rob asking to come up on their rooftop terrace because he needed to show her something. As mentioned before, Erin had thought Rob was going to wait until they were back home in the U.S. so she was not expecting anything. However, when she got that phone call, she froze on the stairs. She knew and was secretly hoping it was this but told herself not to get her hopes up because maybe it was just a surprise for their five year anniversary. Heart racing, Erin ran up the stairs to get to the terrace to see Rob waiting all dressed up and a picnic set up next to him with a bottle of cava (Spanish champagne) and glasses. She quickly walked to Rob where he stood nervously. After about 30 seconds of a speech, Rob got down on one knee and asked Erin to marry her in Spanish!! (Quieres casarte conmigo?) and she said YES! Then they opened the bottle of champagne and toasted on the terrace with the sunset. Then, later that night, we went to our first Barca football game! Barca played Espanyol which is the same city rivalry team. It would be like the Chicago White Sox playing the Chicago Cubs in baseball. Barca won 2-1! We had a lot of fun. 

Since then, we've been spending time with our friends a lot. Our friend Katie threw us a surprise engagement party at her apartment. Her apartment was all decorated with balloons and hearts. It was such a nice surprise! We are so lucky to have made such good friends here. And she cooked dinner for us. We absolutely loved it!

 

Barcelona looks beautiful at night around Christmas time.  Almost every street has lights lined up across the top of the street. It's so nice to see everywhere decorated for La Navidad. There are little outside markets all over Barcelona as well selling Christmas stuff. Erin has been having conversation classes with a Spanish woman here named Lorena. Her Spanish has improved drastically.

Last weekend, Lorena invited us to a town called Vic with her husband. Vic is about an hour north of Barcelona and is a very Catalan town. Last weekend, Vic had their Medieval Christmas Market throughout their whole town. It was so cool. Erin spoke Spanish the entire day with Lorena and Lorena's husband. Rob also got to practice some of his Spanish skills. There were a lot of different stands throughout the town of Bic. Many cheese, meat, and cake stands selling typical Catalan fuet and sausage (Butifarra de Bic) and a special pastry called Coca. It's kind of like a bread or Danish with lots of sugar and a spice called anís on top. All of it was very delicious. There are also many beautiful churches in the small town. There is a part next to one of the churches that has Medieval walls/ ruins from the Romans. There are many shops that sell antique items as well as Medieval items. There's lots of music being played throughout the streets. There is also an area that is Arabia due to the Moor/Arabic influence who controlled Spain after the Romans. We watched an Arabic dance and had a really nice minty tea typical from Arabia. They have a center plaza with a big blue Christmas tree. In another plaza they have burros (donkeys) for children to ride in a big circle around the plaza. Overall it was a really fun day.

 

 

 

We are starting to prepare ourselves for our big Eurotrip in February now. The plan is to go to the south of Spain the first week of February. We are going to Malaga and Granada. Both are beautiful cities in Spain that are very different from the Barcelona (north of Spain). Then we return to Barca for a few days before heading to Munich, Germany for our friend Beate's birthday. We wanted to spend time with Beate and her family again as well as spend some time in Munich. When we visited for Oktoberfest, we didn't have much time to explore Munich.

Then from Munich, we plan to start our EuroRail trip traveling through about 10 different cities! We are so so excited. We will be traveling for 21 days and then return to Barcelona the end of February to spend a few last days with our friends and saying our goodbyes. Then off home to the good 'ole US of A!! We really miss all our friends and family and are very excited to see them when we return (around the first week of March). We will be posting a lot during our EuroRail trip about all the different cities we are in.