July 23rd - Cruise Critic Meet & Greet

We spent the morning getting ready for the cruise.  Mike did the ironing.

Pam and I painted our toes.

Then we met with our Cruise Critic friends for dinner.  What a great time we had.

What a great night.  We can hardly wait for tomorrow when we finally get to board our Carnival Magic.  So this will be our last post for a while.

July 22nd - Barcelona Olympic Village

Today Roger wanted to walk to the Olympic Village and along the way we stopped at a huge mall called the Barcelona Arena (Placa de Toros les Arenes).  The escalator would go up two floors at a time.

We had great views of the Plaza Espanya.

Today we found the escalators,

although we did have to climb some stairs, that took us up to the Museu Nacional D'art de Catalunya Palau Nacional.

Then we continued on our journey to the Olympic Village.

We peeked in the window and saw the swimming pool.

We were ready for a nap or some food or both as it was 3:00 and we hadn't eaten anything for what seemed like forever.  All that we're dreaming about is the around the clock food on the ship.  That way Roger can't starve us anymore.

We also got to peek into the track and field stadium.

We also got to see their "Olympic Walk of Fame" with Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong, Michael Johnson & Jack Nicklaus.

We also got a peek at the diving area that had a jr. multi-national diving event getting ready to start.  They were carrying their country's flag as they paraded around the pool.

We had a pretty walk back down the hill.

Roger and Mike found a woman's lap that they could crawl up on which was better than a bench.

We saw some Quaker Parrots.

We also saw some very interesting trees.

July 21st - Sagrada Familia

Today we tried to leave early so we could beat the crowds at the Sagrada Familia Basilica, well we didn't really beat the crowds because at 9:00 the line was almost half way around the building but luckily the line moved rather quickly.

All I can say is it is absolutely amazing and it brought tears to my eyes to think that someone was given such a gift as the ability to design something so wonderful.

I know this wouldn't be to everyone's taste but we were amazed at how he incorporated nature into his designs.

He designed it so that the choir lofts could hold 1,000 people because he thought that music was very much a part of worship.

Pam and I waited for Roger as he was taking pictures of all the displays of design ideas Gaudi had.

On our way back to the apartment we stopped by the market to see what we wanted for dinner.  We could have fish,















or ham,




or maybe some rabbit,

or chicken.

We did like their bakery goods.

We even begged for some chocolate.

In the end we got just what I was in the mood for, Mexican food and a Pina Colada.  It was so yummy!




















That made us very happy.