McGouzburg Trip: Barcelona, Spain

First of all, where do we get McGouzburg from?  We combined all three of our last names (Strasburg, Goumaz and McVay).

This trip started out with a long 7 hour drive to the Nashville airport all night, because we saved quite a bit of money even with gas/hotel night coming home figured in.  My poor husband wasn't a fan of driving through the night.

Crashed at the airport

Then we flew to New Jersey with a 10 hour delay, so we hopped on a train and backpacked NYC for the day! Insane? Yes, but why not?

Overnight flight to Spain, all aboard.

We touched down in Barcelona and met up with our best friends, Brie and Shawn in the airport!  We rode a city bus into city center and navigated to our hostel from there.

 Day 1:

Our Hostel

Shawn had to make sure there was enough room for our bags.

Our bunks

Now off for some sights.

Drink and you'll return one day

"Las Ramblas" is the pedestrian only street that runs through the old town and lined with shops

La Boqueria is a huge food market

Inside you can find fruit stands...

And meat stands!

Our first Europe lunch, yummy jamon sammie and market cherries

Christopher Columbus monument

The streets are so beautiful

View from our terrace

Our terrace

View from the terrace

So excited to be here with her!

We showered up then headed out to see some sites! First stop: The Sagrada Familia, biggest cathedral in Barcelona.

Waiting in line!

Goodnight Barcelona!

Day 2:

We got in line first thing at Gaudi's Casa Batllo.  Of course it was raining, but we came prepared!  Also found a Bucks so that always helps.  Barcelona is really known for it's architecture, so we hit many of Gaudi's works while we visited.

The outside is so detailed!

First group photo

Made it to the terrace

Now off in the drizzle for some exploring!

He finally found a fedora!

The four cats

Ancient remains of what used to be the city wall

Beautiful cathedral that Brie and I were too "scandalously dressed" for

The children were enjoying school recess in this square. Notice the pock marks in the wall from an old war?  Pretty cool.

She loves knockers

Afternoon coffee break

Then we accidentally wedding crashed...

But it was so worth it

Day 3:

We first visited another of Gaudi's buildings, La Pedrera.  The rooftop terrace was the highlight!

View from the terrace

Weird structures covering the rooftop

After the Gaudi house we walked to the Barceloneta, or the beach!  This is a man made beach, designed to bring in more tourism.  It's also a topless beach!  So I had to be careful what crowd photos I posted haha.

The sand was definitely more pebble-like, not my powder sand that I'm used to!

Brie's first feel of the Med!

My turn!

Kit's turn!

Shawn's turn!

Lovebirds <3

Kisses

I love it!

Reading up on our next move

 So Brie and I are pretty crazy on our own, but when you get us together it's intensified and we're unstoppable.  On our drive to the airport I found this awesome article about a topless tour happening around the country.  Basically it's a movement for women to shed their clothes and embrace their freedom around the world.  I saw this and KNEW that this had to happen somewhere along our adventure.  My awesome husband reluctantly (at first) agree to be the photographer.  Since we were on a topless beach, we thought what the hell...when in Rome!  It was hilarious, just ask my husband!  When we first jerked off our tops our hearts were racing and we were SO nervous!  I blame the stupid laws in America.  You should have seen us try to get our tops back on after this, my husband couldn't stop laughing and we were struggling big time.  This is definitely my favorite memory out of this entire trip.  Thank you Brie for doing this with me, we're brave women!

Tops back in place! Looks of triumph!

After the beach we were famished, so we headed towards our first tapas bar recommended by Steve Ricks.  It was out of this world!  When we walked in it was definitely a more aggressive style of dining than what we're used to.  You ask for a plate from the bar, then you walk around and serve yourself tapas.  At the end you keep your toothpicks and they charge by the pick.  Neat, right?  I loved tapas because you had the opportunity to try a little bit of everything, and if you didn't like it, it was just one piece, not an entire entree.

Next was Gaudi's Park, Park Guell.  This park was towards the outskirts of town so we had to ride the city bus again, but it was so worth the beautiful view.  We highly recommend it, but book a reservation time/ticket online before you arrive.  They only allow so many people in at once.

Breathtaking 

It rained off and on the entire day, so our shoes were soaked.  The boys improvised us a shoe dryer!

The next morning we headed to the center part of town to catch a bus to the airport.  That was tricky because certain buses stopped running right before our flight, so we flagged down this backpacker from Brussels and she helped us get on the right bus!  It pays not be shy when traveling.  The flight from BCN to Munich was so easy to get on and go through security.  Next stop, Germany!