Barcelona travel blog part eight - Quiet Monday

Another beautiful day in Barcelona. Sunny weather. Temperatures in the mid-70s. We were living a lifestyle that would be easy to pretend was our real life. Our Airbnb was conveniently located near several grocery stores, bakeries, vegetable stands, banks, numerous family-run restaurants, and a short walk to a metro line.

Knowing museums are closed on Mondays, I planned a relatively quiet day. Out of our front door, we turned right and walked up Montjuic -- up being the operative word since, as the name suggests, Montjuic in a mountain. On the map, the park looked like an oasis of places to explore, culminating in the Olympic stadium. The views of Barcelona were stunning from this height. It would be hard to take a bad picture of Barcelona.

As we climbed the hill, our first stop was an amphitheater. This one was in much better shape than the one we saw in Tarragona on Monday. I hope they have a lot of smaller shows here.

A week or two before leaving home I splurged and bought a new camera. The old one had served me well for nearly 10 years, but was clearly worn out and beyond repair. I love that the new camera can take close ups, vistas, and selfies with relative ease -- easy enough for me to hand my camera to strangers and still get very nice pictures.

Places look this nice because there are people always working to make it look this nice. Perhaps if a team worked on my yard it would also look this nice? Even with a team, though, I would not have a museum to look at.

Lots and lots of stairs. It was good practice for Tuesday's uphill walk to Park Guell. My notes say we walked 20 flights of stairs before noon.

I was struck by these two statues because of the informality of the poses. I hope the women were comfortable when sitting for their statues. They are sitting the way I sit. 

We stumbled upon the Olympic Stadium, and were pleased to see it is free for self-guided tours. The stadium was a bit sad looking. Don worked for EDS in 1992 when they were a sponsor of the Olympics. It does not look as if it has changed in the past 30 years. The stadium had signs describing the history -- including being the site of a refugee camp during the Spanish Civil war in the mid-1930s. It seats about 55,000 people (in 1992 it seated 62,000 people).

Museum was closed because it was Monday

We also checked out the pool, which is still in use. I could almost hear the roar of the crowds in the wind.

We walked down to Placa Espana, past the (still closed) Magic Fountain to the Catlanya Circle. I was on the hunt for a cheap postage stamp for my Bialashu passport album even though Bialashu was with Ashley at college. Try explaining to a postal employee that you don't care how much the stamp is for, you just want the cheapest one possible to put in a scrapbook. It is not easy! Hopefully next time I'll bring the album (or a picture of it) and work from a visual.

I also struck out on exchanging US dollars for euros. Back when I was a college student (strike up the violins) every bank exchanged money and there were electric signs announcing the rates of the many different currencies. Not any more. Only banks in the tourist district exchanged currency. It was best to use our credit card. ATMs charged a 7 euro transaction fee, with a maximum of $200-300 taken out at a time (or may 200-300 euros, but at 1:1 rate, it is the same).  

We opted for lunch instead. We went healthy and each had a chicken salad, and alcohol.

We were early for our Gaudi Tour, so we shopped in the FNAC. FNACs always bring back memories of studying abroad and hanging out in them. That was Barnes and Nobles before I knew B&N -- a place to buy music and books, and also show tickets. I bought a CD of French pop music for $4. Don found some music of interest, but did not buy it. A fun place to kill some time.

I'm skipping ahead ... after our tour we found a local Aldi grocery store. Aldi is based out of Germany. We have visited others on our travels. Don visits the one in Lawrenceville, NJ every week. It is a cheap grocery store -- a great place to buy souvenirs like granola cereal and chocolate bars. I recommend a stroll through a grocery store to see what ordinary life is like.