Herefords the Explorers (Kathryn)

Today we went to Las Ramblas for the second time on our trip.  Las Ramblas is a road, er, a street.  This is not the street for cars.  If cars drove on it, millions of people would get crushed.  Human statues, souvenir shops, and other small shops like ones selling pets, flowers, candles, and more filled the street.  Just guess how expensive the most expensive candle was.  190 euros.  I mean, the candle was huge and in the shape of Buddha and all, but the wax is gonna melt.  Anyways, we walked halfway, took a vote, and decided to explore some streets next to Ramblas.

There were many souvenir shops on the streets next to Ramblas, and although the initial prices were the same, these people were willing to bargain, unlike the people at Ramblas.  As Dad put it, the Ramblas shops just stuck prices on the items and waited for the thousands of costumers to buy them.  But places near Las Ramblas don't get as many costumers, therefore they are willing to drop their prices.  Josiah bought a shirt and Liam bought a magnet at one of the souvenir shops.

We walked some more and then decided to eat lunch at a chicken place.  It was a real Spanish dinner.  A Spanish dinner is when you pay 1 price for a drink, appetizer, main meal, and dessert.  Well, I won't tell you everything we got, but the thing I wanted to say was that Dad ordered rabbit and he got served a quarter of a whole rabbit!  Like, with the head and arms and everything.  Actually, Josiah got a funny video of Dad playing "little bunny fu fu" with the rabbit:

Josiah's Birthday Celebration (Deborah)

Josiah turned 13 on April 16.  Wow--how did that happen so fast?  Wasn't he 8 just last year?  Guess time got ahead of me.  Oh well.  We enjoyed celebrating with him.  He decided to ask our neighbor to join us for a trip to the Olympic Museum here and then for dinner, and Marwan (pronounced "Mahdwahn") said yes.  Here are some pictures from the day.

Fencing Exhibit--check it out Jason, and you fellow fencers!

Some of the many types of tennis rackets used throughout the Olympics

Josiah and Marwan share a laugh

Liam poses with some mannequins from the Barcelona & Madrid soccer teams

Some of the very first Olympic trophies

Wheelchair used in Paralympics

Paralympics tennis player

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Paralympics triathlon equipment

An old wooden chess set

A VERY old wooden bowling set

A line-up of Olympic torches, starting with 1936

And ending with the more recent ones.

Before presenting floral bouquets was the norm, Olympic champions used to be crowned with a wreath of olive branches.

An old Olympic bob-sled

"Marwan, here's when Olympics were in the U.S"

"Josiah, here's when they were in Barcelona"

Watching video clips of previous Olympics

Differences between Murray and Barcelona (Josiah)

There are quite a few differences between Murray and Barcelona.  I will outline some of them.

Popular foods: In Murray, we eat burgers, hot dogs, pizza, and sandwiches.  In Barcelona, it's sandwiches, fish, meat, and veggies.  Ham, salami, tuna, and turkey are the favorite sandwiches.  Popular drinks in Murray are 7-Up, Root beer, Coke, Pepsi, and Dr. Pepper.  In Barcelona, they drink Coke, Fanta orange and lemon, coffee, and wine.

Tourist attractions:
Murray has 0, unless you count their basketball team.  Barcelona attracts tourists to the Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell, La Pedrera, Torre Agbar, Magic Fountains, and many more.  We have been to the Magic Fountains, but they weren't performing their magic (lighting up).

Popular sports: Murray enjoys playing basketball and football.  In Barcelona, soccer is the sport.  Their team, FC Barcelona, is as popular as the Yankees, the Cowboys, and the Celtics combined.  The players for FC Barcelona get an average annual salary of $7million, more than any other sports team.

How much walking needed to do: In Murray, we walk out to the garage, hop in the car, and let it do the walking.  In Barcelona, we let the subway, tram, and bus do all the walking.  Well, actually, they only do some of the work.  We walk to the store that's only a block away, and it wouldn't be worth taking a subway for that, and we walk to all the other places that are nearby.

Expenses: As Dad wrote about (Sticker Shock), whenever we've tried eating at American restaurants, the price has been pretty bad.  In Barcelona, I've seen a can of soda cost anywhere from 1-3 euros.  A stamp costs 50 cents in Murray, while in Barcelona, it's 80 cents.

Wealth of people: In Murray, practically everyone has a home and a car.  In Barcelona, there are several people who sleep on the ground and people who beg or play an instrument for money.

Not a complete Garden of Eden

I was going to write a post about our trip to the beach yesterday. That's right, an April trip to the beach. While most of the Southeast US was dealing with storms and heavy rain, we headed off on our 20 minute trip to the nearest beach. Or what I thought was the nearest beach. We reached the Meditterranean Sea but the shoreline was very rocky at that location. We walked along the coast for about 600 meters but never did get to sand. But we saw several interesting things (a huge swimmming area, a carnival setting up, several play areas, a ferris wheel car getting attached, a mall) so it was still an enjoyable journey.

On the way to the beach rocky coastline

But lest people get the impression that everything is perfect in Barcelona, there are problems. The biggest problem is the pickpockets. Thankfully, we have not had any problems with the thieves but I have talked to three American families directly who have had things stolen. Related to the thieves problem, I have noticed that people at the university always lock their offices - even when they are just going down the hall to fill their water bottle or get something from the printer.

The second problem, for me, is the co-mingling of languages. Some signs are in Catalan and some are in Spanish. But Catalan and Spanish have the same alphabet and many similar words so at times I can not tell whether the sign is Catalan or Spanish. Most restaurant menus seem to be in Catalan, which makes ordering difficult. (Menus with pictures help but what exactly is that mystery meat on that sandwich?) We do not know any Catalan so we try to communicate in Spanish (thanks for the help Josiah and Kathryn). But I am not fooling anybody - two or three times recently I have asked for something in broken Spanish and had the server respond in English.

Poble Espanyol pictures (Deborah)

Here are some pictures to go with Kathryn's post 3 days ago.

La Casa del Chocolate (The House of Chocolate)--free samples!

Jim helps children with the scavenger hunt

Deborah and new friend, Tracy Fandl

Here is a somewhat close-up of the "tile tower"--the first thing the children had to find on their hunt.

Spanish dresses for sale in a shop

Glass blower at work

Here are some of his finished products for sale

View of the city

The Fandl's:  Griffen, Harrison, Faith, Tracy, and John

Faith, Liam, and Marianna

Liam shows some cool rocks he found among these statues

Kathryn with the scavenger hunt bag of clues

A wind chime room

John and Tracy

Harrison, Josiah, and John at the well

Enjoying an ice-cream treat afterwards

Pablo Espanol(Kathryn)

Last Sunday, after church, we walked with our friends from America, the Fandls, and their friend Ying from China, to Pablo Espanol.  The Fandls have 3 children: A 16-year-old named Harrison, a 9-year-old named Griffen, and a 6-year-old named Faith.  Mr. Fandl described Pablo Espanol as an outdoor museum. 

He was right.  They even had audioguides.  At the information booth we got a scavenger hunt kit.  I was sort-of  the leader.  We had to find certain monuments and in the bag was something that was to tell us something of what it looked like.  For instance, the first thing we had to find was the tile tower.  The something in the bag was a tile.  There were 3 clues for each thing we had to find to keep us on track.  And the cool thing was if you couldn't find the clues, there was step-by-step instructions to make sure we found it. (It took us awhile to figure that out; at first we just thought that we were supposed to follow the step-by-step instructions)

One of the things we had to find was a glass kiln, which we found inside a glass store.  We saw a man making glass creations and it was really cool!  Since the glass hardens very quickly, the man had to shape it quickly.  He made a great-looking kangeroo in about 20 seconds! 

When we were halfway through the scavenger hunt, our book said we could have a break, so we did.  We rested and got a snack.  In a good place, too.  We could see the whole city from where we were sitting.  Mrs. Fandl is a photographer, and she took a few pictures of our family, and asked Dad to take some pictures of hers.  Then our break was unofficially over.  We walked on.  It looked like a smal town!  Little restaurants and stores filled the streets.  By the time we finished the scavenger hunt, it was almost time to go home.  We bought ice-cream and when we were done eating, we saw some orange trees and Josiah used Dad's bouncy ball to try to knock one out.  Harrison tried jumping, but they didn't succeed.  Oh, well.  They might have caught us stealing if we did.  It was a fun day.

Science Museum in Paris (Deborah)

One day when Jim went to his conference, the children and I ventured out to Cite Des Sciences.  Very cool museum.  They had 2 different types of tickets to choose from--we chose the kids section for ages 5-12 (parents allowed too).  Josiah just made it (he turned 13 four days later).  So we went for it.  Much fun was had by all.

Marianna sends a ball up the tube into a water funnel

You did it, Marianna!

Marianna and Liam playing with balls on water fountains

Liam aims a water gun towards a ball to move it up a ramp (this was much more difficult than it looks)

Liam helps set up dams in this water flow area

Marianna speedily turns crank to send water up to top--goal is to fill bucket so it will  topple over.  Mission accomplished!

Marianna and Liam listen to greetings in different languages across the globe.

Kathryn at the screen controls

What's the forecast in Paris today, Marianna?

Kathryn films Josiah on the set

Josiah . . . take 2

Jammin' to the music

Josiah films the band--make sure you get good angles on the guitarist and keyboard player.

Liam sticks his head in the bubble to get a close-up of the ant farm restaurant.  Even the ants dine well in Paris, huh?

Don't look now, but there are 2 giant black ants behind you!

Liam and Marianna get timed on running speed.

We also got to watch two 3-D movies, which were included with our museum tickets.  Though they were in French, we could still figure a lot of it out by the pictures.  One was on evolution, and was not so easy to follow.  The younger children thought the characters were kind of cute, but it was a little strange on the delivery, plus the French language factor.  The second one was about honey bees, and was much easier to follow and understand, even in French.