Another post about Barcelona, Part 2 of our Iconic Euro Summer Destination, and what we did while we were in Barcelona.

I literally thought I would have so much to say about our second portion of our trip in Barcelona, but turns out it's just about the food. As soon as we landed at like 10 PM, we headed out to get snacks and bring stuff back for the kids to eat for dinner and there's something about eating olives and drinking nonalcoholic beer at 11 PM in Spain that just doesn't feel like anywhere else in the world after our late night we slept in and just enjoyed our VRBO. I feel like Barcelona has a lot of aggression towards Taurus and rightfully so the city that I experience 20 years ago is nothing like the city experienced on this trip because of the tourists. I totally get their complaints and also still love the people in the place and one visit so it's really hard to find ethical accommodations. You don't ever know if you're staying at someone's gentrified apartment or if it's a reputable hotel that is being ethical to their employees and not disrupting neighborhood housing markets anyway just a complex issue of globalization. I really enjoy the architecture and history of the city. I did have the plans to do back to school shopping in Barcelona specifically because it was our last stop before we flew home so we wouldn't be carrying a lot of extra luggage with us but also because my favorite stationary store and it also has some really adorable boutiques and department stores and if you purchase a substantial amount of apparel, you can refund your VAT tax, so you're not paying the 30% extra that is usually tacked on to European purchases. I did have to wait in line at the airport and get it all sorted out there, but it was actually pretty easy and if you're willing to Google redirection ask people you can easily get your money back and that's super worth it.

After the back to school shopping, we rushed home because I didn't realize that my watch was synced to UK time instead of Spanish time and so we had an hour delay on where we were actually supposed to be in when we're supposed to be there. So we rushed back to drop off all of our goods and then rushed out the door to get to the park Guelby admission time which was like one to 1:30 PM and we literally had to run up the stairs if you've ever been there it's all up pills and through the neighborhood, but we did it and honestly, this is one of the biggest places that was impacted by tourism. In my opinion it used to be just like a regular city park that was beautiful and you could just walk right in and now they made it so you have to pay for admission just to get into the park and then you have to select your time to go to the balcony area, which is like the best view and a few years ago. When I went, it was just that you had to pay for admission to the balcony and then they expanded it to the whole park anyway it just kills the vibe and my kids were pissed because we had to like run their rushing from shopping tothe park and there used to be like a little café downstairs, but the café was closed for construction, which also killed the vibe and like fine maybe that reduces tourism but also super annoying for my hungry kids who are now literally crying because I made them run uphill and promised that there would be food in this café and turns out there's no café anymore I think it might be reopened now, but just double check that before you ruin your own day.

Since my youngest was upset, we had to stay with her. I didn't really explore the park at all because I've already been there but my husband to take my older daughter on a little hike that we enjoyed you used to be able to go to the three crosses, but can't do that either you can go on the hike, but they closed off the actual crosses used to be able to climb up there and sit on them and that's also no longer an option so a lot of the things that made the city really great have been either closed or limited because of the insane amount of tourism which is such a bummer and also not something that I really want to contribute to.

After the park, we headed back to the hotel. The kids relaxed took a break. I offered to take them out to dinner, but my youngest was just like emotionally exhausted. She's a challenging travel partner because she likes to relax most of the time but she also gets bored easily so she wants to do like only one activity a day and it has to be very specific and like worth it otherwise she's not interested. So we went to dinner without her which again like didn't feel great leaving her alone, but I felt like the area we were in was safe. The doors were safe and extra locks and things like that so we ended up going out to dinner without her at parking pizza which is one of my favorite restaurants in Barcelona. I know it's a little silly to get pizza in Spain, but they just really do have great pizza and part of our trip was trying all of the best tiramisu around Europe my sister-in-law makes the best tiramisu so we kind of wanted to compare it to what she was making at home and parking pizza literally came the closest to the quality she was making at home.

We took some time to walk around after dinner again we went to dinner a little bit later Europeans if you know anything about Spain, eat much later so we eat dinner at like 9 o'clock and left at like 10 but by then all of the shops were closed, so my daughter wanted to get a few more things from some of the more name brand shops and they were all closed by the time we were done, which is a bummer but whatever we have shopping in Phoenix. The best part about walking around at night or in the evening is seeing all of the architecture lit up, so we enjoyed that a little bit before walking back to our apartment. And then we left the next morning back to the states so it was a quick few days in Barcelona, which is fine since I've been there so many times before, but always makes me miss it even more.