Spain: Jennifer vs. Itty Bitty

Our hotel sat pretty close to the famous La Seu cathedral in Barcelona. This cathedral experience was like most of my European cathedral experiences... shaming. Except, this time, I refused to spend more money on scarves to cover my "scandalous" attire.

Instead, I munched on two Nutella croissants and surveyed the exterior while Ben marveled at the interior. Ben took plenty of pictures and that worked fine for me. Next time, I'll pack something a little more appropriate.

What was I thinking showing my knees and shoulders? Cover yourself!

Inside the La Seu.

Interestingly enough, I saw a picture online of Jennifer Aniston and her boyfriend on a tour of the Vatican several weeks ago. I immediately wagged my finger at Jennifer's outfit. Her short dress definitely raised a few holy brows, right? Amazingly, or by divine intervention, no. She passed inspection and got inside the most holy city on Earth wearing the dress below.  

Somebody got off a little easy...

Spain: Similarities

We loved Barcelona so much because it reminded us of New York, but much cleaner with more Nutella and better beaches. People and energy burst from the city. Curvy side streets wound around old buildings and unique, little shops. We walked or took public transportation everywhere. Rows of restaurants served delicious food into the wee hours of the night. Late nights out happened every night, not just on weekends. And, the diversity of people and languages almost matched the Big Apple's.

Barcelona really fit our style.

Tourists and locals loved La Rambla Street.

I loved the less populated side streets with tiny shops.

Dinner at 10pm seemed the norm.

We joined revelers every night in the streets until the late night/early morning hours
(depending on your point of view).

Spain: Sleepy Senorita

I once mentioned that vacation makes me super relaxed and sleepy. Even an energetic city like Barcelona was no exception. My extremely chilled state did not always make for the best vacation partner. Poor Ben. He did his best with me.

I slept anywhere - on buses, on trains, in cars, in chairs... and, in this case, on a bench in a park outside the Sagrada Familia church. I promised Ben that we would tour the church and take pictures and do one hundred more touristy things before the afternoon ended if I got just 15 (which, of course, turned into 30) minutes of nap time.

Thankfully, he said yes.

The Sagrada Familia Cathedral

 Conked out from livin' la vida loca.

Spain: Picture Dilemma

The hardest part about traveling as a couple was taking pictures. Ben and I took very few pictures together on our trip. It annoyed me to constantly stop random people in the street and ask them to take our picture. Annoyed me, annoyed them.

If I asked someone to take our photo, then I also had to explain how the camera worked.

"You push here. No, HERE.  Right, then focus with this little button. Yup, goes back and forth.  Uh-uh.  Then, again, just push this... and, there you go, got it."

Ben and I often positioned ourselves in our best Miss America poses and held them for an awkwardly long time before our photographer shrugged his or her shoulders and pointed to the camera like "What's up with thing? It's not working. What do I do again?"

We'd get our camera back to see the "amazing" photo and discover that our heads had been chopped off or covered by a dark shadow or cut out of the frame. Oh vey. The photoshopping required to fix those problems.

Probably, my biggest fear, though, was not a bad photo. Rather, I feared someone would steal our camera. I always held my breath as I posed, just waiting for our "photographer" to turn and run with our camera. Then, like Clark and Ellen Griswold on National Lampoon's European Vacation, our photos would be splashed across billboards all over Europe, or even worse... the Internet.

So, without further ado... one of our few couples shots with Barcelona in the background.