Barcelona, Spain

This summer I, along with my good friend (and colleague) Angelica, are taking 23 students to Costa Rica.   Angelica and I have taught together for 8 years and are the group leaders for the trip. We have completely organized everything.  We started this process at the end of the school year last year, presented to the board, got board approval, and have been on our way since then.  It has been a lot of work, but it will be worth it for the students and it will be a blast! 

We are traveling with the company EF (Education First) and they actually send all of their first time group leaders to a training tour if they would like to go.  We got to choose to go to a training tour in Paris, Rome, Madrid or Barcelona.  We picked Barcelona and are so glad that we did! We went to Spain from March 26-30. It was such an amazing trip.  The entire trip was 5 days (2 travel days and 3 actual days in Spain).  In that amount of time, we slept a total of 12 hours so it was exhausting.  However, it was worth it.  We learned so much about our upcoming tour to Costa Rica and are so much more confident about taking these students and completely ready now.  We also got to see the entire city of Barcelona, learn about so many cultural and historical things and use our Spanish which was awesome!  There were 47 people in our group and only about 10 people max knew any Spanish, so it was fun to be able to translate and speak for them while we were there.  It was great practice for us Spanish teachers! I am so grateful that Angelica got to go with me as well, so I wasn't by myself.  We met some incredible people and had a blast hanging out with them, but it was nice to always have someone that I knew with me.  This was also my first time to Europe and my first time to a Spanish speaking country so it was very exciting!  

As you all know, I never leave the boys so that was really hard for me.  I had a couple meltdowns in the beginning, but as soon as I was safely there and got to talk to them and see them on FaceTime every day, it helped me.  It was definitely a long 5 days away from them, but they were fine with their Daddy and Papa McQuality and it was a good test run for Costa Rica, where I will be gone for 9 days. 

I have a LOT of pictures to show you from Spain.  Matt told me that I was posting way too many, so these are not even close to all of the ones I took and it is still a ton.  Enjoy!

Day 1 was just spent traveling for us because there is a 6-hour time difference.  Actually it was only a 5-hour time difference for us the first 3 days until they did their spring forward and we lost another hour our last night there!

Day 2 started at 6 am when we arrived to the airport and didn't end until midnight that night when we got back to the hotel.  We didn't really sleep at all on the plane so we were up for 39 straight hours that day.  It was also the day of the "Walking Tour" in Barcelona.  We saw so much stuff that day, but we were exhausted by the end of it and just ready to go to bed. 

We started in down town Barcelona….all of the buildings were beautiful.  This is a hotel.

 A military building

 Standing in the center of the city, looking down one of the streets.

A HUGE market where they sold everything you can think of.

This is candy they were selling at the market that looked like all different foods.  

 So many peppers

 We were the first group to arrive to the airport and there was another group that came in at 11, so we had some free time that first day.  Here we are eating breakfast with some of our new friends that we met, also on the tour.  Three of these people are actually from the Cleveland area and were on our flights from the beginning so we met them right away.

Walking down one of the narrow streets in the city.

This was an actual person, painted in all gold and dressed up!

A big Christopher Columbus statue with an elevator to ride to the top.

Walking the streets by the pier

Port of Barcelona building

The pier

I took this picture of a "pirate ship" for Landon :)

Angelica and I

So pretty

We loved all the palm trees

The Wax Museum

A couple pics showing the tall buildings and narrow streets

El Ayuntamiento (Town Hall)

Cathedral of Barcelona

A huge thermometer on the side of a building

El Corte Ingles….these were all over, they are like our Macy's

We got to see a lot of Gaudi's architecture and designs….this is La Sagrada Familia.  It was stared in 1880 and they are hoping to have it done in 12 years.  There is still a lot of work to be done so I'm not sure they will make their goal, but it is beautiful.

Angelica and I with La Sagrada Familia church in the background

The back of La Sagrada Familia

My pictures definitely do not do justice for how amazing this place was.  It takes your breath away when you walk inside.  This is a picture of the stairs and they are in all four corners of the church.

Another pic of the stairs and the stained glass that is everywhere.

The ceiling and the whole building has such intricate detail

There was floor to ceiling stained glass

A close-up of the ceiling

Looking at the altar from the back of the sanctuary.

A closer view of the altar

In Spain, they take a break in the middle of the day from 1-3 pm.  Kids are out of school and business shut down for lunch and a siesta.  This is when they have their biggest meal of the day.  Therefore, they don't eat dinner until 9 or 10 at night.  That was hard to get used to.  Our group would have reservations at a restaurant at 8:30 pm and they would have to open early and special for us.  This is Angelica and I at dinner our first night and we were soooo tired!

Our food was delicious while we were there…this was our salad/appetizer the first night.  The circle thing in the middle is fried goat cheese and it was amazing!

Here was our main course (beef and vegetables) and again it was delicious.

Day 3…we had a bus tour!  We were very relieved to not have to walk as much!  The first place we went and one of my favorite places was Park Guell.  This was designed by Gaudi as well and it was spectacular!  He built this house below and lived in it while he worked on La Sagrada Familia until he died.

When you are at the top of Park Guell, you can see the city.  The view was gorgeous!

Colored and broken tile lined the entire structure.

Me and Angelica

These are three people we hung out with a lot….Stacey (teaches in Akron, Ohio), Me, Rob (Assistant Principal at Chagrin, east side of Cleveland), Angelica and Chuck (teaches in Kentucky).

Angelica and I by the lizard at Park Guell.

The next few pictures are taken from a bus window so they have a funny color!

This is now a mall, but used to be where they had bull fights.

Cable cars just leaving….they got really high!

The Olympic Stadium from the '92 Olympics.

Where the Olympic torch burned.

Another view of the port and the city of Barcelona….this time from the other side of the city.

Looking down at Barcelona.

At lunch that day

We had Paella for lunch…a traditional Spanish rice dish with different meats….this was with seafood.  I had mine with chicken and it was very good.

After lunch we headed to Montserrat.  It is a mountain where there is a monastery.  It had really pretty views when we made it up there, but the bus ride up the mountain was a little scary and made me car sick.
Headed up the mountain.

Where the monks live.

The entrance to the monastery.

The sanctuary…it was huge and very pretty.

Some pretty nice views...

This was terrifying but they are amazing pictures.  There was cement underneath us to allow us to climb the structure, but nothing underneath you once you climbed up.

Angelica and I

A couple pics all by myself…

We went back to the pier for dinner that night….here it is all lit up.

Our group after dinner

Day 4 was our classroom training tour in the morning, free time all afternoon and a farewell dinner that night.  Angelica and I did some shopping during free time, used our Spanish a lot and talked to locals and asked for a lot of directions.  We also took 4 different subways and eventually made it to the beach.  It was sooo windy when we got there that it was like a hurricane and sand storm all in one.  Here is a pic of the actual beach and Mediterranean Sea, but we did not stay long at all.

Farewell dinner pic

This was our appetizer that night….a cold potato and tuna dish…so tasty!

Our main meal...

Dessert….to die for!  This chocolate was so rich and melted in your mouth!

Angelica and I with our tour director, Jesus!  He was fantastic!!!

This is our entire group after our farewell dinner….all 47 of us!  Such amazing people!  I am so blessed that I got to take this trip and have this wonderful experience.  I will never forget it.

A big thank you to Matt and Rod for everything they did when I was gone….taking great care of the boys, cleaning the house and doing projects that I have wanted done at the house since we moved in, as well as a few surprise projects that I love!!!  THANK YOU!! :)