Oh my Gaudi, we're in Barcelona!

Highlights from our first three days in Barcelona:

• Fantastically rich drinking chocolate at the Museu De La Xocolata. So thick it's served with a spoon. This isn't your Carnation-brand hot chocolate!
  

• Getting goosebumps at La Sagrada Família, which our generation, the next generation, and the generation after that will never see completed. It is estimated that it will take 500 years total to complete the project. Which makes me think they are little premature in laying some of the floor tile already.

• The terrace at our hotel. This city is filled with beautiful terraces. We are constantly using ours, but we seem to be the only ones. Sure, people hang their laundry out there, but do they ever hang out there for leisure time? *Note we did see one tourist on his terrace today in his bath towel filing his nails - but household chores and personal grooming aside...

• Rock and Roll at the Sidecar Bar. Shane, being his usually observant self, figured out that one of the buildings next to our hotel is a jam space. A few times as we happened pass he'd stop someone coming out and get the names of some bars where we might be able to catch some music. Last night we went to one such bar, the Sidecar, and caught two bands. The second of which were called the Born Losers, a local surf/garage band. Before they took the stage the lights dimmed and the DJ cranked the theme song from Star Wars while the band entered. Each of them wearing a crisp black turtleneck, jean jacket, and black skinny jeans. These boys sounded as slick as they looked!

• We stumbled into a square today that had an orchestra playing on the steps of a cathedral. Large groups of people were dancing to the music in circles. It was beautiful in a way this picture does not quite capture.

• Not sure if this a highlight or a lowlight (only because I am fascinated and repulsed at the same time,) but everyone over here is wearing these weird dropped crotch hammer pants. Today, I even saw a 5-year old wearing them. I once saw Heidi Klum kick a contestant off Project Runway for making pants like these. Here is the shorts version of the dropped crotch pants.