Day 15: Barcelona

Summary: we had a later morning after our late night on the town with Mary and Chuck last night. Lara had to find us a hotel in the city for the next two nights (we didn't really plan ahead much), so she was up around 8:30 to find something online. After some searching, Kayak.com brought us the pleasure of a clean and cute €58/night 3-star hotel, located conveniently by one of Barcelona's main attractions--La Sagrada Familia. So here is where we will stay for the next couple nights... And we've spread out! Washing laundry, hanging things up, charging everything. It's quaint.
We had a late breakfast, packed, and then took advantage of the free and fast computer use at the posh hotel to look into options for when we arrive in Porto, Portugal in a couple days.

Awesome moment: Swimming in the Mediterranean. And floating. Unbelievable the floating. Such saline! Gothic cathedrals in the Barrio Gótico was pretty cool too. There were white geese in the courtyard too. Pretty.

Blooper: During the shortest travel/leg of our trip yet--a 10-minute, €8.40 taxi ride north in Barcelona--what was left in Susan's can of aerosol hairspray self-emptied all over her luggage, including her one remaining pair of clean pants. Hence the laundry that is strung up and spread out all over our room, now freshly cleaned.
Another blunder: coming back from the beach via metros, we missed by 15 minutes a tour that we had scheduled through the old Gothic quarters of Barcelona. So instead, we had tapas and were wandering gypsies in the Gothic during our evening, enjoying the sights and fountains and people dancing and music drifting through the warm streets.

Cheapest pleasure: Again, swimming in the Mediterranean. Cost €1 to ride the Metro down from our hotel and walk to the beaches.

I'll have to upload all the photos later because this hotels computer is prehistoric. As in, cerca 1999. Windows 95 status. But wifi is working strong so I can post from my phone!