The Summer I went to Europe - Day 6

 Okay, I know, I know...it's been so long since I've done a Europe post that you forgot I even went there this past summer...well, I promised some people (Mom, I'm talking to you) that I would finish the trip blog posts, so here is the second to last day:

Early on Saturday morning, we hopped off the cruise ship and made our way to our hotel in Barcelona.  We were staying at the Hotel Colon, and if you are traveling to Barcelona, I highly recommend it.  It was clean, the employees were nice, and it was in a great central location.  After turning in our luggage, we quickly made our way to La Rambla, the central street in Barcelona with tons of street vendors.  It is extremely touristy, but also very cool.  Upon arriving at Placa de Catalunya, there were tons of protestors camped out:

We had no idea what they were protesting about...The only information we could get from the locals was that they were unhappy with the way the government was being ran?????

Patrick kept asking me if could read these signs, and when I couldn't he asked me how many years I took Spanish ...I'm so sorry Mrs. Lanigan!

Anyway, we decided to make our way down La Rambla and we quickly came to La Boqueria, Europe's oldest mid-city food market.  We spent lots of time here because it was just so cool!  I loved all of the people and all of the colors.  It would be so cool to have something like this in many towns in Nashville.

I love all of the cool colors in this pic! 

There was fresh seafood everywhere you turned!

Patrick loved all the cured meats.

I was too scared to try any of the crazy food, but I loved looking around!

All that food built up our appetites...for something VERY American...McDonald's!

I actually got in trouble with the employees for taking this picture...I'm such a rebel! 

I think the Easy Kiosk should come to America!  So cool!

Me, pretty happy to be eating a good ole' McDonald's meal!

About this time, we were finally able to get into our hotel room, so we decided to go rest and unpack a little bit.  While there, we found out that those peaceful protestors we had seen earlier in the day had been a little more violent the day before when the police tried to kick them out to clean the plaza...apparently, things got a little ugly!  Back to our hotel room...it had a pretty cool view and a pretty cool balcony, so we had to take a few pictures:

That evening, the FC Barcelona soccer team was playing Manchester United in the 2011 Champions League Final, so we decided to head down to the ocean, have some paella and watch the game.  Little did we know that soccer was SUCH a big deal to these people!  It was absolutely amazing!!!!!  Every bar or restaurant that had a TV in it was PACKED and people would be sitting on steps or outside the bar looking in the window just to see some of the game.  We took our time walking to dinner and made a few stops along the way.

We stopped at a famous church (no clue what the name of it was), and low and behold, there was a wedding taking place! 

I can't believe they still let us in to look around, but there were tons of people there!  BTW, don't you love her veil? 

Me with my favorite travel buddy!

Relaxing by the sea with some Sangria in my hand!

After dinner we were heading back to our hotel and found out that FC Barcelona won the Super Bowl of Soccer.  Let me just say that the entire city went into an uproar!  It was so exciting to see, but I have to say, being a tired girl who never really got over her jetlag, I was SOOOOO hoping the people would go to bed and let me do the same.  Little did I know that they would party ALL. NIGHT. LONG!  It was an amazing thing to see!

Stay tuned for the final day of our wonderful trip across the big pond!  Hopefully, I won't wait 5 months again this time!