Nina and Trixie Arrive in Barcelona

After spending a horrible gut wrenching day and evening in bed, we woke up with similar symptoms and shared our crazy dreams from last night. In one of my dreams, a "little person" Viking man with a long red-haired braid, stopped in at my parents' place and asked to look around and the next thing my mom knew he and his family were moving in. Another dream of mine was Nina and I eating chicken or chicken wings and I kept getting mad at her for wasting good meat. She was taking a measly bite and would put the rest on a plate. I also dreamt that Nina and I walked into my sister Shelley's apartment (her door was wide open) and I was ecstatic because she had air conditioning and it felt so wonderful. Later on I thought I had a fever and Nina said it would explain that dream.

We packed up stuff and left in the Hostal Dulcinea's office while we went for breakfast. We ate breakfast at a place called Vips, which Nina calls a Chapters/restaurant/convenience store. It was our first real meal in over 24 hours. The toast and eggs tasted good. The tea felt like liquid gold, not that I have ever tasted liquid gold, but it was divine.

After breakfast we crossed the street and visited the Museo del Prado. Much to Nina's dismay (not mine, been there - done that and she already saw Renoir in Ottawa) we couldn't get to tickets for the Renoir exhibit because the next showing was at 12:30, which is when we head to the airport. I did see Velazquez's "Las Meninas" and it so much bigger than I had pictured from Art History class. We also saw works by Goya and Rubens. I felt pretty bad during the visit so my heart wasn't fully in like it usually is and although I did admire the craft and beautiful colours used in the various paintings.

We flew with SpainAir from Madrid to Barcelona and we each paid 5.05 Euros for a shuttle bus from the airport to the city centre. The city centre was packed with people waiting for the appearance of the parade and the arrival of the 3 Kings. Tomorrow is a national holiday in Spain for their Christmas celebration. I would have liked to have seen the parade but not with all our stuff.

 We took two metros and walked to our hotel and remembered we needed to call Cristian, Casa Dover's hotel manager. I called him and he said he was picking up his bike and would be here in 15 minutes. I told him we would wait in Cafe Adonis, a bar below our hotel. It's very charming and has a great vibe. One of the two male waiters came over and took our order for tea. Nina started saying, "please let Cristian be old and ugly.  Please let him be an old, ugly man who rides a motorcycle". In walks a very good looking guy (reminded me of Brian Joubert) wearing a leather jacket and carrying a helmet. I looked at Nina and said, "Cristian". She said, "noooooo". Sure enough the guy came over and introduced himself as Cristian. Ha ha Nina! He seems friendly. Casa Dover has 7 rooms and two common areas (living room and kitchen) and is the nicest place we have stayed at in the last 2 1/2 weeks. Cristian said the parade was going on but he never said where it was happening in relation to our hotel.

I did visit the bakery across the street and bought 4 of the smallest pain au chocolates we have ever seen. 4 of them didn't even equal one regular size pain au chocolate. I also bought 2 tiny baguette sandwiches and one little bun sandwich. I also bought a sugared donut filled with a custard. Nina says it was a really good donut.

We will explore the city tomorrow.