Bella, Gabe and Josiah

Travel days are never fun. They are long and dramatic and exhausting. But they are a necessity if you want to go on cool trips… We got up at 4:30 and headed to the airport. Josy was quite convinced that our taxi was lost, but the taxi driver got us to the airport successfully. The airport was pretty empty, which was nice. It was a 2 hour flight to Frankfurt and then 10 hours to Seattle. The boys actually did great. Josy slept for six hours and Gabe watched movies the whole time. We got to Seattle at 2 in the afternoon. Then we were in the absolute longest customs line I’ve ever been in on my life and we finally got to the hotel (which was right next to the airport!) at 4:30… We checked in immediately headed to dinner. Josy was doing better than the rest of us, but that’s not saying much. Gabe ate most of his dinner and just laid down and fell asleep. Josy laid down too, but he was just pretending (or wishing?) that he was asleep. We paid the bill and headed back to the hotel. We put th

The last day of a trip is always hard because you want to do so of the things you still want to do, while also starting to think about things like “How are we getting to the airport???” It also happened to be my birthday. All that to say, it made for a bizarre day, as far as just having a lot of things going on at once in our heads… We started out with a lovely birthday breakfast. Then we walked over to the Maritime Museum, with a quick stop at Christopher Columbus along the way. The Maritime Museum was amazing! I mean, museums with little people who can’t read are always hard, particularly when they’re with grown ups who must read everything, so that was interesting, but we worked through it. But the museum was fascinating and there was an entire Spanish galley inside. Also, we learned about how horrible life was on a Spanish gallery and now Josy refers to it as “the museum with the smelly ship.” Then we got a very disappointing lunch, before walking down Las Ramblas again, hitting al

At the beginning of the trip, we stayed over by the Sagrada Familia. It was nice to be in town like that. This time, I figured we should stay out by the beach. I did not recognize that it was a very residential part of the beach. Opps. Don’t get me wrong, the flat was lovely and quiet, but it was a bit further away from town, and that made things complicated. Also, we were all worn out and were going much slower… We started out the day with breakfast and then walking along La Rambla. We did a little bit of shopping and wandered the Mercat de la Boqueria. Josy was not handling life well, so we got lunch and then had a siesta. After siesta, we went out to Barcelonta and got an earlier dinner. Then we walked out to the beach. I can tell that we’re nearing the end of the trip, as I took significantly less photos… But I did take a couple of the boy’s first time in the Mediterranean.  Since we weren’t prepared for swimming, I told Gabe he could go in up to his ankles. So he went in that far,

Today we took the train from Seville back to Barcelona. It was a pretty uneventful trip, which was nice. I spent the entire time trying to figure out Gabe’s new Rubik’s cube which, with much help from google, I finally figured out!! We did have some drama. On the street car on our way to dinner, Pat smashed Josy’s invisible baby T-Rex named Dinosaur. There were many, many tears over that one. Almost as many as the day before when the waiter told Josy they were out of olives, so he put his head down on the table and sobbed.

For our last full day in Seville, we needed a slow day. We started by sleeping in. Josy managed to get a full 12 hours in, which definitely made him feel better about life. I got up and went for a run. Then we went out to breakfast at the same place that we’ve gone for most of our days here. Then we decided to try again to see the cathedral and to climb the Giralda. But first, coffee. Climbing the Giralda was one thing that I didn’t do when I was here last time (budget was too tight…), so I really wanted to do it. But between Corpus Christi and Sunday, all of our previous attempts had not worked. We finally got in the cathedral and got to see Christopher Columbus’ bones. Gabe was actually bummed that we weren’t seeing his actual bones… The Giralda was a set of 35 ramps up to the top of the bell tower. The boys did a great job, with only minimal whining. We actually got there at 1:57, which means that we were there when the bells went off. Luckily it was 2pm and not 12… I decided to tra

We took the train to Codoba for the day. In the Middle Ages, at the height of the Muslim empire, Spain was ruled by the Moors. I don’t remember all of the details (my Spanish history class was a long time ago…), but it was a very wealthy empire and Spain was the western capital. They built a huge palace in Grenada (the Alhambra), a palace in Seville (the Alcazar) and a giant mosque in Cordoba (the Misquita). It was expanded twice more and you can see the differences in the construction of you’re paying attention (or if you have a guide…). When King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel took over Spain and kicked out the Moors, they recaptured all of these sites. They built a huge cathedral inside of the Misquita, yet the Misquita is so big that you can’t hardly see the cathedral until you start looking for it. So naturally, we had to visit. While Pat and I bought tickets, the boys played in the courtyard. Then the bells went off in the clocktower, which Josy loved. He found the bells fascinating,