Family time

The 20th October brought a weeks visit from my family, where they literally brought a piece of home with them, crumpets, tea cakes and bagels ( oh and a whole 160box of pg tips!!) It was very nice to see them, and being such a home girl meant that when they arrived I really started to feel settled and comfortable. Having people to visit allows you to become a tourist again and experience the city through another pair of eyes. You find that when you live here, it become difficult to see the tourist attractions of the city without being annoyed that there are too many tourists in your way. When your family, or friends come to visit..it doesn't matter  so much anymore, because they are tourists themselves. On the first afternoon, we walked them down to the gothic quater to see all the little shops and ended with a dinner at 'cheese me', a very well known restaurant in Barcelona, that many guide books will recommend you to eat at, a favourite of ours..already! 

Over the weekend, I decided to take my family to a Spanish style bakery/tea room for breakfast and see what their opinion was of the different cultures. Caelum, is a very popular bakery in the gothic quater, that is very well known for it's amazing table of cakes in the window that draws you inside. The six of us sat down to a tapas of breads, cakes and melted chocolate bars for hot chocolates!! Not quite my sisters idea of a proper breakfast, but everyone enjoyed the atmosphere and it was somewhere really quite beautiful to visit..even if it wasn't quite perhaps visited at the right time of day! 








The afternoon led to the design hub museum in the north of Barcelona that holds the design, fashion and textiles exhibitions and museums, with my sister studying textiles and myself and Emily design, it really worked as a day out, even if the rest of the girls and daddy got a little bit bored by the end! 

The rest of the weekend allowed us all to explore Plaza Espanya an Montjuic, that is situated at the top of the hill from Placa Espanya, through the ('Venice' towers from St Marks Square) That daddy asked everyone about, and I was the only one that knew what they were a copy of - proud! At the top of the hill, the art museum is situated, where we go so distracted watching pick pockets get chased and caught by the police, we didn't make it into the museum!! 

Montjuic is the place that holds the olympic stadium and torch, and the largest architecture museum - Poble Espanya. The village was built as an outdoor architectural museum and was the most regularly visite museum throughout the Olympic games, which is therefore why it was kept open after the Olympics left the city. Full of art and craft shops, we watched glass being blown and visited several jewellery shows - experiencing first hand making. 

Despite being such a quiet village, we still managed to have a lot of fun - making a tower out of people and going swimming!! 

That evening we walked back down the hill toward the mies van de Rohe pavilion and then onto the magic fountain show for 7, where we ended up watching all three shows due to bumping into family friends and not being able to get away. I have now established that the first show is classical music, the second, Disney ( sadly in Spanish yet still amazing) and the third, current 'pop' music! Up to the top of the bull ring for dinner finished of a beautiful day perfectly. BUT..I cannot forget the cat and mouse - illegal bag sellers running around the streets in circles playing hide and seek with the police. It sent us all to bed smiling :)

The last day before my family had to go home..we took a trip up to parc guell, otherwise known as the gaudi park! When we finally arrived after a massive trek from the metro up the hill to the top, we realised that the views really did make up for how long we had to walk. Despite the rain, the only comparison for what we could see would be a trip on the London eye on the clearest day possible.

Looking out into the sea, past all of the city made you realise exactly where you were and just how beautiful the city was, but the reality of my family leaving really hit me hard. Having to say goodbye to four amazing people that you have spent everyday with for the last four months was probably one of the hardest things I have had to do for a long time..and the only thing keeping me in Barcelona at that point was the technology of today-Skype! And one of the best friends I could possibly ask for - Emily!