It is time to say goodbye to our lovely house of this past week on Pasatge Torres. We have enjoyed visiting the local shops, buying our fresh bread each morning, making meals, playing cards, seeing the other owners on our street bring their dogs out on walks, arrive home from work via scooter and moped, and we still don’t understand how they park and then leave with their cars on this very narrow street.
It has been a good place to start from each morning as we hopped the metro, checked out the sites, ate and drank like the locals, and came home tired every night. We got to see the colorful front doors of our neighbors and sometimes caught them as they were headed in or out for the day. At th front of the street was the fish market and once we see their street side door open as one of their small van deliveries were being made with what looked like the catch of the day.
From our rooftop terrace we could see the daily wash hung out to dry on the surrounding balconies. The cold kept us away from using this more often. Note to self, next time visit in spring and summer.
still cant open his open eyes – check out this chimney with an arch that highlights Sagrada Familia in the distance
We kept a daily routine of dressing warmly and then head onto metro to our first activity in the morning, find a late afternoon lunch place, head to another event (or come back for a siesta), then find a dinner place and then home for tea and other drinks while we played cards and talked into the evening.
We got to experience the different neighborhoods during our walking excursions, from the crowded beaches and Las Ramblas, to the artistic and windy streets of the old City Gothic Quarter, to the planned and octagonal Exiample district, to the slower pace of vila de Gracia and the citadel where families with kids were on bikes and scooters. It has been good to get a beginning feel of the rhythm of this community as it is now after several centuries of growth and change.
As we finish up our last card game, we break open our nice bottle of cava and give a toast to this city and three weeks of traveling together.
Our final day of traveling start at 3 a.m. Siri decides it is better to just stay up, while Josiah talk for a while, but we both get a quick nap in before the taxi arrives. All goes smoothly through the whole trip.
We say our hurried goodbyes to Josiah in Amsterdam as we jump into the long passport lines. He is back to school in Copenhagen and his very nice host family, who we met just two weeks ago. We get some sleep and a few movies in on the trip home. Our friend Cathy picks us up with our ‘glad to see us’ dog Yoda. We drop Bob off in Renton and again with a flurry, we head home.
We now have a few hours to rest and breathe and remember these past three weeks. A good adventure with many stories to share.
Siri and David Adventures 