Parc de la Ciutadella

Our last day in Barcelona we went to the Parc de la Ciutadella. The entrance to the park is near Barcelona's version of the Arc de Triomf. The park has a big fountain designed by Gaudí, a cool playground, and a huge statue of a wooly mammoth. We played for a while and then had to head out to go home. It was a whirlwind trip, but it was fun.

Palau Nacional

After we finished up at the Sagrada Familia, we took a train to the Gracia neighborhood and found a place to eat. We ate at Can Punyetes. The food was good, but the floor was kind of hard. I lost my balance when I was sitting in my chair and did a face-plant on the floor. Spanish food is a lot about tapas, but tostadas seem popular too. Tostadas are toast with stuff on it like cheese or tomatoes.

Before we headed home, we checked out the huge fountains at Palau Nacional near the Espanya metro station. The fountains were the coolest I've seen in my many years of travel (that includes Buckingham Fountain in Chicago, the fountains on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, andthe fountain in the shopping center near our old house in North Carolina).

There must have been at least a hundred stairs from the bottom of the fountains to the top. We walked them all. At the top is the Palau Nacional, which apparently has a bunch of art inside. We skipped the art. The fountains were enough.

La Sagrada Familia

Our second day in Barcelona, we went to La Sagrada Familia. It's a hug Catholic church that they're building there. In fact, they call it a temple. They started building it in 1882 and they expect to finish it in 2026. It's a pretty great and spacious building. The architecture is by Gaudí, a famous Spanish architect whose name is rather appropriate: his stuff is pretty gaudy.

Anyway, the building is actually really cool. It's hard to describe so I just posted a lot of pictures Daddy took.

The coolest thing there was that we got to take an elevator up one of the spires. The elevator takes you up and then you walk all the way down the narrow, spiral staircase. While we were walking down the clock struck 2 o'clock. Since we were right in the tower, it was really loud. It spooked me a bit, but I didn't cry... Okay, I cried for a second... Okay, it was more like 5 minutes.

Rambla On

Our first day in Barcelona, we landed around noon, checked in at the hotel, and headed straight for the city. We stayed in a hotel near the airport. To get into the city we took a city bus to the Espanya metro station (metro is what they call the subway) and then took the metro further into the city. (If you're wondering why it's not spelled España, it's because most of the place names in Barcelona are Catalán, not Spanish. Even the signs are all in Catalán.)

From Espanya, we went to Plaça Catalunya where La Rambla starts. La Rambla is a street that goes from Plaça Catalunya to the sea. It's lined with shops, markets, and street performers. Some shops sold flowers. Others sold pets. A few had some cool art.

Halfway down La Rambla is the Mercat de la Boquería, a big open market of fruit, fish, meat, cheese, and sweets stands. We got some fruit, some cheese, and some chocolate. It was the best mozzarella cheese I've ever had.

Off the side streets of La Rambla there are some really cool narrow streets with more little shops. It's an area called Barri Gòtic. We just wound through the streets for a while and checked out some clothing stores, book stores, and toy stores.

At the end of La Rambla there's a big statue of Christopher Columbus, or Cristobol Colón as they would say. It's the tall statue at in the picture to the right. Columbus has his back to us because he's looking out to sea.

By the way, if you're wondering where our stroller is in all these pictures, it's back in London. We forgot to take it with us. That basically meant Mama carried McKenzie all around Barcelona for three days. Her muscles are like twice as big now. You think anyone wants a roundhouse kick to the face from her now? Forget about it.

Viva España

We went to Barcelona last week. Daddy took a few days off work and we took a little trip. We got some cheap flights from EasyJet. It was like £30 per person round trip. EasyJet is like the Southwest Airlines of Europe.

We saw some cool stuff in Barcelona. I'll show you some pictures in upcoming posts. For now, I'll just tell you about our flight to Spain. At first, it was a real bummer. After we boarded, the pilot told us we'd have to sit for a couple of hours even before they could take off. There were air traffic control problems over France. After sitting for an hour or so, I had to go to the bathroom. When Mama took me to the bathroom, one of the stewardesses saw me and asked if I wanted to see the flight deck (I think she was flirting with me). She checked with the pilots and they said "Sure! Come on in."

It was sweet. They lit up the control panel for me. They showed me where the button is for the windshield wipers. They showed me where the steering wheel is... actually it's not a wheel; it's a lever. I even got to sit in the co-pilot's seat.

When we went back to our seats, we told Daddy all about it. He was so jealous. Maybe next time he'll take me to the bathroom...

Natural History Museum

We went to the Natural History Museum yesterday. It's another free museum in South Kensington, right next to the Science Museum (which we went to last year).

The Natural History Museum is in a really cool building. It's pretty cool on the inside, too. We saw a bunch of dinosaurs and then we went to the Investigate Room. That's a room where kids get to touch and play with stuff. We looked at bugs and rocks under a magnifying glass.

After the museum, we took the tube over to Leicester Square and ate in a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown near there. I ate some noodles with my chopsticks. McKenzie ate some of Daddy's fried squid with chili and garlic. She thought it was yummy.

Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard

Well, there's no Julio there, but I go to school. This is a picture of me in front of the school. It's a nursery school, which I guess is like a pre-school in the States. Pretty much every kid who's three goes to nursery school. A lot go to public schools that are free. All the free ones were full, so Mama and Daddy pay a little for me to go to a private school. But even the private schools are subsidized. The government says that they have to provide two-and-a-half hours of school a day for free. My school lasts three hours, so we really only pay for a half-hour. It's an expensive half-hour, though, as half-hours go.

Yesterday was my first day. Mama stayed with me yesterday, but today I stayed all by myself. We play with blocks and cars and toys. We paint and use Play-doh and do other fun activities. I'll learn to write my letters and my numbers and do simple logic. Maybe I'll learn some numchuck skills and bow hunting skills, too. That, and make new friends. There are about 10 kids in my class. We're pretty much friends by now. They've got my back and everything.

I'm an Artist

I've been doing some drawing lately. Daddy says I'm more of an impressionist than a realist. I just like to draw. Here are some of my latest.

Self Portrait	The Sun
Riley's House (He's my friend in Atlanta)	Benjamin's House (He's my friend in Atlanta, too)

East-and West-man

We went to Greenwich on Friday. Greenwich is the home of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and the Prime Meridian, or 0° longitude, which divides the Western and Eastern Hemispheres. Greenwich is also where Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were born.

To get to Greenwich, we took the Tube to the London Bridge station, and then the National Rail going East, two stops to Greenwich. When we got off the train, we walked for a few minutes to Greenwich Park, the home of the Royal Observatory. The Prime Meridian runs right through the Royal Observatory, and that's where Greenwich Mean Time was kept. The Observatory as at the top of a hill in the park. You can see it in the picture on the right.

There are some great views of Greenwich and of the Thames River from up there. There are also lots of clocks and telescopes in the Observatory. But the coolest thing there is the Prime Meridian line. You can stand in two hemispheres at the same time, which we did of course.

After we walked around two hemispheres for a while, we went to the Queen's House and the National Maritime Museum, at the bottom of the hill from the Observatory, near the Thames River. The Queen's House has a really cool spiral staircase. The National Maritime Museum has lots of cool ships and stuff. We bought a little replica of the Cutty Sark there.

Afterward, we went to a Columbian restaurant back in London. The food was okay, but McKenzie's dancing was awesome. Check out the video. It was dark in there, so it's hard to see, but you get the idea.

McKenzie Peed

Every night for the last couple of weeks, before we get in the bathtub, McKenzie has been asking to sit on the toilet. She doesn't do anything on there. She just sits for a while and then says "Done!" and asks to get off.

Well today she actually peed in the toilet. Mama and Daddy were excited. Mama said McKenzie was a big girl. Daddy said, "Does this mean we can stop buying diapers?"

I peed in the toilet too. I don't see what the big deal is...

Favorite Books

My Aunt Rach's blog has a cool feature. It has a list of her 10 favorite books. I liked the idea so much, I put together a list of my own 10 favorite books. I asked Mama and Daddy for their's too. Feel free to comment with your own list.

Here are mine:

1. I Am a Child of God: A Sing-Along Book of Favorite Primary Songs by Carolyn Croll
2. The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone
3. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
4. I'm a Truck by Dennis Shealy
5. Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina
6. Dr. Seuss's ABC by Dr. Seuss
7. Hippos Go Berzerk by Sandra Boynton
8. The Going to Bed Book by Sandra Boynton
9. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
10. Stone Soup by Ann McGovern

Here are Mama's favorites:

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
2. These is My Words by Nancy Turner
3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
4. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5. The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
6. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
7. The Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling
8. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
9. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
10. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

And here's Daddy's top 10:

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
3. A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
4. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
5. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
6. The Chosen by Chaim Potok
7. All the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
8. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
9. The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
10. Ten Philosophical Mistakes by Mortimer Adler

By the way Happy New Year. I didn't know what New Year's Day was all about, until Daddy explained that it's the Julian calendar's birthday. "Oh," I said. "Now I get it."