A quiet day “at home”

For some reason I had a grueling, sleepless night. I was still awake at 4am.  We also realized there was a time change one hour back as daylight savings ended here, even gaining an hour did not help!  Today we had planned a day trip to Montserrat but we decided not to go after all. It seems like a good day for a little R&R and John is enjoying a book he is reading on his tablet with the Kindle app.  It depends on our timing but we might go to Montserrat on Wednesday instead, or it will need to wait for our next visit to Barcelona!  The older we get the more challenging things can be of course. Actually we see few travelers in places much older than we are.  We could not really afford to travel much when we were younger, only to Brazil to "get our babies" and then taking camping trips, which were lots of fun in our pop-up trailer.  It is true “youth” is wasted on the young!  Travel all you can before creaky knees and achy backs are daily companions!  BUT, we love to travel anyway!

Today we finished the Barri Gòtic walk, which was  very nice and we even saw inside the Deacons quarters, which were closed yesterday.  We planned to go to the market and get more water and some milk but we never did.  We will manage with what we have and perhaps pick some up tomorrow on our way back from Figueres. 

Our friends Stuart and Darlene arrived in Barcelona this evening and we met them at their hotel along La Ramblas and went out for a bite to eat at La Porta Ferrissa. It was tasty and a good price.  I think it was E$9, for 3 tapas and a glass of cava (sparking wine.)  We met Stuart and Darlene, from Boise, ID, on our trip to Europe for our 25th Anniversary in 2009, they were on the Rick Steves portion of our trip there (which was fantastic).  Stuart is writing a blog as well so if you are interested you can read his blog for a different perspective of the same trip!  Anyway the restaurant closed while we were eating so we migrated back out to la Ramblas and had a giant glass of sangria and visited for awhile.  We walked partway back to their hotel with them and then veered off in the direction of our flat.  They have two days and their calendar is full.  Tomorrow we visit our cousins in Figueres so we hope to wake refreshed in the morning!