“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes
We should never get so busy trying to make a living that we forget to make a life. When I draw my last breath on this earth, I want to leave no stone unturned.
La Sagrada Familia
Every city has something that makes it unique. It might be a historical event, magnificent building or famous person. In Barcelona, the famous person would be Antoni Gaudi and the magnificent building would be La Sagrada Familia Cathedral. Both Gaudi and La Sagrada Familia where highlights on our tour today.
Tour Guide
We decided to try something new this trip. We hired an experienced tour guide to guide us through the labyrinth city streets of Barcelona and provide an informational commentary during our tour. Our guide Monica is a Catalan native and lifelong inhabitant of Barcelona, so was very knowledgeable on local history and architecture. She met us at 10:00am at our hotel lobby, we all walk outside, she hailed us a taxi and we were off!
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Beautiful Barcelona
What I thought I would do with this trip is do a nightly blog of the day’s activities. We’ll see how well I’ll do with this plan. I have to take the time to write a blog post at the end of the day (when I’m tired), but here goes…
Flight to Spain
Flew out of JFK airport to Barcelona. I’m not a big fan of JFK airport because I can’t remember having a good flight whenever I fly through it. That tradition continued on this trip. First off, my wife misplaced her new $600 reading glasses, mainly because she refuses to wear them all the time. Next, we board the plane (Boeing 777) and settle into our seats. After about 30 minutes, they announce that our flight will be delayed an hour due to an engine oil sensor. 30 minutes later, they made us deplane to wait in the terminal. After ANOTHER hour, they announced they need to change planes. They identify another plane to replace the original one, but it needed to be prepped for the flight. Eventually, we ended up with 4 hour delay getting out of JFK.
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Sometimes the best destinations are in your own backyard. When my (now) wife and I started dating, the FIRST trip we took together was to the mountains of North Carolina. Both of us are natives of the state, but DJ lived on the coast. In fact, she had never been to the mountains before this trip. So for our first excursion as a couple we didn’t even have to cross the state line. It is our good fortune the wonderful city of Asheville, nestled in the Great Smokey Mountains, lies within the borders of our home state.
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Brienz, Switzerland
After our unexpectedly great day traveling to Lucerne, we decided to join a day bus tour of the Swiss Alps. While the weather has been unpredictable for our trip so…
When we travel, we prefer never to have a full itinerary. It adds a sense of adventure and randomness. We have found that some of our best days traveling…
