Our initial plan had been to do the Sagrada Familia and Park Güell, but when we arrived and found out the tickets were sold out for the next two hours, we changed courses. Instead, we walked Las Ramblas (this time in 70 degree sunshine!), had a delicious lunch, went to the main market (I got Coconut Guava juice and Dad got a mini bag of fresh strawberries) and made it to the Gothic Quarter - something I hadn't gotten the change to see the last time I was here. We took pictures with the infamous Gothic bridge that I'm always seeing on Pinterest (ha!), and Dad explored the cathedral (I was wearing a dress and was thus not within dress code to enter). Dad enjoyed two Spanish guitar players right at the entrance of the cathedral, while I enjoyed a more hippie looking man playing this very strange instrument - it sort of looked like a very big (two feet in diameter?) metal mixing bowl... only it had little circles indented all over it and it was turned upside down. I guess it could be considered a sort of metallic drum meets meditation bowl (but, like I said, turned upside down), and he played it with is fingers with great finesse. Amazing.
By the time we found our way out of the Gothic Quarter, it was dinner time. We stopped for wine and tapas, all the while having an intense discussion about the intense complexity intrinsic in learning languages - even (for some, especially) English. I've gotten so used to linguistics and languages - what it means to learn and teach them, as well - that I've gotten to the point that I completely forget other people don't know all about it. This feeling seems to be a reoccurring one on this visit with my Dad; my life has gotten to seem so normal that I've started living in a bubble of sorts that I'm utterly unaware is extremely unique. These past few epiphanies are making me feel way awesome and startlingly narcissistic at the same time... o_O
XOXO
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