Barcelona, Day 2

After waking up naturally (courtesy of excited children), we headed out to explore. We had breakfast in a little cafe on La Rambla. I had a traditional Spanish breakfast of a croissant, coffee with milk, and orange juice, Matt had a cured meats and cheese plate with bread, and the older kids had ham and cheese sandwiches.

After breakfast, we made our way south toward L'aquarium Barcelona.

Port Vell

The kids loved climbing on these little "hills."  Well, one of them liked it.

The Aquarium was a lot of fun. The bigger kids were excited to look at everything, and Clara would randomly point and shout, "Feesh!"

It was a little crowded, but not unbearably so. Around the big shark tanks, they had a moving sidewalk, which really helped the congestion. Of course, it made for blurry pictures, so I don't have many.

Once we left, it was getting close to lunch time. We wandered aimlessly until we found a place that looked suitable. The food here was good, but the service was terrible. And we must have had some miscommunication, because the server brought out one entree for Matt and me to share (we ordered the same thing).

Most of the restaurants we visited had wifi, which was very helpful since we can't get international data for another month or two. Matt downloaded the Google map of the city, which helped us get around easily. We discovered that we weren't far from the Chocolate Museum, so we stopped there next.

The Chocolate Museum was a fun place. It was small, and had some displays and movies about this history and making of chocolate. But mostly there were fantastic sculptures, and we all liked looking at everything. It was hard getting pictures with the glass.

Darn reflection!

Detail shot from the scene above

Of course we visited the chocolate shop after the tour, and we each choose a treat.  Yum.

By this point, the kids needed a rest, so we started walking back to the hotel.

As we walked, several locals said, "Hola" to the kids. Miles happily said it back, while Lily said loudly, "We don't live in this country." Luckily she only did this a few times.

Souvenir shops were everywhere, and they all had these little figurines with pants down, pooping.

These are called caganers. There were traditional Catalan boys and girls, and a huge variety of famous people (from the Pope to footballers to Donald Trump). These figurines are even commonly included in nativity scenes (although typically far from the manger). Of course this was one of the kids' favorite things.

After some rest at the hotel and some TV time, we were all ready for dinner. The lady at the hotel had suggested a place, and said it was very child friendly, so we have it a try.
This is what it looked like inside...

And no kids menu. Hmmm, child friendly? Thankfully we were early birds and they sat us in the corner.

Matt and I ordered chicken paella, and the kids shared a shrimp pasta dish. Our food was good, the pasta was not, but the kids liked it.

Once we finished dinner, we went back to the hotel and put the kids to bed. So exciting, right?