Day 2-Barcelona

So, we woke up quite rested on Sunday. We started the morning with breakfast in our hotel. As most of you know, David must have water in the morning or he has a hard time getting going. We quickly learned that in Europe, there is no such thing as FREE or cold water. However, our breakfast had cold, and according to David, very good orange juice. David filled up his empty bottle with OJ to take to help him start the day and proceeded to follow me out of the dining area.
"No toma jugo! No! No! Aqui!"
That's the extent of what I understood mixed in with a lot that neither of us understood! Basically, David was being yelled at and threatened in another language and neither of us were sure why. Apparently, you can't take the juice with you. That we got. However, with his personal bottle now full, we weren't quite sure what the angry waitress wanted us to do with it. The room full of hotel guests (all of which were European), just stared as David shrugged his shoulders and turned and left. Talk about feeling very uncomfortable leaving the key to our room at the desk that morning!
We decided to hike to the top of Montjuic, a beautiful mountain in Barcelona. At the top was a castle and along the way, Olympic Park from the 1992 summer games. About half way up we realized we would have to take the skylift to the top to get to the castle, which was our ultimate goal, though we weren't quite sure why. When we went to pay, we got waved through. Not really understanding why or what was going on, it must have been clear because there was a group of Spanish speaking tourists in our skycar with us that saw our confusion.
"Hablo un poco Espanol." (I speak a little Spanish) the Spanish lady and I agreed.
She and another man in the car proceeded from there to rant and rave, it appeared, on and on about something. All I could gather was that there would be a party with food!
Much to our surprise, when we got to the top of the Mountain, they were having a HUGE festival for the castle and we were just in time for it to start! Perfect timing.
The festival was fun, but being clueless about most of it, we decided to tour the rest of Montjuic and leave the party behind. The view of the city was the best from the castle though.
On the way down we stopped at Olympic stadium and park, a beautiful Art Museum and then made our way to the Picasso museum, where we pretended to be really into art!
At dinner that night, a homeless man wandered into the restaurant and of course, found our table! After a little bit of fear and a lot of confusion, the staff saw him and escorted him out. Whew! We were certainly getting ready for the cruise!
That evening we enjoyed a beautiful park we found (and visited again later) and all the action on La Rambla. Exhausted from all the walking and anxious to start the cruise on Monday, we headed to bed before La Rambla got rockin'!
At the park that afternoon, we made a TOP 10 list (really it turned into Top 14) we thought we'd share on our blog:

TOP 14 THINGS WE WISH PEOPLE HAD TOLD US BEFORE VISITING BARCELONA...
14. No one wears matching clothes.
13. You can't get ice in your beverages.
12. You can't get food to go! (Especially juice!)
11. Don't tip the waitress/waiter on the credit card receipt. They hand it to you to sign, stand there until you do and that's that. They won't leave your table until you sign it-period.
10. Wear neutral colors. If you wear a shirt with print on it you might as well be wearing an American flag.
9. When you leave your hotel room, you have to leave your room key. You just have to trust them or not go anywhere!
8. Don't count on air conditioning anywhere. Their version of a cool place is about 20 degrees hotter than ours.
7. Everyone drives a bike of some sort. Red doesn't necessarily mean stop, especially to cab drivers and no one really cares about speed limits.
6. Everyone has a dog and takes it with them everywhere, rarely on a leash. The dogs are cute, friendly dogs either, just mean, malnutrioned ones!
5. Crosswalks aren't at intersections. Be prepared to walk several blocks throughout the day simply getting to a crosswalk.
4. Everyone smokes. Most locations are non-smoking, so everyone just smokes on the street.
3. Hotel rooms aren't to relax. They are to sleep, shower and use the restroom and that is it. If you get 3 channels, 2 will be soccer!
2. PDA (public displays of affection) are common place. Don't be surprised if you find yourself the only person not making out around you.
AND THE #1 THING WE WISHED WE'D KNOWN...
1. NO ONE speaks English, nor do they care if you speak Spanish if it's only "un poco." (a little!)

Now you know! :)

Pictures will officially be up tomorrow. Sorry it's taking so long! Until then, here's a couple from Day 2 in Barcelona...