Barcelona - Gothic Details

So many great details.  How many faces are looking over you when you walk through the streets of the Gothic part of town?


Long shadows at the end of our long walk.  I love this city!

How do you know when you are behind in blogging?

You know you are behind when you haven't posted photos from a trip to Barcelona that you took 8 months ago, three weeks before your next visit there!  What happened to the time?!  Well, here are a few shots from around Barcelona - the Boqueria (this post), some gothic details of the city (posts to come) and family (posts to come).  Whoa boy do I have some catching up to do!

-Silva








We wish we could find these in NYC...








Say hello to the juiceman!

Sant Hilari Sacalm - Font Vella Hotel Balneari

On the day after Christmas Felipe and I took a couple hour drive with his parents to go to Sant Hilari Sacalm to the Font Vella Hotel Balneari for a bit of a "mini vacation".  We had talked with his parents about trying to find a place to relax for a few days...I think we all needed a bit of relaxation.  After some online conferencing with each other, and a quick visit to check the joint out on Felipe's parent's part - we decided on Font Vella.

A Balneari is basically a resort or hotel situated at a mineral water spa.  They had a full thermal water circuit (pool, jacuzzi, sauna, "turkish bath"/steam room, ice bath and so forth).  We had a beautiful room, very close to the spa entrance.  The room was huge, and very comfortable, and we spent two days swimming, and relaxing at the spa.  It was pretty quiet the first day we were there because it was a Catalan holiday...so for the first day we almost had the whole place to ourselves.

Overall it was a terrific place, and I would love to go back...maybe next time we should go back during the warm weather...we could spend some time sitting on the chaises outside!

Europe Trip Continued: The Wedding Day!

Ana getting ready at the salon.

Okay, I know, I know - I'm so behind on my Europe posts! I'll get better, I swear! So here it is, the post about the wedding! On Saturday morning all the ladies got up early and made our way to the salon to be thoroughly prepped for the big day. It was so much fun to spend the time together, to laugh and chat and we all had a wonderful time!


All the ladies enjoying a morning of pampering - nails, hair and makeup!


Tia Elisa getting her hair done.


Tia Ecy all ready to go!


Here she is, Ana all ready to go!


Here are all of us girls ready to go!

Then we moved on to the ceremony. After a long nervous time waiting it was time to go!

Doesn't Sergi look blown away! He uttered a simply stunned "Wow!" when Ana came into sight, so sweet!

Here are the happy couple, listening intently to Sergi's sister giving a beautiful speech.



Sergi's sister gave a beautiful speech - which I mostly understood, even though it was in Catalan. Very moving!


A nice photo of us with Eda and Primitivo.


The happy parents with the group from Brazil.

Here's a fun video of the dancing!

Europe Continued: Pan amb Tomaquet, Lost Baggage and the Endless Excitement

The friday night before the big day, the family and all the visitors got together for a nice dinner at Pan amb tomaquet in Vilassar. They didn't have a rehersal dinner like they do here in the states, instead Sergi spent the evening with his family and Ana with hers. Pan amb tomaquet is a nice restaurant in the village where Eda and Primitivo live and we've been there many times before with the family. They had a small lofted area of the restaurant reserved for all of us and we had a terrific time mingling and sharing our excitement over the next day.

Of course, there was some delicious food involved too!

My tortilla and pan con tomate - yum!


Felipe with his pan con tomate and lomo jamon.


Felipe with Ecy and Elisa.


Many friends came for the wedding from Brasil - Eduardo, Bianca, (I can't remember this gentleman's name...I'm working diligently on remembering...), Carolina and Ana in the background.


Eda at the table with Ana Luisa and Bruno - friends from Brasil as well, who you may remember from a previous post (they visited us earlier this year in NYC).


Primitivo and Ernani.


Ana and Primitivo with Primitivo's brother Francisco (Paco) and his wife Mari and their kids Paco, Miguel, and Ana who all came from Zaragoza for the wedding.

After dinner we all headed back home and tried settling in for the night. Let's just say that everyone was a bit hyper over making sure all was ready for the next day and it took quite some time for everyone to wind down. It had been a long day - did I mention that all six guests arriving from Brasil had their luggage lost and that Tia Ecy was "lost" as well for some time - as she missed her connecting flight and no one knew precisely which flight she had been moved to.... well thank goodness that Ecy was found and eventually everyone got their luggage, that is after Eda, Primitivo and Elisa spent about 10 hours in the airport!

Here's Eda and Ana "winding down" before bed...it involved some sort of acting out of an exorcism, which at this time I cannot remember why...


and fake sleeping/laughing:


Sweet dreams for the day to come...

Ana and Sergi: Part One, the Civil Ceremony

Looking ready for a lifetime of wonderful days together!

We arrived to Spain on Wednesday afternoon, and did not do too much - we all had prep to take care of for the upcoming wedding on Saturday. But important not to forget was the small civil wedding ceremony that Ana and Sergi had that Thursday. We all gathered around noon and walked through Vilassar to the Judge's office. There they had a small, very short civil ceremony. I'll admit that while my Spanish is improving, I did not understand much of what was said...but I knew what was going on!


A photo of the couple listening to the judge, families are in the background. I'll admit - this picture is posed! Almost everyone was taking photos the whole time - I think it was a more photo documented ceremony than the Prince of England! So in the end I asked if everyone would mind if I took a pic while everyone was sitting down, and fortunately they all obliged me.

Well then it was time for family photos, and boy did they abound! We held a whole miniature portrait session in that tiny room, thanks to some pretty terrific light. But I think that it was how happy everyone was for Ana and Sergi that made them all look so good!


With Eda and Primitivo, her very proud parents!


With Fina and Joan, Sergi's proud parents!


With Felipe and I.


And then it got silly...


With Sergi's sister Gemma and her husband Francesc and nephew Pau and niece Ariadna.


With Ana and Felipe's Aunt Elisa.

Afterward we went to another small town nearby and had a really wonderful lunch together. The place was called Casa Roura, and was in this very old large mansion/estate. The inside was beautiful and we had a nice private room to dine in. We all had a really terrific time!

The rest of Thursday was spent preparing for the arriving guests the next day, there were six people coming from Brazil, and some other small preparations for Saturday's big event.