Barcelona - Day 2 and Thanksgiving

Well, it was a little hard not being able to spend Thanksgiving with our families. We missed you all so much. It really helped us that it didn't really feel like Thanksgiving day. We were so far away from all the usual Thanksgiving day things like family, parades, and football.

The school sets up a nice night every year at a nearby Cuban restaurant that they ask to serve a Thanksgiving plate, so the staff and students all dressed up and had a good time. The stuffing was probably the best part. Towards the end there was a live band and some cuban/salsa/flamenco dancing going on into late in the night.
Now on to day 2 of our Barcelona trip.
The next morning we met Ted and Melissa at the Market to buy some things for a pack lunch on Montjuic, a hill located near the center of Barcelona with a castle on top. This picture is of the old market building that is supposedly being rennovated.

This white building is the "temporary" structure that houses the market now. The aisle were very skinny and a little chaotic. I got pushed out of the way a couple times by some old ladies on a mission but Sarah and I managed to get some fruit and some tasty cheese.

We first rode the funicular halfway up the hill and got a decent view of the city.

But we needed to be higher so we jumped on the telerific to get to the top.

The view was getting better and better

At the top of the mountain was the castle built in the 18th century for the defense of the city from an ocean attack.

Big guns

Great view of the port

We were able to find a nice bench on top to enjoy some lunch in the sun.

We didn't want to pay the money to take the telerific or funicular down so we found some better ways down the hill.

Their were some injuries but nothing too serious.

The hill is also covered with gardens and random parks

These made music

We were super excited about the zip line.

The park was very well built and maintained thanks to the Olympics coming to Barcelona in 1992 and the stadium being built on the hill,

The world is our playground

A little farther down the hill is the National Palace, which is also the National art museum. You get a great view of Plaza de España, where Sarah and I were first dropped off when we got into town. The fountain on the left is called the magic fountain but we never got to see its magic.

We couldn't help but use the outdoor escalators on the last stretch down.

Looking back up to the National Palace

After we got to the bottom of the hill we headed to the contemporary art museum. They had a Ray Johnson exhibit which Ted and Melissa really wanted to see and Sarah and I really enjoyed it. Lots of collages and little drawings that he sent to his friends in the mail. Then we headed to the John Cage exhibit and listened to some interesting pieces of music.
Our couchsurfing hosts met us outside of the museum and we walked around town with them for awhile. In front of the cathedral we came across a random Sardana dance, which is a special dance that people from the Catalan area do to celebrate their solidarity and nationalism.

There was so much going on in this plaza at once.

We said goodnight to Ted and Melissa because they had an early flight to Morroco the next morning and went out to dinner with our hosts and their sister and boyfriend for a birthday party. We ate some good Italian food at a small restaurant then somehow ended up in a discoteca on the other side of town. Oscar, our host, worked with one of the DJ's so he got us in without a cover. The whole situation was really comical because we didn't know what was going on most of the time, we thought we were going to a bar. We were both so tired from walking around all day but when our hosts started dancing we were able to muster up some moves. We were having fun but we were glad that we only stayed for one drink and a few songs.
We headed back to the house and straight into bed.