Russ & Anne Burnett Family: September 2015

Thursday, September 24, 2015

SPAIN - Barcelona 2

Sunday morning we woke up, got ready, packed, checked out of our hostel, and walked to Church. Russ served in that particular ward for a large part of his mission (like 11 months or something), so he knew right where to find the meeting house.

He was curious beforehand about how many ward members he would actually recognize. The answer . . . not too many. A huge percentage of ward members there are immigrants, which generally means they aren't as permanent as the Spaniards. Russ loved re-connecting with the members he did remember though - a man who was serving as the ward mission leader when Russ was there who is now the stake president, another who was a teenager when Russ served who has since served as bishop of the ward, and a woman whose family fed the missionaries weekly.

After our FULL day on Saturday, we decided to take is easy Sunday afternoon. We ate some grocery store food at a park after church, then took the metro to the same area we had left the night before, Placa Espanya. Everything looked so different in daylight, and without thousands of other people around, that I didn't even know we were in the same area when we started walking around.

My wonderful husband in the city that he loves.

Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

We didn't even know the castle above was an art museum, we were mostly interested in the awesome view from the terrace.

We walked a bit, then sat in the shade to chat and rest, walked a bit more, took a few pictures, etc. It was a lovely afternoon.

We passed the Olympic village. This is where the torch burned during the 1992 summer Olympics.

And this is one of the MANY tour buses we saw during our stay in Barcelona. Seriously everywhere. I always knew when we were nearing a big tourist attraction because the street was filled with these red double-decker buses.

That evening we took the train back down to Madrid. They were showing a subtitled version of the 1989 Michael Keaton "Batman" movie. We didn't ever plug in our earbuds to listen to the English, but it was pretty entertaining following along with the Spanish subtitles. We particularly enjoyed that "Bruce Wayne" was turned into "Bruno Diaz" and that the Spanish word for BAT is the 5-syllable MURCIELAGO.

We were sad to say good-bye to Barcelona, but so happy we were able to spend a few days there together. Next stop: MADRID!

Saturday, September 19, 2015

SPAIN - Barcelona 1

Russ served a 2-year mission in Spain and was able to return for the first time in September of 2014 when he had to travel to Madrid for work. He LOVED being back and I made him promise that the next time he went I'd get to go along, too.

Well, Russ had to go back a few weeks ago, and he paid up on his promise to me!

My parents flew in to College Station the afternoon of Thursday, September 3rd, and Russ and I hopped on a plane that evening.

Practicing our selfies during the looooooong flight.

Russ was scheduled to teach 2 classes in Madrid the week of September 7th, but we went a few days early so we could spend some time in Barcelona (which is where Russ was a missionary). We arrived in Madrid Friday evening, took the Metro downtown from the airport, stowed most of our luggage in some lockers, ate a quick dinner, and hopped on a train headed for Barcelona.

Russ was SO excited to get some Spanish food. His communication skills needed a little brushing up though, since the restaurant owner thought Russ wanted his Tortilla de Patata on sandwich bread.

Our train arrived in Barcelona just before midnight. When we got off I asked Russ about taking the Metro to our hostel, but Russ was so thrilled to be back in the city he loves that he insisted on just walking around outside for a few minutes before finding our way to the hostel (even though we'd been travelling for like 25 hours at that point).

When we made a reservation at our hostel we could choose between a room with 2 single beds, or a room with 1 double bed. We chose the double bed, but apparently that means they just shove the 2 singles together. :)

View from our balcony. Russ said this is totally typical.

Saturday was spent walking all over the city. Walking, and walking, and walking. And then some more walking. My feet were so happy when I took my shoes off at the end of the day!

Our hostel was just a few blocks from Camp Nou, where the Barcelona soccer team plays.

First stop: Mercadona - the grocery store. I thought it was so fun to see all the little shopping trolleys lined up here. Most people walk to the market, so they bring these wheeled shopping bags to haul all their groceries home.

Here's Russ in his favorite section of the store. :)

After grocery shopping and stopping to eat a portion of our purchases for breakfast, we walked down a major road called Diagonal. As a missionary Russ spent many, many hours walking around here doing street contacts.

Many of Barcelona's famous sites were designed by the Spanish architect/artist Antoni Gaudi. The building behind us is La Pedrera.

Gaudi's Casa Battlo.

Placa Catalunya.

La Rambla - popular tourist street that leads down to the harbor.

On of the famous features of La Rambla is the collection of "living statues". People dress up elaborately and assume statue-like positions. Some of them are constantly in motion, others remain totally still until someone drops a coin in their jar, and then they magically come to life.

One of the foods Spanish foods Russ was most excited to have again was Melon. In the USA we have different melons - cantaloupe, honeydew, etc. In Spain it's just this one melon, and everyone knows what you're talking about. Russ bought a 1/2 melon at the store and thought he'd just eat part of it when we sat down for a snack. (You can see the famous Colon (Columbus) statue behind him.)

But once he got started, he didn't stop. Ate the whole thing right there.

Barcelona Cathedral

The Spanish food Russ has talked about most often is Paella. Previous to our trip he asserted that he had never tasted a bad paella. So naturally, that's the food we sought out for our main meal on Saturday. FAIL. This was a BAD paella. My smiling face tells you this picture was taken BEFORE I had tasted the food. So disappointing.

Arc de Triomf

All around the city there are racks of these bicycles. Apparently you can pay some sort of fee and the bikes are then available for you to use. Pick one up anywhere, ride it to any other rack, grab another one when you're ready to leave. So clever.

La Monumental
Bull fighting has been outlawed in some areas of Spain, including Catalonia (northeastern region which includes Barcelona), so this building has been turned into a Museo Taurino (museum).

La Sagrada Familia is probably the building Barcelona is best known for. It is a massive cathedral that is still under construction. It's another of Gaudi's designs. Construction was begun in 1882, and is scheduled to be completed in 2050. Russ was surprised at how much work had been done in the 14 yeas since he last saw it. (FYI - none of our pictures give a true picture of how enormous, and elaborate and incredible it is.)

This was the one place in Barcelona that we opted to pay the entry fee so we could go inside. Definitely not disappointed. Worth every euro.

The tallest of the external towers has not yet been built. When it's completed it will reach 170 meters from the ground. That's just over 550 feet. Like almost the length of TWO football fields put together.

This side of the cathedral features scenes from the birth of Christ. The side opposite features scenes from His death/resurrection. Every inch of the building seems to be elaborately decorated.

Walking inside the cathedral truly takes your breath away. We happened to arrive just as the sun was hitting the incredible stained-glass windows. Unbelievable.

This is a to-scale replica of the interior of the cathedral. Can you see the little tiny man next to the middle column? Yeah. That's how huge this place is.

We stayed until they kicked us out at closing time. Our final stop of the day was a bit of a distance, so we hopped on the metro for the first time all day. We wanted to see the Font Magica de Montjuic (magic fountain show), but when we arrived there were a few other (thousand) people who had the same idea. We were tired and not in the mood to fight any crowds, so we watched the magic from a distance and then wended our weary way home.

Friday, September 11, 2015

Back to School

The Saturday before school began we had a "Family Fun Day".

We did do some work on the yard and in the house during the morning, but after lunch we went to our favorite swimming pool, went to a restaurant for dinner, then finished off our night with a movie at home.

Two days later Kaylee, Ashlyn & Brenna headed off to school.

Everyone (including Mom!) was very excited.

Brenna is FINALLY in Kindergarten.

Her teacher is Mrs. Cunningham. She just graduated from Texas A&M last Spring, so she's as green as they come. Hopefully she'll bring lots of great new ideas to her classroom, and be able to corral a room full of rambunctious kiddos.

Ashlyn is in 3rd Grade this year.

Her homeroom teacher is Mrs. Porrata, which is the same teacher Kaylee had in 2nd Grade. Ashlyn only spends 1/3 of each day in homeroom though. The 3rd graders rotate between 3 different teachers. I'm hoping this "switching" schedule will help my talkative, busy girl stay on task. :)

Kaylee is ruling the school with the other 5th Graders this year.

Her homeroom teacher is Mrs. Gallego. The 5th Graders also rotate between 3 different teachers each day. Kaylee LOVES that the teachers are being more strict with the kids this year to help prep them for middle school next year.

I drive the girls to school in the morning, then they all walk home together in the afternoon.

And this little cutie is doing Mommy preschool with some of our friends from church Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:00 - Noon.

She and I are both loving this schedule. :)

The first 3 weeks have been filled with a few scraped knees, complaints about homework, marks for too much talking, and potty accidents (ahem . . . McKell) but overall everyone is happy and everything is going well!