Dancing Chili Peppers Covered in Cheese

Me gusta Espana. We spent four days in Barcelona. It was glorious. They have sunshine in Spain. It is very similar to the kind we have in Texas. Big things happened in Espana. I wore a dress without 2 pairs of leggings underneath…. AND I purchased a pair of shorts. To wear. Vitamin D!! I love it.

So we have been traveling for at least 4 days a week for the past 9 weeks at this point. I have a backpack that weighs as much as my CRV. I am now 3 inches shorter than when I left for Europe. For some reason I always think it’s a good idea to wear flip-flops on travel days. I repress the reality that we WILL be sprinting to the train station.. no matter how much time we have planned. So I have developed a delightful case of shin splints. All this to say, we were ready for a real vacation. That was Barcelona. We strolled around the streets and laid on the beach. That is all. No tours. No running. No plans. The beach. It was glorious!

You know those maze things on kids menus where you have to wind all around…. Backtrack… start over… wind all around… dead end… start over.. wind around…. Look on the kids menu next to you to cheat and find the correct pathway to get to the dancing chili pepper in the middle of the maze? Well that dancing chili pepper was our hostel… and Barcelona was the maze. Every time we made it back I was literally aMAZEd. Ha… get it? It was a really cool hostel though. It was up 4 flights of stairs that reminded me of Annie… without the orphans scrubbing the floors. The view was very authentic. I’ve never felt so Spanish… I don’t know why I would reason to… but whatever. Yeah.. the view & winding staircase leading you to the chili pepper:

Our one real excursion in Spain was to go to a bullfight in Madrid. Meghan was soooo excited. Animal cruelty is one of her favorite pastimes. I told her it was disgusting, but I went along with her anyway.

We sat in what the Spanish call a “VIP box” with all the old men. I love that this is how they spend their Sunday afternoons.

Rick Steeves helped us brush up on our bullfighting knowledge. Round 1: stab them with giant decorated darts.

Round 2: Horse man runs out with big spear thing.

Round 3: Toro man tries to get the bull to run into his red blanket for a while and then he swords the bull to death. It was a delightful evening to say the least.

Oh I almost forgot! My favorite part! They have like a band playing the whole time. Dan a da nuh duh nuh… CHARGE! We Will Rock You… I think I even heard a little Cotton-Eyed Joe during the seventh inning stretch. Spain is fantastic.

After all the bulls were dead, we went to go see Spain’s little friend Portugal. Portugal was very chill. All of their buildings were like a tile kitchen backsplash. It made me hungry… until I tried to Portuguese food… and then I was not so hungry.

Our first meal in Portugal I was feeling a little adventurous for some reason… I saw Portugal’s favorite snack in parenthesis behind one of the items and stupidly believed them. I fell right into that one. Here is what we accidentally ordered: An assortment of “sausages” with eggs, rice & french fries. Megs received a heart attack on a plate. The most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen: five different types of meat (the weird European kind) between toast drenched in a smokestack of cheese surrounded by a moat of fries. I feel my arteries clogging just writing about it.

The streets of our bustling little city of Porto were insane. It’s a small country, where did all these people even come from? Perhaps they are mostly tourist who heard of the culinary delights to be found in Portugal. We asked a fellow Portugian to take a picture of us with this street behind us…

this is what we ended up with. The only thing missing from this picture is the street in the background… and my head. Seriously… my camera has a 5 inch screen on the back. I don’t understand. Nice one Portugal.

The city was awesome though. We wandered through the streets and along the coast all day. Disregard our ridiculous hair. It was like tornado winds over there. Every time we would try and get a picture someone’s hair would go out of control. Moral of the story: when in Portugal, pack extra Aquanet. You’ll thank me for that one later.