There were just too many vineyards on our list, and many of them closed pretty early.  We made a list, narrowed it down (many were just WAY too expensive, while others just didn’t sound as interesting), planned it out on a map to make the most of the day, and stopped by as many as we had the energy and daylight for.  We ended up going to quite a number of really great places, one place that we could’ve done without, and weren’t able to make it to 2 of the vineyards that we really wanted to try (because they closed before we could get there).  We’re not upset though – we actually ran out of steam even before we arrived at the last vineyard and seriously considered stopping early. We can save those 2 for the next trip?

The drive was *gorgeous*. GORGEOUS. I have lots of photos that I need to sort through to post here (I’ll have to narrow it down or you’ll be scrolling forever through probably more than a hundred photos!). We drove up to the Dry Creek and Russian River Valleys first. The vineyards here have a much better atmosphere in our opinion than in Napa. You have a nice, scenic drive from vineyard to vineyard (Steve would have pictured roads like those somewhere in Europe – not in California), where Napa has a very “commercial” feel.  You drive down the road and it seems as though the majority of the vineyards are all name brands and they have tasting rooms right there next to the street.  Feels more like a tourist trap.  Next time we’re going to stick more toward the Dry Creek & Russian River Valleys.

After the first leg, we stopped at a little country “general store” which made awesome sandwiches. Headed out through the hills and the canopied roads east to Calistoga to visit Chateau Montelena. A few months ago we watched the movie “Bottle Shock” simply because we were bored and found it available for streaming from Netflix. Cute movie too! We couldn’t resist going to see the place and trying the wines for ourselves. We’re not Chardonnay people at all – but they make a damn good Chardonnay. We’re very glad that we took the time to stop by. I’d gladly visit Chateau Montelena again.

Pretty much the rest of our tastings were out in Napa. The final vineyard was actually off of the main drag and what felt like through the wilderness off the map somewhere. Eventually the “road” opened up to a very nice vineyard (with their own art collection/museum).

All in all it was a great tour. Including the 2 bottles of wine that we picked up in San Francisco the day before, we ended up buying 9 bottles!

Breakfast at the hotel – not too shabby. Hopped in the car, found the local Peet’s coffee shop for some lattes and drove on up to San Fransisco.

Some of the more slanted streets (to our surprise, not as many are like this as we were expecting) and a few other misc photos:

Trolley!

First thing, we had to take a drive down the world’s most crooked street (Lombard St). How could we not? Fun!!! I recorded a video so you can experience it too. Follow our drive UP to the interesting part of Lombard St. (click on the photos for larger versions):

Join us in our drive down:

And looking back up from the bottom of the squiggly part of Lombard St.:

(I took the liberty of removing some of the wires and signs for a better view)

From there we turned around and went over the Golden Gate Bridge, found some scenic overlooks to take some photos, and headed right back into the city.

It was a little chilly and rained on and off so we didn’t end up spending much time there looking at too many of the sites. We headed toward Fisherman’s Wharf and stopped as soon as we saw Ghirardelli Square (surprise!). wandered through the area snapping photos and dodging the heavy mist.

Ducked into a small shop doing wine tastings to kill some time and actually ended up buying a couple of their wines. Had lunch at McCormick & Kuleto’s – which we had high hopes for. It turned out pretty mediocre, but the view was great.

The weather was taking a turn for the worse, so we packed up, drove around the city a little more (one more drive down Lombard St so I could enjoy it while leaving the camera off) and straight back to the hotel for happy hour and collapsed.

We decided to arrive a few days early so we could spend some time doing the tourist thing.

Since we were stopping through Chicago, we couldn’t resist having a hot dog for lunch

We arrived on Thursday afternoon and made our way to the hotel. Pretty cool hotel. We have our own little mini suite. Free breakfast in the morning and a couple of free drinks during happy hour.

We unpacked and headed out for dinner at the obligatory local In-n-Out Burger (YUM).

We were having issues with our room’s Internet connection, so we went to have a couple of free drinks while they continued to look into it. Ultimately, they couldn’t fix it for us (wiring problem?) so they moved us to a new room.

At this point we’re completely exhausted. I’ve been fighting allergies (bordering on a sinus infection) for several days so I’m extra exhausted. Then we had to pack ourselves back up and relocate to another room a couple of floors up. It felt a little like an April fool’s joke because the room was a mirror image of our previous room. It’s still messing with me a little bit even though we weren’t in the first room for all that long.

In bed by 8. All in all not too bad of a day. Lots of tourist-y things to do while we have the time.

P.S. Our view of the pool / courtyard:

-steve

<3
-steve and nichole

-nichole

Today’s been… interesting. I’m going to tell you the end, and then we’re going to “Tarantino” it and see how we got there:

Steve & I decide to head over to the neighborhood’s park and rest on a bench for a while. We sit down and start chatting. We see a gray VW van come driving up near the park. We hear a *CRUNCH*

We woke up “early” – 11am. To try to keep ourselves awake, we went out for a walk and picked up some groceries. After returning, we started doing some dishes. Then Dani & Vero woke up and I was instructed to “drop it and get away from that sink right now!” hahaha

Steve and I wandered out on our own so Dani & Vero could take their time getting ready, and so we could have some time to ourselves and do the “tourist” thing and look for some souvenirs. So far it’s been a success – we did find a few things, though not everything that I wanted to pick up.

While out on our own, we were on a quest to find Suchard. Our British coworker Angela has been raving about how wonderful this hot chocolate is for months. The grocery store this morning didn’t have any, so we figured their ginormous (HUGE – as in, 7 or more stories and takes up an entire city block) super-store “El Corte Inglés” would have it. We found our way to the grocery area inside and wandered around and got lost a bit in the confusing isle setup. We found an isle of candy bars, but didn’t see any Suchard and figured it would probably be with the coffees or teas. We found the coffee & tea isle, but alas, no Suchard. So we wandered around like lost puppies and eventually decided to ask for help.

A simple “Do you have Suchard?” (Tiene Suchard… xocolate?) did the trick. “Ah! Si! blahblahblawordblahblah xocolate blabla.” Sounded like she was pointing us near the chocolate / candy bar isle. “Oh! Si! Ok. Gracies!” And with that we wandered right back to the candy bars. Still no Suchard. So we look in the surrounding isles. None found – just some sardines and pasta sauces or something…

We found another person and asked the same question – same response. They pointed us back to the area of the candy bar isle. So we walk back to the candy bar isle and stand there and say “Ok. What the heck? We’re missing something. It’s gotta be here.” We scanned the isle and continue to look for it and then – BAM! – right there in front of us! A whole section of Suchard. We must have been blind to miss it. But in our defense, we were looking for a jar or box of powdered hot cocoa mix or something, and instead we found bars of it (which is apparently even better).

When we were about finished with our shopping and just about starving, we called Dani to meet up for lunch (around 5pm). I apparently have Dani listed in my phone twice – and I opted for the wrong number. When whoever-it-was answered the phone, I exclaimed “Hola!!” and started talking. Then the man started talking in Spanish. I replied “… Dani?” And got more Spanish that I didn’t understand. Then I replied again with “I’m… sorry. I think I dialed the wrong number…” Response “Yes.”

I found out later that it was Dani’s father! Hahahahaha Apparently that’s the number that he gave before he came out to the States to visit me several years back. I had completely forgotten. Oops. Now Dani can tell his father the other side of the story of the crazy American who called and probably confused him.

We had time to kill before Dani would arrive with Vero and Mireia, so we decided to look for an awesome little xocoa (chocolate – MMM) shop that we had found by accident last week. I had my doubts, but somehow Steve found it. I don’t know how. Trial by error / process of elimination? Or has he developed a chocolate sense? We did find lots of other chocolate shops in the process… No matter how he did it, we made it there, and then back to where we were to meet Dani with another mission accomplished. You can never have too much chocolate, right? I should really take a photo of all of it. Seriously.

We had lunch and people-watched from the restaurant. Apparently there’s a new fashon craze out here. Women in their 20′s wear those low, or super-low cut jeans – not too surprising. Then they take their underwear and hike them up so you can see anywhere from an inch, to… 4 inches above their pants on all sides. ?!?!?? Who thought that was a good idea? Unfortunately (?) I didn’t get any photos of that…

Afterwards we wandered out on a quest to find a special-request (and very difficult to find) gift. VICTORY! We found it (after a bit of confusion with what it was that we wanted) – and it was a bit less expensive than we had thought it would be. Double-victory.

Mission accomplished, so we then wandered some more to check out a comic book store and the Arc de Triomf (since they were right near to each other). We found an awesome blue Hello Kitty mug that I’ll definitely be using for some of that Suchard. The Arc is gorgeous, but it was too dark to take photos (8pm). I took some anyway but they didn’t come out.

Nifty fact: It’s this enormous Arc that was meant to be temporary during an exposition in the 1880′s. People loved it so much that they disassembled it, built a proper foundation, then rebuilt it with all the original pieces. Neat stuff!

While being tourists and trying to take photos of the Arc, another young-ish couple approached us and asked if we were locals – HAHA! Apparently they were from Guatamala and just arrived this evening and were only staying for a couple of days. They wanted to see the Sea (I keep wanting to say “ocean”) and seemed to hope that we would take them. They settled for directions, but since Steve and I hadn’t a clue where we were, we called Dani over so he could play tour guide some more – he seems to love that

So Dani and the couple start talking in English until the husband asks if he was a local (he probably noticed the accent). When they realized that he was, they start talking in Spanish. HAhaHAHAh That just killed me. Steve and I just busted out laughing at the situation. But, I guess you had to be there to appreciate it.

Dani wanted to meet up with a friend who does English to Spanish (or was it Catalan?) translations for his company (Games Workshop). They all wanted to wander around for a couple of hours and get a drink while waiting for this friend to get out of work, then have dinner and head back home “early” (around 11pm / midnight). The upside is that his friend’s English is apparently very good – so we could hold a conversation with him instead of sitting out of the majority of them as we have lately. But Steve and I had been up and about for the entire day now, and we were tired and hadn’t really planned on staying out very late. We had thought we might already have returned to Dani’s place by then. Dani convinced us to at least have a drink with them, and if we were still tired, we could head back to his apartment.

Now, we have developed a little joke since arriving. We, as Americans, are not used to even 1/2 this much walking. I swear, we walk 4+ miles each day. We’ve been walking up hills, through the city, around stores and various monuments, museums, and the aquarium. Each time we start walking somewhere and Steve or I ask Dani “How far is it?” Dani replies with “Oh, it’s just around the corner.”

…

And normally it’s 1+ miles. Tonight, when looking for the place that we stopped at for drinks – “around the corner” meant a 45 minute walk. Granted, it was more of a “stroll” and we just kind of meandering and had to keep stopping to cross streets. But still. My feet are rebelling and don’t want to let me stand on them anymore. Steve’s stomach wasn’t doing so great. “Just around the corner” wasn’t as amusing this time. We just wanted to head back. But when we realized how long the walk had been and we still hadn’t arrived, we figured that we would need to sit for a while before we could make our way to the subway anyway, so might as well just keep going, right?

We have our drink and relax for a few minutes, then decide that we just want to go back to Dani’s apartment and relax. Dani says OK and helps us find the right subway and gives us directions. We say our see-you-laters, and head towards our destination. After a couple of stops, we switch to the yellow line as instructed and make our way out of the subway at Dani’s neighborhood. Steve reaches into his pocket… and realizes that we never asked Dani for keys… D’oh!

Thankfully I brought my cell phone with me – and it works out here. I can only imagine what my bill will end up being this month… But it has come in very handy. I called Dani and he tells us that he will hop on the subway and will meet us in his doorway. Ugh. I felt horrible that he had to leave his friends and come all the way back to let us into his apartment. But what are you gonna do?

Steve & I decide to head over to the neighborhood’s park and rest on a bench for a while, while waiting for Dani. We sit down and start chatting. We see a gray VW van come driving up near the park. We hear a *CRUNCH*

Car accident. Minor – no one’s hurt. A small red VW Golf was pulling out of a parking garage and hit the tail end of the van. Nothing major – just some cracked headlights on the Golf and tail light on the van. Both guys get out of their cars and seem to start resolving the problem. Then they start motioning and arguing and yelling. We think the Golf driver was telling the van driver that it was his fault – and the van driver didn’t agree. We should have taken photos. Why? Because the van driver got back in his car – assumingly to get his papers or something. Instead, he put his van in reverse and sped backwards the way he came – and almost caused another accident on his way to flee the scene.

*sigh* After that, we headed back to Dani’s place, waited a few minutes for Dani to arrive, went inside, made dinner, watched Part 1 of the Lost pilot (admittedly, not the best thing to watch < 2 days before getting on a plane to come home) and here I am now. Typing up yet another huge novel.

To make a long story short, we’ve been running around all day, we’re tired and sore, we ran into a friendly couple from Guatamala, we found ourselves locked out of Dani’s apartment, and we’ve witnessed a car accident. Give or take a few details.

-nichole

The first weekend we were here, we experienced La Mercè – the dragons, the correfocs, the fireworks (twice), the castellers, and ending with the pyromusical. We’ve only just started to finish posting the photos from those events – and that was only the first weekend!

We’ve walked around the local neighborhood and the city center a couple of times. We’ve wandered around La Ramblas looking for souveniers (but they’re horrible quality and too expensive, so we need to shop elsewhere) and hung out with Dani & friends several times at their apartments, bars/pubs, restaurants, and a tea house. We’ve visited La Cathedral, the Roman ruins beneath the city, L’aquarium, the Monestary at Monserrat, and an entire day o’ Gaudi (Park Guell & Sagrada Familia). We almost spent today looking at castles a couple hours away, but decided to take a day off and actually relax on our vacation. Besides, Steve’s been having sinus issues for the past couple of days, but he seems to be doing better now.

Tomorrow we’re going to head back out to the city for some shopping and I’m not sure what else. Tuesday we might do something in the morning, and then come back to Dani’s and start packing. It’ll be an early morning on Wednesday so we can catch the train to the airport. Then it’s right back to work on Thursday! whee~ I wonder how the jetlag’s going to be…

We’re hoping to have more photos resized and uploaded before we go back home. Perhaps we will – Steve found a batch photo resize utility that will help speed things along. Keep checking the journal after we’ve returned. I’m sure we’ll still be trying to finish submitting stories and photos for several days.

-nichole

Taken on the beach just before the fireworks, and just before is started raining really hard:

These two were taken at Montserrat (which we have yet to upload photos from):

This one was taken by me at Gaudi’s Park Guell (also no pics uploaded yet):

That’s all for now.

-steve

Here they are, I’m going to try and explain them so they are hopefully more than just pictures.

These two are just showing the people climbing up, and how they get settled, also in the second photo, you can see the enxaneta (the little girl in the helmet on the left side) starting her way up to the top. The last photo is the completed tower, 7 “floors.”

This photo has been cropped to show that the first floor that we see in all these floors in most of the photos is either the second floor, or even the third. Looks comfy, huh?

Here are more photos of another tower. The enxaneta has to raise her hand at the top and start to climb to the other side for the tower to be considered a success. Illustrated below:

This next set shows how they build the base. This is the tower that took the fall, as shown in the video. In the second photo, you see the second and third floors being built. Keep in mind, all those people are already standing on other people that are the ground floor! The third photo is showing the 4th floor. The 4th photo shows the anxaneta climbing up to the top, to make it a total of 9 floors. Then a photo of the completed tower, considered a success because she did start to climb down, and then the last photo shows the ‘post fall tower.’

Amazing stuff…Here’s a shot of part of the crowd that turned out for this event:

And last but not least, I have uploaded a full sized photo of a completed tower. Again, it’s full sized but it shows the details of the enxaneta (the top) and the aixecador (eye-sheck-a-door) (under the enxaneta) forming the top two floors, and eveyone else. You can see as you go up in height, the people get smaller and younger.

I am really glad to got to witness this tradition. We almost didn’t, but I asked Dani at dinner one night, and it turns out they were performing the next day! This goes on for hours. We stayed for a little while and saw the single column walking towers, a few successful towers and the one fall. There was also a tower they decided not to complete. At any time, anyone of the team members can call it off, ultimately the enxaneta has the final say. We decided to leave after a while, and we watched a few on TV once we got home with a new apperication for what we were seeing. This was definitely one of the many highlights of our trip. Much much more to come!

- steve