Barcelona and AJ's Pink Electric Guitar

I hope you had a good rest from the trip to the Bahamas cause now, we are going to Europe, specifically to Barcelona. It's Saturday so it's time to go sightseeing but first let's flaunt our pinks and join Beverly at http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/ so we can check out everybody else's lovely pinks.

Below is AJ's Hello Kitty electric guitar that John bought for her when he worked in Sanford near Orlando. I lived in Port Richey then and AJ and I would drive to Sanford every weekend, drag this guitar and the amplifier and she would take lessons downtown Sanford. Unfortunately, she was fairly young and did not quite take an interest in it. So, we asked my nephew to put it in his vehicle last weekend when we met in Destin and so we can take it home and we will try to get her some private guitar lessons here.

Isn't it just the cutest thing? Sorry, the amplifier is still in the garage so I did not take a picture of it but it is a Fender amp.


I thought I would insert Mr. Linky below so if anyone wants to join and post their own sightseeing pictures, you can link them here. It is after my sightseeing post. This is the first time I am doing this so please bear with me if there is a problem.

Now, let's go to Barcelona! These old beautiful European buildings immediately attracted us.






Here is one of Antoni Gaudi's architectural creations built b/w 1905-1907, Cassa Batllo, a concrete Mediterranean apartment building. Sorry, I couldn't take a better picture. The street was very busy with big buses and our tour bus was moving fast.

Sagrada Familia Church (Holy Family) is truly the MOST amazing building that I have ever seen! Located in Catalonia in Barcelona, these pictures do not do it justice. All you could hear from everybody in the tour bus were "Ahhhhhhhs and wooooows", as soon as the bus turned showing this incredible building. This is another creation by Gaudi, who died in Barcelona in 1926. He started building this church in 1882 and it is so elaborate that to this day, it is not completed. It is projected to be finished in 2026, 100 years after the designer passed away.

The details are truly amazing!

Picasso's early drawings.

Unfortunately, we had a bad experience in Barcelona. Walking through the Ramblas, John got pickpocketed. We were warned by the tour guides so before we started touring, I asked John if he wanted me to keep his wallet. He said it's ok, cause it is safe and he is keeping it in his front pocket.

Las Ramblas is a walkway through the very heart of the city center, where stalls, restaurants, street performers, bars and living statues can be seen on both sides. It is very crowded, thousands of people promenade up and down the street until early hours of the morning. For this reason, it has become a target for pickpocketing.

Would you believe how fast those gypsies are! We just started walking through the Ramblas, in fact, John had just taken the first pic of AJ and me with a living statue (give them a coin and they will pose with you) when he noticed his wallet was gone. A guy with a briefcase walked in b/w me and him, looking confused and then walked back the other way. For the meantine, I believe another guy (his partner in crime), reached for John's wallet while the well dressed guy with the briefcase was distracting us. I tell ya, they are experts so you better be careful if you ever go there. If you want more info about pickpocketers in Spain, go to http://www.travelinginspain.com/safety.html

We did not let the bad experience deter us from having a good time. But it surely took off some exciting energy. It wasn't as much the lost money that was demoralizing but the time and hassle it took me to call and cancel all of the credit cards and bank accounts. And the feeling that you were outsmarted did not feel nice either. It was so unfortunate that John took a lot of cash there (he usually just takes a few hundreds and 1 credit card per port and leaves everything else in the safe) but this time, he just grabbed his wallet with all his credit cards, all his euros and dollars and even 2 blank checks and driver's license, so you can just imagine me on the phone all afternoon trying to figure out the cc numbers and cancel them all. Luckily, I have a ship VIP status that I do not have to stand in line at the purser's office everytime I need to use the phone. I guess it was meant to happen and the insurance would not cover cash because it is impossible to prove how much was really taken.

Look at this tall monument of Columbus!

Our Barcelona trip ended up with filing a police report. We had to, since John's entry card to the ship was in the wallet that was stolen and we could not just get back in. I tell ya, I got to practice the Spanish that I took in HS and College (which was more like Spanglish) cause the cops did not know how to speak English. I asked the cops why they could not solve the problem. I would think they can just install videos along the Ramblas and it should be easy to solve and the cop said out of 3000 people, if only 3 people got victimized, that was good. Hmmm! Not true though, there were more who did not report because it was such a hassle to report. And I think one victim is one too much.

This is a little souvenir that I took home wth us.

I hope you enjoyed touring with me. I think we, including AJ, learned a lot especially about being more careful, on this trip. And in spite of our bad experience, we want to go back. It is a beautiful city. John wants to go back with sharp pins in his pockets, lol! Actually, he travels now with his money in a sack hanging from his neck, inside his shirt.

I would love for you to join me for Sightseeing Saturday. If you want to participate and show us any of your trips or any scenery that you would like to share, please enter your name and your permalink below after your post is published.

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Below are participants for Sightseeing Saturday. Let's all check out what interesting places they want to take us.




Thank you all for coming along and thanks, Beverly, for hosting Pink Saturday!