It's our Last Day in Barcelona

...so we spent it by the Mediterranean!

We walked along the beaches. I was busy taking pictures, but leave it to B to notice that the beaches had many topless/nude sunbathers. What a freeing experience that must be. I would probably give it a try one day, would you?

The sun was high in the sky by noon, so we headed to the aquarium to hide in the shade for a bit. At first I was a little under-whelmed by the experience (I guess I'm spoiled by the Baltimore aquarium?). However, they had a very, very cool feature: a people mover that took us through glass tunnels "within" the large shark tank. We loved it because everyone got a front-row glimpse, but no one could stand in one place and hog the view. I took a ton of pictures, but since flash wasn't allowed, they aren't as sharp as I would have liked. I'm gonna share some anyway!

Afterwards, I got a hankering for my new favorite flavor of gelati: Galleta Maria (aka: Maria cookie flavor). We stopped in every little ice cream place along Las Ramblas until we found one that had my flavor. I decided to get a scoop of coconut too. Why not?!

At this point, we decided to come back for afternoon shower and nap. It's so refreshing!

Dinner was an adventure! Upon recommendation from our hotel, we went to Siete Puertas for some good paella. And boy was it good! We started things off with the "7 Puertas Appetizer Sampler." I think that was the adventurous part. We enjoyed the mussels, cod fish ball, croquette, codfish salad (like potato salad), Serrano ham, and calamari. We did not enjoy the sardines nor those shell things (don't know the name):

At first we thought they were just decorative, but then we realized we had been given over-sized toothpicks so that we could pull the meat out of the shell. Now I've eaten and enjoyed escargot, but it's covered in garlicky sauce. This appeared to be "plain." Just as B was about to just go for it and put the whole lump of grey meat in his mouth, the nice guy next to us warned us not to eat the front. Huh? We literally had to ask him to point to the "front" since it all looked the same to us. That sealed the deal for us, and (un)fortunately, neither one of us tried it.

The paella came out a bit later and was delicious, with a combination of meat, fish, and shellfish. There was even part of a lobster tail on top. We washed everything down with a yummy Cabernet savignon and then rolled ourselves back to the hotel. Thank goodness for that walk back!

Total steps: 17,650