Parc de la Crueta del Coll - pool!

Today was another day in which we followed our kids’ lead and had a very relaxing, fun day that felt like vacation.  We escaped the heat by going to a wading pool/ lake in Parc de la Crueta del Coll, up in the hills, not far from Parc Guell that we visited two days ago.  We took Metro to a stop that is so new it’s not even in our guidebook.  The pool is about 2 feet deep and quite large, built into a former quarry.  We spent almost 4 hours here, relaxing and splashing.  When we arrived, we bet that we might be the only English speakers, but we ended up next to some Brits who have lived in Barcelona for 3 years but this was their first visit to the pool.  We congratulated ourselves on getting off the tourist grid.  

Sullivan checks out the hot playground before we hit the cool pool (in the background).
Note the gorgeous hillside in the background.

We all enjoyed the water today!

Feeling refreshed, on the way back to the Metro.

The kids were hiding in Madeleine's closet trying to avoid bedtime,
and Madeleine requested that we include this photo in the blog!

Henry hiding too.

Since we had such a relaxing day without a whole lot of adventure (by our standards), we will now resort to some “filler” material… First off, the apartments where we stayed in London and Paris both had combo washing machines/ dryers.  I had never heard of these and was intrigued until I realized what crappy dryers they are.  Some of our clothes are still wrinkled from their ordeal in the combo washer/ dryer in London.  Anyway, here in Barcelona, we only have a washer, but there are clotheslines outside the “sun room” windows, and we have a healthy stock of clothespins.  Madeleine has been the main clothes hanger so far, but since she had already gone to bed, Nik got his turn tonight and commented on how satisfying it is to hang the clothes out to dry and not be using any electricity.  I am slowly getting over my fear that we will lose some clothing off the line.  We are 3 floors up, and the main floor apartments have patios below us.   Hopefully we won’t have to go begging to them to give us our clothes back.

Madeleine at work.

As expected, we are enjoying exploring the grocery stores and finding lots of interesting things:

Meat is everywhere!  Here we have dried ham (is it a hock?).

And here we have "Bimbo" white squishy-looking bread with a Smurf on it. 

The Smurf movie marketing people appear to have targeted France and Spain heavily.  In France we purchased mustard in a Smurf-decorated jar that can be used as a glass now that the mustard is gone.  Yay, one more thing to bring home!  In Paris, Smurfs are referred to as "Les Schtroumpfs" (though I think that sounds German).  

Tomorrow we plan to take the train 30 minutes down the coast to the town of Sitges to visit some less crowded beaches and eat some paella.

- E