Sunday, February 17, 2013

Liestal Fire Festival

We got home late Saturday night from Barcelona.  On Friday we went to the aquarium which is said to be the best in Europe.  It was pretty spectacular.  We walked around some more, found the Gaudi Palace (not much of a palace), had some more Dunkin Donuts, went to the markets, and then went back to our room early so we could rest before going to the Magic Fountain show that we heard was really cool and is only on weekend nights.  Thanks to me and still feeling effects of the flu. we never made it back out.  We watched the  show on Youtube and pretended we weren't so lazy.






The next seven days are days I would like to soon forget.  From Monday to Sunday I fought a cold and horrible cough.

This weekend was Fasnacht.  It's another crazy festival where the Swiss dress up, throw confetti, eat, drink, and have a parade.  Josh and Keith went to the parade, Kelly went sledding with her friend Lara, and I stayed home and coughed.






Nathan and Josh

Sunday was the craziest festival to date.  The Hale's picked us up and we met Monique and Hans for dinner.  After dinner we drove to Liestal for the annual fire festival.  It started as a mild parade with bands and people pushing floats.  Then we saw coming around the corner, people with huge torches and small wagons on fire.  The wagons and the fires kept getting bigger and bigger.  It was so crazy.  We had shoved our way to the front of the parade route so the kids could see and the lady behind us said in German,  You are going to burn. (She was right.)  As the fires progressively got bigger we had to hide our faces and were all brushing off glowing embers as they landed on us.  By the end the kids and I ran for cover and got off the front row.





Kelly's hat on fire.






Taylor Hale and Josh




Thursday, February 7, 2013

Barcelona - Day Three

Barcelona is a beautiful place.  The skies were blue but it was a little cold and windy.  We had a great day seeing the sites.

Park Guell - Gaudi Park





This could be the world's biggest vending machine.
Placa de Catalunya

Casa Battló



La Monumental, bullfighting arena
Torre Agbar
Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família: Started: 1882, Scheduled completion: 2026

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Barcelona's Beautiful Beaches

I had no idea that Barcelona had miles and miles of sandy white beaches and the bluest water I have ever seen.  We rented electric scooters today and rode for two hours along the boardwalk.  It was safe and easy.  They had paths just for bikes and things were pretty quiet today along the beach.  Toward the end of our ride the wind picked up and after two hours we were all ready to drop off the scooters and get some lunch.






We had a swan for lunch and then took the metro to the Sagrada Familia.  Keith and I had seen it about eight years ago and unfortunately there is a lot more scaffolding around the exterior at the moment.  We bought a ticket to go up the towers but it was so windy we didn't really enjoy the views.  The basilica was amazing and we all enjoyed the colors and the cool details of this amazing piece of art.





We are in one of the most beautiful basillica's in the world and guess who is playing on her i-pod.