Ivan has arrived!

I know it's been a while since I have posted, but since Ivan arrived on Friday, it's been non-stop fun! Friday was a really fun day. I have been doing so much site seeing, it was really nice to just hang out with friends all day. Oriol did take us on a 15 minute run of the Barri Gotic area of downtown, but his tour was of all these little places that I never found and he had some fun historical facts for all of us.

After our quick little tour of the city, Jen, Ivan and I went back to Caelum (the tea shop that I went with Sergio to). It was so nice to sit and have some tea and just enjoy the seclusion from the city. By this time of the day- abotu 4 hours after Ivan had arrived, my brain was starting to go numb from all the Spanish. Hola this and Que tal that- ha ha ha! But it was cool to be able to follow conversations for a good hour or so. Luckily for me, Jen and Ivan stuck mostly to English at this time and I was able to recooperate and come back into the world of verbal communication.

After picking up Cristina from the Metro (she was working at Red Cross- Crux Roja) and meeting up with Oriol and Damian again, we went to dinner. It has not been easy to find many non-smoking restaurants, but we ended up at a place called El Roco. Jen compared it to an IHOP : ) ha ha ha! But it wasn't that bad. The food was much better than that, but the smell and some of the other patrons (not us of course!) did have a tint of IHOP to them : )

I convinced Ivan to join us for a drink at La Plata (my favorite bar so far). There Jen and I had some very intoxicating caipirinhas. We both had just one- and after the first one, I knew it was no good (Jen woke up the next day with a terrible splitting headache- FROM ONE DRINK!). The 5 of us (Oriol, Damian, Ivan, Jen and I) had an awesome time at Plata- okay, I had a fun time with them. We just sat at our own table, took silly pictures, and talked about everything. Definitely a great way to end a fun day!

Yea- Ivan's here!
The welcoming crew for Ivan- at the airport. Me, Ivan, Charles (Marc and Didier's child), Oriol, Didier, Charles' sister who was adopted by a great family and sees Charles on a regular basis (the families are close (for the kids) and is going to be vacationing with them in France), and Marc.







Jen says hello to Ivan!

















Cristina joins in on the fun too















Ivan likes standing on one leg. This is Placa del Rei. I don't know how I missed it, but this is a great spot.
















Placa del Rei













The tour group















Ivan and I trying to be taller than the other- I won, of course! I swear- I should have been a ballerina - ha ha ha!
















Placa de Sant Felp Neri. Oriol told us that all of those holes and dents in the wall were from the civil war (about 70 years ago). They would take civilians and execute them against the wall of this CHURCH!!!










Placa Sant Josep Oriol. Oriol was very excited to show us "his" placa- ha ha ha! This is Ivan taking a picture of Saint Oriol. Also, located in this Placa is















Iglesia de Santa Maria Del Pi. I did not really like this church. It was much smaller than the rest that I have been to- which is fine- but it was SO incredibly dark and depressing. However- there was one beautiful Roseta stained glass window...













This is definitely my favorite stained glass window I have seen yet.












The girls love "Their Baby!"













Meeting up with Oriol and Damian on Trafalgar (Oriol's street and the street of my old school).











The girls and I at dinner- IHOP (El Roco)











The boys at dinner- IHOP (El Roco)









Everyone wanted to take a picture and play with Marc's Vespa while he and his family are in France.










Jen y Damian












Don't worry- she's really not double fisting- the drink in her right hand is Ivan's "San Francisco"- non-alcoholic drink. If Jen only knew that the sip she was about to take was going to give her a terrible hangover the next day, she probably wouldn't have been smiling as much as she is in this picture.








Damian took a great shot of the group of us : ) My peeps!










A Few of the ridicuous pictures Ivan and I took together

Ivan and I practicing our modeling.














I was getting crap for ALWAYS having the same smile in EVERY picture, so I am trying on a new one.
















It's not nice to tickle Ivan!!