Encontramos el sol (We found the sun!): Barcelona

We made it to Barcelona, the second largest city in Spain, at 6:30 last night after a LONG day on train. We did start some pretty good card games of Speed and War on the train though, resulting in the first every draw tie of Speed for either of us.
They speak Catalan, a mixture of Spanish and French, here but understand Spanish (including my American/ mexican Spanish) most of the time. After we found our hostel last night, near a metro station but out of downtown, we found the famous street, Las Ramblas. There is something for everyone there as far as we could tell. Didn't go back in the day light today but found dinner and our first glass of Sangria there last night. It was fun to see the street with the lights, shopping and restaurants but it is definately a tourist place. We were always greeted in English and menus were in English before any other language everywhere.
Today is turned into a BEAUTIFUL day, in the mid 60's and sunny - finally!! We found a place on the end of a metro line Josh heard about from a friends blog. It is the highest point of the city, the peak of Tibidabo, 512 m (1,680 ft) high. You can get off the metro, take a tram to the top of the city then a Funicular railway to the top (a tram going up the hill). BUT we hoofed it up the whole way, at times blazing our own trail. It was a perfect day, even going up in a tank top and Josh in shorts!! At the top it turns out is an AMAZING view of the city as well as a huge amusement park. Cool to see, but almost a let down with the commercial atmosphere. Since we are here during low season though, this was shut down so there were very few people around. At the top we found a little restaurant off the main attraction area that was finally very Spanish. The lady running the show only spoke Spanish, took our order then went in the back and made it all herself!! All at a very resonable price and Josh got to try the traditional Paella. This is served hot in a skillet with rice, veggies, shrimp and calamari.
This afternoon was spent finding the Olympic village and walking barefoot in the beaches of the Mediterranean Sea!! A beautiful comfertable night, we even saw our first nudist on the beach.

An early night here, the computers cant load pictures from my camera so hopefully soon enough we will catch up on those. A few more days in Barcelona and hopefully a night train to northern italy by wednesday.