The Stewart Family: Vacations

10.17.2021

Barcelona, Costa Brava & French Riviera

Brian found crazy cheap flights to Barcelona and gave me a blinking yellow light to move forward with buying plane tickets! (This "blinking yellow light" is a joke from this trip. The stop lights would blink yellow when it was time to go, but meant to proceed with caution. instead of being green like in the US. We also noticed when people would slow down on the freeways that they would turn on their hazard lights for a few seconds to warn drivers behind them.) We planned our trip for the beginning of October and it worked out great for our family because we didn't have anything big like a softball tournament or dance competitions. Just the usually craziness of running kids to sport practices, and games.

I am still so surprised we were able to go on this trip because there were so many changes happening with covid involving travel to the point where it wouldn't have been surprising if Europe wasn't accepting leisure travelers at all. I also didn't exactly know what we would need with covid tests or euro health cards until a few days before we were leaving. Our airline didn't release any concrete information until a few days before we left. It ended up being super easy and we both had a rapid test the day before we left. I actually had taken two additional covid tests earlier that week because I felt a little cold coming on. Talk about paranoia!!

Our flight was sooooo empty heading from Denver to Franfurt. Brian and I both slept around 5 hours straight thanks to a sleeping pill! While we were in Europe I kept having this feeling that we weren't that far from home. I attribute that to sleeping the entire time crossing the Atlantic and waking up so close to our destination. What was also so nice was it made it incredible easy to not have jet lag set in. When we arrived in Frankfurt we had been alerted to customs being delayed due to a computer problem. We were positive we were going to miss our connecting flight to Barcelona, and were both on the phone chatting with agents from the airline trying to get a seat on a later flight. They told us we had to wait until we missed our flight to book the next flight. We completely lucked out though and barely and I mean just barely made it onto the plane within minutes of them shutting the doors. We were the crazy travelers running through the airport that you see time to time!

We started our trip in Barcelona. I debated for days on what type of travel pass I should buy and ended up deciding on the Turbo Barcelona pass that included unlimited transportation on the subway and busses. access to all of the museums and the hop on hop off buss. It also included the Sagrada Familia, but when I went to book through the site all the time slops were gone so I took that off the packagae. If I could do it all again I would forgo buying a pass We used enough things on it that it paid for itself, but I still think I would just buy the things I wanted to go to as we went. It wasn't nearly as good of a pass that we have used in other places.

Thanks to news articles and watching a lot of youtube videos, we were made very aware of the pickpocketing problems in Barcelona. It is known as the worst city in the world for pickpockets. We luckily dodged that bullet and came away unscathed. We also felt relatively safe everywhere we went. It was the off season and there weren't huge crowds anywhere we went so that may be a reason why. The initial paranoia about the theft was a huge reason why I bought the Turbo Barcelona card though. As soon as we got off our plane we easily found the tourism booth where they had our transportation card and pass to get into all of our activities. Later on in the trip when we were back in Barcelona and also in Marseille we bought public transportation tickets on our own and it was of course such a easy process.

This is, I think, our fifth time to Europe and I love how all throughout the trip, certain places and experiences would flood our memories with past trip experiences we had experienced together. We had a lot of "remember when moments, that I am sure I won't remember when writing up this post, but were so fun to reminisce about together. We also took a gazillion pictures!! Brian started a google album with pictures from this trip I will have to link to to get the full effect.

ITENIERY

Oct 3 Travel Day

Oct 4-6 Barcelona

Oct 7-8 Carcasonne, France

Oct 9-10 Marseille, France & Casses (Parc National des Calanques)

Oct 11 Marseille & Sette (Costa Brava)

Oct 12 Cadaquez (Costa Brava)

Oct 13-14 Barcelona

Oct 15 Travel Day

Airplane selfie!

Not only was it empty, but it was so nice and new! We each found a row and converted it into a nice bed. I watched In The Heights off and on. (I didn't think it was that good)

We went on the harbor sea cruise that first day)

Then we walked around the Gothic Quarters.

We passed by a place where you could watch them make dumplings called Lady Dumpling. I a such a sucker for those type of places. This one was YUMMY!!

That night was our first experience with tapas which translates to small plate/portion. We went to Sensi Bistro and I was positive they would turn us away because anything I had read previously said that you have to make reservations for all dinner spots and everyone I saw going in had a reservation. Luckily they fit us in within a few minutes. This dish above was swimming in alcohol but the apples and sausages were delightful. We didn't take a picture of the others things we ate here.

Christopher Columbus

4.07.2019

Spring Break 2019 St. George

SWIMMIN'

The hotel we stayed in had fun murals in the hotel room and by the pool.

The girls got along best when they were in the pool playing. They spent a lot of hours in that pool which provided a lot of hours I could spend reading. I finished the book, Yellow Crocus. The girls made new friends each time they went swimming. Rosie decided to pick on/tease/flirt with a pair of brothers by dripping water on their hair and jumping and splashing in their personal space until they finally acknowledged her presence.

GOOD EATIN'

Pizza Factory

Brian and I went on a date to a Mexican restaurant and this art piece was so weird, I needed a picture to always remember it.

Nielson's Frozen Yogurt - we spent as much money there as we did on our most expensive meal in St. George. It was good, but we had to wait forever to get our order. Poor Sadie ended up dropping two of the ice creams right in the middle of the line of people when she was bringing them over to us.

Beaver Tacos

Rosie and Bree looked so similar eating their ice cream cones that I told them they looked like twins. Emmy wanted to know if she looked like Bree because everyone is always saying how much she looks like her.

So I got a picture of them too!

PLAYIN'

We hardly spent any time at the dinosaur all access park because it was so crowded. And it felt like one of the hottest days we were there. I did run into my cousin Emily though which was fun! I follow her on goodreads and we have been reading so many of the same books lately.

We ran into a friend from our ward in Smithfield at the trampoline jump house. I was expecting to run into more people we knew, but never saw anyone else.

Brian and I snuck away early one morning and did a session at the St. George temple. It is going to be closed for four years and I had only been inside for Devin and Neesha's wedding, but it was really fun to see the art work inside and have a nice morning with Brian.

HIKING

Pioneer Place - Our girls LOVE wandering and exploring. They complain quite a bit when they are hiking and have to stay on the trail. So this place is perfect for them. We went to the garden and up there to explore three times while we were there. I also woke up early one morning and found a trail run close by that I really enjoyed. Our hotel was just down the hill so it was a good place for us to hang out.