Tibidabo

Tibidabo!  Or, the mountain overlooking Barcelona with a church which glows at night (okay, maybe it's just lit up, not glowing) and a children's theme park.  What a great combination!  This place was the last on my touristy-things-to-do-list in Barcelona.  I went with one Cornell friend from my program, a Cornell friend on a different program (but also in Barcelona), and the friend of the second friend who is on the same other Barcelona program and also from Cornell.  (Confusing, eh?)

Getting to Tibidabo was an interesting adventure.  It involved 2 different trains, a tram, and a funicular.  Wow-- that's three different methods of transportation!  Here's the tram:

Waiting for the funicular to come and take us up the mountain.

And we're at the top!  (An hour after I left my residence).  The first thing you see as you walk out of the funicular terminal is the church, of course!  Apparently you can go to the very top, but the elevator ride costs 2 euros.  We figured that the views were already spectacular so it wasn't really worth it.

Next we wandered around the theme park part of the mountain.  At least all the little kids looked like they were having fun!

Then we got some pictures at the 'mirador' (viewpoint).

We saw signs pointing to another 'mirador' on the other side of the church so we decided to wander around a bit.  There really wasn't much to do there besides take pictures of the view, which seems a bit strange.  But then again, we were too tall for all of the rides (not that we wanted to go on any).

A butterfly!

A wedding at the church!

And then the crazy-colored funicular on the way back down the mountain.

We took the tram again from the base of the funicular (hey, we payed for a 2-way ticket). And we decided to walk back from that point instead of taking the train and stop for lunch somewhere on the way.  Charles (from my program) told us he knew of an 'American store' nearby, so of course we decided to walk back in that direction.  And the 'American store' lived up to its full expectations.  I bought Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. YUM.  And WHY didn't I find out about this store earlier???

Then for lunch at the first decent-looking and not-too-expensive place we could find.  I got a salad with goat cheese.  Typical.

Then we walked some more and ran into a street fair.  I love street fairs!!! I bought a red ring made from a mini coconut for 3 euros.

I 100% regret not buying one of the candies in the picture above.  They look sooo good.  So that was most of last Saturday... and now I only have one more day to go in Barcelona which will consist of packing and saying goodbyes.