You lose some...

This ranked as one of my not so favorite all time vacations! Barcelona, Spain October~2012!

This had a little to do with Barcelona, a lot to do with circumstance, and a whole lot to do with attitude.

The youngest expat was at the end of being very, very sick, the weather was horrible, and so was my attitude.

I do the family vacation planning and I have to say 98% of the time, I do a pretty good job. Well, this was one of my failures.

Barcelona is ranked as one of the best cities in the world to visit, and even through my negativity, I could see it! It would be an amazing city to visit on a sunny day, or for a long romantic weekend with your spouse, but not with 2 very grumpy kids, a husband who now had the flu and mom who was well...done with sick!

I investigated Barcelona, got advice from friends, heard all of the wonderful stories. Although, I have to admit, when I booked for five days, I did question if it may be a bit too long. It was, by about 3 days.

We visited the Boqueria Market, the Park de Guell and the Sagrada Familia all in the first two days. Great, we had 3 more full days to go. There was no chance of a beach day....it was raining! The kids were sick of looking at "old" things...in the rain, and my husband was getting sicker by the day, how much would it be to change our flights???

La Boqueria Market

Sagrada Familia

Everyone had raved about this vibrant, colorful city and I just kept wondering; "Are we in the same place that they were all talking about?"

The Barcelona that I experienced was FULL of tourists, souvenirs and con-artist street performers. It was so crazy that one night after dinner as I sat reading my book, my husband took the boys "hooker hunting". Apparently the area that we were staying in was known for their evening entertainment~again, great planning on my part! So off they went. They never did see any, but my husband had the oldest expat convinced that the scantly glad lady with the dinner menu was actually handing out menus of her services as opposed to the different paella that her restaurant was serving, and I won't even get into the make-out session my youngest witnessed through the window of our hotel!

When we boarded our flight home, we were all more then ready. All of the illness was over and the sun had begun shining again, but we were beyond ready for our home. Barcelona wasn't all frustration. The food was amazing and the Sagrada Familia blew us all away. I guess if we had to "lose some" this wasn't a bad place to be!

Sagrada Familia