September 11th, Monday: Day 13

The beautiful view from our hotel room!

Today, all of us were upset because we were leaving the next day. I had enjoyed this trip with a burning passion but it's always good to see family again, and too much togetherness had made me a bit restless some times. Although we were leaving soon, we all decided to go out with a bang and enjoy this day as much as we could. We started off well by getting up pretty early at around 6 AM. I first peered out the window and being 20 stories up, the view was incredible. We were all ready by 6:30 and sprinted to the elevator. Mason must've still been hyped from his 5 cans of Mountain Dew because he believed he could beat us by taking the stairs, opposed to the elevator. It was a nice effort, but the elevator came before he even made it halfway down the hall. Once we got to the lobby, we entered the cafeteria and sat down to eat. We had a famous meal of tortillas, Pan Con Tomate, and 

Tortillas with Pan Con Tomate in the background.

magdalenas. We were halfway done when Mason finally emerged from the stairwell, sweating profusely. After our breakfast, we rushed out to our rental car to get moving to our first destination, El Puerto de Barcelona. The drive would take some time, so we all sat back and relaxed. Except Tyler. Tyler was panicking again because he accidentally stepped in a puddle at our hotel, and feared he would lose them at the harbor. We recommended some fine Crocs for him because they are waterproof! Tyler was thoroughly pleased by the thought. After a couple more minutes, we arrived at the

El Puerto De Barcelona with it's numerous boats!

harbor! We hopped out and shielded our eyes from the bright sun that had just risen. As we glanced ahead of us, we saw a numerous amount of boats and people. The scenery was beautiful as the very blue water reflected the yellow sun. We were all in awe as we stared at the numerous people, and the beautiful technology of Spain. Technology: The boats of Spain are mainly used for recreational us like cruising, opposed to the fishing craze in the United States. The boats usually have sleek, aerodynamic designs for fast and smooth cruising. Since Spain is such an expansive and gorgeous place, cruising is very common to view much of it. Many of the boats are so well-crafted that they are basically floating houses. Some include tables, chairs, beds, sinks, and couches. Along with these luxury items, the price tag is not as welcoming. These boats can range from €30,000 to €1,000,000 ($31,995 - $1,066,500). We finally decided to check out the boats, and see if we could maybe even catch a ride on one. The

Sunseeker - Predator 64 from the rear

boardwalks were expansive and intricate, each leading to a different set of boats. As we walked, we picked out ones that looked coolest to us. Mine was a Sunseeker - Predator 64, a yacht, which came with a sink, couch, sun roof, jet ski, a large deck, and a nice table. It was almost a floating house. We walked over to the man next to it and asked him the price of it, which was conveniently $990,000 over our budget. After we

The Astondoa - 46 Fly from the rear

walked a bit more, we came across another enormous boat called the Astondoa - 46 Fly which was a Flybridge boat. A Flybridge boat contains an open deck above the main bridge of a vessel, typically equipped with controls (kind of like a double-decker boat). This one, we absolutely loved, and really lived up to the name of "house boat". There were 3 cabins with beds, a TV, couches, a kitchen, and a dining room, along with 2 washrooms. This one also had a hefty price that was $150,000 more than our original budget. We decided to settle down from the big boats and find a tour guide to give us a ride for a cheap price. After a bit of asking around, we eventually found a nice man

The Wellcraft - Portofino from the side

to give us a ride on his Wellcraft - Portofino which was almost a dream come true. The Wellcraft was in the motor yacht category, meaning it was half a yacht, half motor boat. The man was being extremely gracious and said we could ride for a total of €60 ($63.99), and we all got extremely excited. Chris and I had to connive Tyler that he would be okay and not "fall in to the water". Tyler had a great fear of sharks, but we convinced him to come along. We geared up, got onto the boat, and pulled out of the dock. All of us were sitting in the rear, which gave us a nice view from behind. We pulled out of the port and passed by many boats before we finally made it to the Balearic Sea. We were out pretty far, but we could still the beautiful beaches and shops hugging the coast. Our tour guide said we would be going up the coast to Port Olimpic which was about a 3 mile stretch. It may be a short distance, but we were starting to make frequent stops to look into the water, and perform various activities. At our 3rd stop, we looked back towards the coast and saw huge hotels and numerous restaurants. Our tour guide suddenly told us to look towards the ocean, and we saw many dolphins hopping out of

The dolphins that were pretty close to our boat!

the water! It was an incredible sight to see because it was my first time seeing one! We were all staring over the edge until we had noticed Tyler was once again missing. We thought he had gone overboard until we saw him emerge from the cabin below, looking a bit pale. He was pretty sea sick so he had tried to sleep below deck. The boat then picked up speed and we all smiled as the front of the boat started to pick up out of the water. We were moving very fast as the boat was slicing through the water. Before we knew it, we were pulling into the next port and docking. We handed the tour

Port Olimpic from the docks!

guide the money, thanked him graciously, and headed to the nearest bathroom for Tyler who had a slightly upset stomach. Mason then helped find us a bus to take us back to our rental car so we could head back to the hotel. We had a pretty eventful morning and afternoon, and were ready to head out for a fun evening. Our next destination would be the Gaudi Exhibition Center after we napped, ate, and picked up some Tylenol.

-A few hours later at around 4:30 PM-

After a long nap and an ultimate bottle flipping competition (Rohan and I were in the finals because everybody else got out on the first round), we started the drive to the Gaudi Exhibition Center. The Gaudi Exhibition Center is surrounded by the works of Antoni Gaudi, a famous architect who constructed the Sagrada Familia. We heard that it was a place we had to visit, so of course we were going to see it. As we pulled up to the Center, we could already see this place meant business because of the architecture. After visiting all of Gaudi's buildings, it was nice to wrap up with an overview of how and why these buildings were created. We walked through and saw many different things. Miniature models of buildings,

informative videos, and a complete overview of Gaudi. Although learning really isn't my type of thing, I actually enjoyed the visit because it really provided us with some insight and life lessons. When we were just about finished, Mason proclaimed "Last one to the car is paying for dinner!", which was a completely horrible idea. Five guys running through an exhibit with fine works of art would surely meet a disaster. Mason was already ahead of all of us, but Rohan and I were gaining on him with Chris in close quarters, and Tyler

The picture we sniped of Tyler tripping over a trashcan.

was nowhere to be found. As Mason turned a corner, he knocked over a trashcan that crashed with a loud "bang!". We all hurdled it until Tyler, slowly trotting along, tripped over it. We all sprinted back, picked him up, and ran to our car to get out of there quickly. Luckily, nobody was injured. After our nearly fatal race, we decided to go back to our hotel and find a very nice place to eat for our last night.

Indigenous Meal: Pan Con Tomate
Pan Con Tomate is a very famous Tapas meal, and is also very simple with only 5 ingredients - Bread, tomato, olive oil, garlic, and salt. It was originally developed by the Catalans, who resided in south east Spain as well as south west France. To make it, you only need to toast some bread, grind up tomatoes, and place the tomatoes onto the bread. (From SeriousEats.com)