This was the day Ari arrived and we were very excited to finally be a whole family unit.  Andrew and I let Ruthie and Eitan sleep in (Eitan insisted the night before that he wanted to come along to greet big bro but when the early morning came he did his usual grunt and rolled over).  We took off for the closet Aerobus stop about 10 minutes walk from the apartment.  While finding the stop was no issue, when the first bus to the airport terminal we needed arrived, the driver  –  the first and only surly person we encountered in the city – would not let us on without exact change.  Sigh…not something Andrew had expected, so he hauled it to the nearest few open businesses in search of coinage.  Success came quickly thanks to a kind local merchant,  and within 20 minutes or so we were walking into the airport to wait for Ari.

It seemed like it took forever for Ari to get through customs and as we were craning necks to try to spot him he snuck up behind us having exited through a door out of our line of sight.  It was great to see him  –  I felt we were now in some way complete heading into the next leg of our adventure.

When we got back to the Eixample, we dropped Ari with the other kids to be reunited and Andrew and I had a chance to have coffee with Nick Allen, an American transplant not unlike us.  Nick moved his family – wife and two teenage kids – to Barcelona about 6 months ago, and the rationale was the same…because they could, they did.  The family lived in a small commune-like  town in northern California and basically picked up and made the move with about a month from the time they decided to actually moving.  That’s efficient and amazing, to be sure!  Nick is an entrepreneurial spirit  like Andrew and they hit it off right away.   The teens attend the American School of Barcelona so we are getting good insights on that aspect of our decision-making as well.  I believe we will get to know Nick and family better when we move.

After Ari took a short nap – we encouraged him to try to stay up as long as possible to get on Spain time – we all hopped the metro with intent to explore Mt Tibidabo, where there is a monastery and amusement park among other things.  To our chagrin, we’d picked a day that these attractions were closed and even the quaint cable car that take you up the mountain was not running.  This will be one for our return trips!

We gave Ari a Metro and walking tour of the Las Ramblas-Gotic-Barcelonetta areas and got to take a walk through the nearly ancient Boqueria – the enclosed and humongous indoor farmers market just off Las Ramblas.  Because it was the holiday season the market was literally wall-to-wall people.  There were stalls selling all sorts of gift items but the real attraction was the incredible range of fruits and vegetables (many I didn’t recognize as they were likely  regional delicacies)…and then there was the amazing seafood array:  octopus, sardines in every shape and pickledsaltedfried form you can fathom, clams and mussels, whole local fish,  shrimp and other crustaceans…and the  infamous pig hindquarters that seemed to hang in the window of every  tapas bar and restaurant.  Ruth could not get used to this (or the seafood with legs and eyes) and avoided those aisles with a vengence. The boy, however, loved the novelty of it all and had fun taking pictures with the hanging hoofed wonders.

Eitan got a “bee in his bonnet” wanting to play pick up basketball for some reason after all this running around, so we got back to the apartment, changed clothes, and while the boys played at the nearby community club, Andrew and I actually got to do a good workout.  We were fortunate to be able to sign up for one-day passes to use a very nice facility in the Eixample  just a few blocks from where we were staying and we used it a number of times while there.

Later we headed for dinner at a small neighborhood restaurant recommended by one of the hotels in the area – call Maria’s (on the Gran Via). It was after 9pm by the time we actually sat down to dinner, and Ruth opted to sit this meal out and relax at the apartment.  We treated ourselves to great paella with lobster, lovely wine, and the boys went for some scrumptious dessert.  Great day!