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Home Sweet Home

Well, we finally found a house! We just saw the inside today and we move in on December 22. The house is built out of sandstone-quarried locally, and is on the main street in Landstuhl. Here the basic first pictures, the current tenants' things are still in the house.
The Outside

The Kitchen

The master Bathroom

The Stairs

The Guest Bath

The Guest Suite

Barcelona-Our evening adventure

The magic fountain from a distance

The magic fountain in the background

Move over Vegas

The flame at the top is from the Olympics

Las Ramblas-the main drag

Barcelona 2

La Boqueria Market-A delight to the senses

MMMMMM-Smoothies

Delicious funny looking fruit

I guess its pretty lame to get so excited over produce, but when you live in a county where potatoes are the freshest vegetable on your plate, produce would excite you too!

Christopher Columbus left from Barcelona in search of India, he ran into the Americas which would, ironically lead to the downfall of Barcelona as the major port city of Spain and the Mediterranean.

A Gaudi house

The biggest vending machine we have ever seen

Barcelona-2

A little video of the beautiful fountains in Barcelona.

Barcelona-1

We arrived in Barcelona, nice and early. So, after grabbing a quick breakfast we headed off to Sagrada Familia, the final work of the architect, Gaudi.
Construction began on the church in 1882 and is not planned to be completed until 2026. It was amazing to walk through a masterpiece. There are a lot of big churches in Europe but very few that are being built as you stand inside them.
Gaudi was a lover of nature and wanted the inside of his church to look like a forest with light filtering through the tree branches-perfect!
Unlike other churches built in Gaudi's time or the present the whole church is cast in plaster in a smaller scale so studies can be done on both the integrity and the aesthetic of the finished product. Gaudi left extensive plans when he dies in 1926 and craftsman still use "old world" techniques along with new techology-such as using lasers to help cut stone.

Absolutely breathtaking!

The Nativity Facade

A current sculptor-Subirachs-designed the amazing doors-they are gorgeous

Jake and Pam in front of Sagrada Familia

These little wooden logs were at all the markets. A local said it is a local custom to buy the log and feed it oranges and goodies, then near Christmas the log gets chopped up and all the kids get presents.

Churros and chocolate-the chocolate is like pudding.

Old Town at night-Jake playing with the camera waiting for Pam to be done shopping

The crest of Barcelona

Just looks like a few scribbles until you find out a young artist named Picasso designed the mural.

A pretty courtyard

The Gothic cathedral

The cathedral again- and beloved sunny blue sky!

A man hole cover-I guess it is tradition now

The four surviving roman columns in Barcelona

First snow

It snowed today. Throughout the majority of the day, the light flakes were just floated around, not sticking to anything. Jake and I sat down to watch a movie around 7pm. When the movie was done we were heading to bed when Jake glanced out the window to notice everything was white. Then Jake said, "Do you think it is odd our cars are the only ones in the parking lot." Peculiar at 9pm on a Sunday night? Not if you know how steep the driveway is to get out of the parking lot. Following the Germans lead we bundled up to secure my car for the morning.

Can you make out the two car like mounds in the left-middle?

The driveway-a little blurry-sorry

Jake cleaning off the BMW

The poor Mini-I wish I had a big wool sweater for the little guy

Me and Jake

Snowy driveway sign- Probably says something about dumb Americans

Trier

Trier is the oldest cities in Germany founded on or before 16 BC (thanks Wikipedia).

The market main area.

Pam (freezing her butt off) in the market

Jake in the market

St. Gangolf church from Porta Nigra

A view out of one of the many windows at Porta Nigra

A view down the main market street to St. Gangolf church.

Porta Nigra, the best preserved Roman City Gate north of the Alps

Even the manhole covers are charming

Chocolate houses all ready for the Christmas Market

Jake found his souvenir (sorry Jake, we have one of those already)