Babymoon in Barcelona - part 2

Continuing with our Spanish adventures.

One of the places we decided to visit was the Museum of Chocolate. The only reason CJ agreed to going there right now is because I have had a huge aversion to chocolate since the beginning of pregnancy. Under any other circumstances, a visit to that place would just be asking for trouble. I would have OD'd or gone nuts just from the smell... haha...

 This display case welcomes all guests as soon as you open the door...

 Your ticket is a bar of dark chocolate. Oh my!

 Check out some of the cool chocolate creations on display there.

Continuing with the foodie theme... we enjoyed fabulous local tapas and paellas a couple of times... CJ sampled local beers and delicious Sangria. We had a long discussion how this is NOT the cheap, cheesy wine which sorority girls used to get drunk on in college... It really is not.

Here is CJ's sangria and my bottle of water.. haha...

 At one of the places we ate, the owner brought out a couple of shots of some local liquor (can't remember the name) and CJ had to down both since he now drinks for two.

Several times we walked down the famous La Rambla, long pedestrian boulevard, which in nicer weather would have been full of musicians and street performers. But this time it was just multitudes of souvenir shops and tons of tourists. Still pretty cool.

And of course we had to visit the most famous landmark of the city, the Basilica La Sagrada Familia. It has been under construction since the late 1800s and it will not be completed until sometime in the 2030s... It is a huge structure, visible clearly from amongst the otherwise flat Barcelona landscape (look back at the previous Barcelona post how tall those towers are). It is different than anything you've seen before, ornate in a very peculiar modernist style and simply very impressive. Here are a few shots.
The sides with the spires are actually SIDES, not front or back, though you can get in through them. The front has not been constructed yet.

 That's when it all started...

 Look how ornate the ceilings are...

The pilars are humongous.

And the real crazy thing is that on that exact Sunday, the Pope was supposed to visit there later in the day for an anniversary of the Basilica's dedication. The church was already being prepped for that and pretty much right after we got in all the tourist lines got shut down and that was the end of visits for the day. We were so lucky we got in!!!

And of course we had to talke a walk on the beach... When I was planning this trip I pictures us sitting on the beach in the sun during the day, but since we had crappy weather most of the time it did not work out exactly that way. Still we had to go touch the Mediterranean.

It was a great trip despite the rainy parts. I would defintely recommend everyone visit Barcelona for the great sights, great fod and great, fun times.

Babymoon in Barcelona - part 1

We took a 4 day long trip to Spain to celebrate the upcoming arrival of baby Kate. Seems like these days you can't have a baby without going on a Babymoon...

Geneva has fantastic air connections with Barcelona, not only timing wise but also money wise. Our two round trip tickets cost $190. Amazing! And 4 nights at a 4 star hotel within walking distance of the beach was $390. Amazing!!
The weather was iffy. Forecast said rain all weekend, and it did rain every day BUT only in the evenings when we were already done with sightseeing, so really, it worked out really well.

The city is full of modernist architecture and landmarks. Many of them creations of Antonio Gaudi, a very famous early 20th centuty architect and sculptor.
We climbed up a million stairs and escalators to Park Guell, one of Gaudi's creations. You get super views of the city from there...

 How about this belly...

From there, you can see the Sagrada Familia, another Gaudi creation, and probably most famous attraction in Barcelona. More about that later.

We also saw a residential building designed by Gaudi, called La Pedrera. It was commissioned by a rich Barcelona woman and when it was built the owner became the laughing stock of the city due to the building's peculiar shape. Of course now it makes all kinds of money as a Gaudi landmark... so who's laughing now...

We also went to the Montjuic hill to the National Art Museum of Catalunya...

(This is the view from the top of the stairs facing the opposite direction. Pretty awesome. And look at those clouds. Crazy weather followed us the entire time...)

...and to the Olympic Stadium which was the site of the 1992 Summer Olympics. It is shocking to see how small and old fashioned that place is. But we were surprised to find out that the original structure and sports fields date back to the 1920s and were refurbished for the 1992 Olympics.

We also went to see the Christopher Columbus monument in the Barcelona port. The statue marks the spot where Columbus landed after returning from his American discovery voyage. He is supposed to be pointing towards the new continent.

And here's CJ having some fun riding Columbus's lions.

We stumbled upon a really cool park, called Jardins de Joan Brossa which had this amazing mammoth statue!

Here's a cute family shot. Ps. my butt really does NOT stick out that far... I had both our phones in my back pocket... see how that bulge is kind of squared?...

to be continued...

Upcoming trip

Guess where we're going next month....

YES! South Africa! I am so excited! CJ has to go to Johannesburg on business and I am tagging along. We'll be there 8 days, and since the seasons are flip flopped in the southern hemisphere we will experience some fabulous summer temps in the winter while there. CJ has to work for a good portion of the trip (entertaining clients so it's not all drudgery...) but we still get a lot of time off to explore and enjoy ourselves. I am looking forward to lounging by the pool (I will be 28-29 weeks then) and CJ is excited about the wildlife safari. I can't attend since they will be going in Jeeps or the like and pretty much offroading the whole time. Still, sitting by the pool in nice weather sounds awesome. Doing research already!

Honey, can we register for her at REI?...

Yes, he asked me that.... Haha...

But I totally understand. After all, we're very outdoorsy people and we're planning to stay that way after she is here, and we're hoping to make her into a little outdoorsy baby.

I made a trip to a few local baby stores and experienced MAJOR, though fully expected, sticker shock. I have two things to say:
1. How do people here do this at these price levels????
and
2. I will NOT be shopping here, thank you vey much.

Instead, I am doing some careful pre-planning for all the shopping I will have to do when we come home for Christmas. I have put together a registry of the things I will need to get at Buy Buy Baby. They are part of the Bed Bath & Beyond group and they accept those awesome 20% off coupons. Score!!! And after all we found all the outdoors related items there, so no REI registry was necessary... haha... We are planning to bring extra couple of suitcases home and will be shipping over a couple of big boxes with baby stuff if necessary.

Here are a couple of things we are (especially CJ is) super excited about.

Jogging stroller:
It's a no brainer right? For people like us.... I looked around at the different brands, Bob, Baby Jogger and a few others, and this one won. Baby Jogger Summit XC. Sturdy, good suspension, folds super easily. Awesome! I love the little demo video on Baby Jogger website.

Baby Carrier:

Again, no brainer, right? We go walking/hiking all the time... Oh we can't wait to take her along for walks, hikes, trips etc. Everyone seems to have some sort of a carier these days and CJ can't wait to be able to use this with her. We chose to register for the Ergo Baby Carrier. It comes with an Infant Insert, which I also registered for, and with that, you can use it pretty much as soon as she is born. I've read that the Ergo is easier on the back than other brands, which was confirmed by a friend who actually owns both. Plus, it is supposed to feel comfy for longer (and heavier babies).

In addition to this carrier we are also planning to get a hiking backpack with a baby seat and sun shade for when she is a few months old and can hold her head up. Our friends, Kyle and Leah have one and we LOVE the idea. Unfortunately, none of the ones at Buy Buy Baby, or REI for that matter, looked like something we wanted. We will have to look around some more. If anyone has brand/model recommendations, let us know. Something like this would be great:

Video Monitor

This one cracks me up.... Everyone needs a baby monitor, right? But ever since we saw several of our friends use those video monitors CJ has been super obsessed with getting one too. This particular one, Motorola Video Monitor has a 3.5 inch color monitor! So not only can you hear the baby fuss, you can actually see WHY she is fussing AND you can play little soothing tunes for her. It has a selection of 5 lullabies which can be remotely turned on. I think CJ is planning to put surveilance on this little girl as soon as she comes out so no boys try to get near.  Such a protective Daddy...

So these are just a few highlights of what we registered for. Obviously, you can tell we are so excited to have this little munchkin be part of our lives...

Walking around Geneva - Occupy: Swiss Edition

I was walking by my favorite park Parc Des Bastions (I posted about it HERE) the other day and I noticed protest signs and tents with people camped all over. OCCUPY has made its way to Switzerland! Too funny!

AIWC hike - St.Sephorin to Lutry

I went on another fun hike with the American Women's Club a week or so ago. This time we took the train to St.Sephorin and walked the UNESCO World Heritage trail through the vinyeyards of Lavaux to Lutry. It was a pretty strenuous walk, mostly up the steep hlllsides where the vines are planted. Super tough, especially now that I have this 5 month heavy belly to carry around.  See the sign below with all the trails? See the last (the longest) 3 hour one? Yeah, that's the one we were on. Here are some pictures from the day. I was exhausted when I got home but I have to say it was a ton of fun again and made me feel really good about still staying active.

Wne tasting anyone?

We get our new ride!

Part of CJ's work contract here is that we get a company car (no gasoline subsidy though, so it's not all free and awesome). When we were getting ready to move in April, we received a list of cars we could choose from and it was a no brainer. We had a choice of Audis, Volkswagens, and BMW's, sedans, station wagons and sportscars.

There was one car on the list we knew right away we had to have. The new BWM X3 SUV. Oh my! What fun! We went to a BMW dealership in Charlotte to check it out and took one for a test ride and we loved it! With our plans to expand the family in near future, we knew this was the right car. So we placed the order and up till now we have been waiting for delivery. Yes, it took 7 months to get the sucker...

Interestingly pretty much ALL expats from the US ended up ordering that exact car. I guess all of us realized that buying a brand new beamer at home probably would not happen, so this is the best chance to have fun with it... To make things interesting we were told that all X3's, both the US and European models (because they are a little different) are made in Greenville, SC. How funny! We come all the way to Europe to get a car built only a couple of hours away from where we live back in the US...

We were also told that because of the interest in this model and then the long shipping time, we would have to wait till December to get it. In the meantime, we were driving another company car, a nice Mercedes sedan. Well a couple of weeks ago, we finally got word that out car was arriving! 1.5 months early! How fun!

So finally we said goodbye to our temporary ride...

And hello to our fabulous new one! Here she is! What a beauty!

And here is the delivery truck at CJ's office bringing all those X3's for all the expats. Hilarious!!!

Oh and yeah, it's a stick shift.... Good thing that this is what I grew up with and learned to drive on!! Experience with my good ole' VW Jetta is coming in handy.

I can't wait to take this puppy out for a fun ride all over the place!

Her name is...

...no, not Lola...

We talked about baby names a lot leading up to the big 20-week ultrasound. We read the lists of the 1000 most popular names according to Social Security Office, and honestly, some of the names.... I just scratch my head and think "Whaaaa?..." Anyways, picking THE ONE turned out to be fairly easy once we knew she was a she.

In any case, we've decided on our baby girl's name, which will be:

Katherine Anne

or for short:

Kate

Not Katie, Kathy or Kat.   It's Katherine or Kate.
I've loved this name for as long as I can remember, CJ did not have any major objections, and actually came to love it as much as I do really quickly. Once we knew we were having a girl it was a pretty easy first choice. It is simple, classic, a REAL name. In my mind, Kate is a strong, independent, elegant girl. She's smart and creative, likes to laugh and makes friends easily. She is neither too prissy nor too boyish. Katherine or Kate, it just feels right. And it goes GREAT with our last name!!!

So in a few months we will proudly introduce our little Kate to all of you.

And since you can't have a post without a picture, here is a picture of the first baby gift we have received. Our Geneva friends Sam and Samantha brought this for us from one of their trips here. Too cute!