Who uses the phrase “Tuckered out"?

Let me answer that – two people: Your Grandpa if you are over the age of 25. And me. And why wouldn’t I be (and Cleaver too!) after this whirlwind Holiday season!

We last left you after Paris and the warm up for Christmas with the 4 of us. 1 me, 1 Cleaver, and 2 Kliewer’s in Zurich for Christmas. A pretty relaxed few days actually. Wrapped up the year at work on the 23rd, went to church on the 24th, exchanged a few gifts, watched football and ate all day on Christmas day. Very nice. Definitely different than at home if only because we are in such a different place, but a very enjoyable Christmas.

Zaragoza

Then comes the 26th. Wake up call at 4:00 am and off to the airport we go for a week in Spain ending with NYE! So plan is to get the first flight to Barcelona, rent a car and hit the road. First stop Tarragona! It’s about an hour or so from Barcelona on the coast. We get there a bit before lunch for a quick site seeing trip and some lunch. Neat little town, had some Roman ruins and a nice old part of town. Was a sunny day a bit warmer than Zurich and a nice way to start the trip.

After a few hours in Tarragona we were back in the car and on to Zaragoza for the night. After a few adventurous laps through town we finally park the car and get to the hotel, freshen up and hit the town. Zaragoza turned out to be quite the find. We spent the evening doing what the Spaniards do and went from place to place eating tapas and enjoying a beverage. There were quite a few people out and apparently the norm is for people to roll the stroller / kid right on into the establishment and join the party. Nothing like having your 4th beer next to the Maclaren with a screaming 9 month old in it. Time for the next place I think.

Next day before moving on we did a few of the highlights in town which included the church of course. Little did we know that the church in Zaragoza would be absolutely amazing. A rare unexpected “Wow” moment. Just enormous in size and beautifully decorated. A few more things to see in town and back into the car we go.

Pamplona

Next stop is about 2 and a half hours away in Pamplona. Along the way is a little old town called Olite with a giant castle which we stopped at and did the self guided tour. Was pretty cool and had some great views, a perfect little stop.

We then arrived in Pamplona for a few days of eating, sightseeing and bull running. Pamplona turned out to be fun with several streets of nightlife, restaurants and of course tapas. We wandered around the old town, had some good food and wine and enjoyed our first night in town. Next day we set out to see the town. Started off with a tour of the Pamplona Cathedral which was interesting then decided to walk the “red” line on our free hotel map. This red line indicates the route of the running of the bulls which we had to do. Start to finish it’s probably about a half mile maybe so not too long and winds through the old town ending at the Plaza del Toro. The Plaza del Toro is the bullfighting ring which is a huge stadium that apparently holds about 19,000 people. A few more sights, a few more tapas and off to Barcelona for New Year’s!

Park Guell

We drove back to Barcelona, dropped off the car, and were on to the hotel for 3 fun filled nights. First order of business, meet up with our friends Ben and Carolyn who had been traveling through Spain for the holidays. After meeting up, we found a great little local restaurant with some traditional Catalonian food which was excellent. Then we went out on the town and had the first of 3 also traditional late Spain evenings.

Barcelona we had been to before and seen some of the main sights but it was still so much fun to walk around and explore. One good find was the Mercat La Boqueria which had all sorts of food stands and these great little packages of cut up fruit, which was delicious. Oh, and we went to McDonalds once, well twice if you count the airport. So good. One other cool find was the Park Guell which is a big outdoor park with all sorts of Antoni Gaudi designed structures and a pretty amazing view across the city and the sea.

Topping off the week was New Years Eve. We had made reservations at a restaurant rather than try to find something and fight the crowds and this turned out to be a great decision not only because it gave us a plan, but the restaurant was amazing. They planned out a fixed menu, just one dish after the next, champagne at midnight and a Spanish tradition where everyone eats 12 grapes at midnight. We had a great experience and stayed there until about 2:00 am. You might then be thinking wow, 2:00 am, must be time to call it a night, right? Nope. Off to another local bar for some more drinks, some weird blue shot thing, and a rousing serenade of Cecilia sung for the first time in 2012 to Mrs. Kliewer of course! (for those who don’t know, she is not such a big fan of this song, but we didn’t let that stop us.) Finally somewhere around 4:30 or 5:00 am we called it a night.

We got a few hours of sleep, went back to the airport (where as mentioned we hit McDonald’s again) and were on our flight back to Zurich.

We had a great week and a great New Year’s Eve. For me Spain is just amazing with great food, culture, weather and scenery. I think I could very easily live in Spain forever. Yo corazon Espana.

NYE Dinner