I love nothing more then to write these posts with less then 24 hours until Jenn and I head on our last vacation of 2010. Instead of doing our recent trend of jet setting over the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, this time we have our sights set on Cancun, Mexico. As much as we both love seeing new places and checking out the great sights of the cities in Europe is there really anything better then laying out on the beach and drinking a Pina Colada? So leaving tomorrow at around 9:30 AM we will be heading to Cancun from LAX with a stop over in Houston, Texas. If all goes well we should be arriving in Cancun by around 5 and make it to our hotel (Excellence Playa Mujeres) by dinner time at around 6:30.

One of the things Jenn and I both love is taking vacations. Heck I have a feeling most reading this blog have noticed that I more frequently post before, on, and after Jenn and I take trips. As much as we love traveling abroad there is also something really awesome about getting in the car and just have a nice weekend getaway. Case in point this past weekend. A little over a year ago we did the exactly that, we booked a quick weekend getaway to Indian Wells, CA for the Indian Wells tennis tournament (PNP Paribas Open). We got an amazing deal at the time for a two bedroom villa, booked it, and enjoyed a great weekend. Why do I bring this up? Well I posted a YouTube video of the room and we were contacted by the Hyatt and thanked for the video and asked if we would want to come back, and of course our instant answer was of course, so they comped us two nights in a one bedroom villa.

By this point in our trip Jenn and I have completely given up on trying to adjust to Barcelona's time, it is just not going to happen. So we ended up getting to sleep at around 5am and woke up close to 1pm. We headed down to the concierge to have him print out our boarding passes for our flight back to LAX tomorrow. After we got that taken care of and had our boarding passes prepared we were off to enjoy the day. Jenn had one more place she wanted to check off her list before leaving Barcelona and that was the Sagrada Familia one of the "must see's" according to the few travel websites we read before coming. Instead of taking a taxi, or any form of public transportation to the Sagrada Familia, Jenn thought it would be a lot of fun to walk from our hotel to the church. She spent about fifteen minutes mapping out our route, and then we were off.

After one of the best meals of the trip last night I fell asleep within seconds of hitting the sack, while Jenn on the other hand did everything but sleep. At around 1:30am I heard Jenn still awake and so we turned on the TV to see if there was anything in English we could bare to watch. After doing a little surfing we found a German television station showing the Academy Awards Red Carpet Special. Every year for the past four years Jenn and I have put together a little party for the two of us to pick the winners and enjoy the Oscars, so having this one was quite the treat. The red carpet coverage was for the majority of the time broadcast in German but they did have quick points of English thrown in depending on who the host was talking to on the red carpet. However to our delight when the Oscars did begin it was 100% in English which to be honest we were really excited about. I am not sure if it was the fact that we hadn't had anything to watch on TV the entire trip, or that Jenn was wide awake in the middle of the night but we did enjoy this years Academy Awards, although didn't love the duo of Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. The show ended at 6am Barcelona time so we went to sleep just as the sun was starting to rise and at that time it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day.

We are starting to build up a reoccurring theme on this trip to Barcelona, and that is that we are not adjusting all that well to the new time zone. This morning was no exception as we went to bed at a legitimate time, but ended up waking up at about 2am wide awake ready for the day. We ended up getting back to sleep at around 5am and woke up around 10am. From there we packed up our luggage, said our sad goodbyes, called for a taxi, and were off to the Le Meridien located on La Rambla.

Yesterday was a jam packed day, in fact I don't believe that Jenn and I could have possibly saw more of Barcelona in one day then we did. Thus we decided today was going to be as relaxing of a day as we could possibly make it. So with that theme in mind noon rolled around and we decided that it would then be an appropriate time to finally get out of bed and take on the day. Our day started by just opening up the blinds and viewing out a crystal clear view of the city of Barcelona, it made the city view room even more of a treat to have. Our hotel (Gran Hotel La Florida) is located on a hill called Tibidabo and a bit further up the the hill at its peak is an amusement park and a gorgeous church. So to start off the day we thought it would be great to take a leisurely walk up to the top and check both of these places out.