4 of May in Edmonton to the 5 of May in Barcelona!

After a very wet morning wait at the Varscona hotel for the shuttle bus and a quiet ride to the airport I met Margie at the airport around 730 am. There were lots of ambulances lined up outside the door for my gate sowas dropped off at the wrong gate and had to walk back. I asked Margie what was going on. Someone told Margie it was for the Fort MacMurray evacuation.
 They were in the midst of one of the worst forest fires on record and had to evacuate the whole town including of course the hospitals. Terrible situation
 We checked in and had a small breakfast before flying to Toronto. The flight was unexciting which is good. Watched movies and before we knew it we were in TO. After a not too long layover we hopped onto our Lufthansa fight to Amsterdam. Again not too bad. No screaming children and a few more movies. Did not sleep at all really as it was the middle of the day for us.
We arrived in Amsterdam, one of my favourite airports ,around sunny 6 am and walked to our gate which was of course almost on the other side of the airport. Little did we know that this would foreshadow our trip.  Our wait there was not long either and we were in the air again.
Barcelona in the morning is beautiful. We got to our hotel which, by the way, is a lovely hotel by cab and he knew exactly where it was.  Very modern and clean with a rooftop pool The Ofelias Hotel is right by the Plaza De Espana. (thanks Kent from our travel agency in Edmonton for recommending it)

Wikipedia says "One of the city's biggest squares, it is the junction of several major thoroughfares: Gran Via de les Corts Catalans, Avinguda del Parallel, Career de la Creu Coberta and Career de Tarragona, and leads to the Palau Nacional through Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina, which houses one of Catalonia's finest museums, the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC) designed by Josep Amargos. 
The fountain at the centre of the square was (beautiful and very large) designed by Josep Maria Jujol, a collaborator of Antoni Gaudi, while Miquel Blay designed the statues. On the plaza are the Venetian Towers  - they are 47 m (154 ft) tall and lead the way to the MNAC via Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina an avenue commonly used to host trade fairs. Fira de Barcelona,  Parc de Joan Miró - previously known as Parc de l'Escorxador (Abbatoir Park), it is nowadays named after the Catalan painter Joan Miró, whose 22-metre-tall statue Dona i Ocell (Woman and Bird) can be seen in one of its corners.  

and the Arenas de Barcelona, a bullring - It was built in 1900 in the Moorish Revival style and has been converted into a shopping center.

We were staying for a few nights before our cruise to get acclimated and to see Barcelona. We checked out the hotel with its roof top pool and modern decor and then wandered one block over to the old bull fighting arena they converted into a shopping mall and entertainment center with cinemas and restaurants. Took some photos of the traffic circle in the Plaza Espana and the park on the other side away from the plaza and each other and then had lunch. The restaurant we picked was not the best. The waiter was in training and the food was different in a not very tasty way. Now I don't want to sound like a crabby tourist but really we both have had better tasting food. Tourist food.
We moved on and found the Hop on Hop off bus and took a tour of Beautiful Barcelona. We did not get off just enjoyed the wonderful architecture of Antoni Gaudi. the world famous architect of which we knew very little but now know we enjoy and so will learn more about him and his life and work.We were told that he has a cathedral here in Barcelona that we really must see for its uniqueness.

Barcelona is a city on the sea and so we went past many marina's, an aquarium that looked amazing and long stretches of  beaches. We enjoyed the narrow old streets and the pedestrian only street like the Ramblas and saw where we might want to get off at some point.
Our energy was starting to flag. for us it was probably 2 in the morning. We went for dinner and planned our next days activities based on what we saw today then back to the hotel and to sleep and dream the dreams of eager tourists in new lands.