On to sunny Spain

So after a long-ish day traveling to Germany and back yesterday, we hopped a plane for Barcelona today. My children have traveled enough in the last year that Aislin is no longer terribly impressed to have another stamp in her passport and enjoys the plane rides largely for the opportunity to read, do word puzzles, or nap. She'll usually pull down the window shade as soon as we're in the air "so as not to disturb those around her" with the bright sunlight. That's not to say that she isn't soaking in the details so as to shock us with her recollection of esoterica weeks later, but she's a veteran traveler for sure. For Dylan's part, he's taken to memorizing the names and logo of each airline so that our visits to the airport are now accompanied by his inquiries, "Will we be riding the Continental or the United jet this time?" or the occasional outburst of, "Ooh, look, Mommy! Clickair!"

The flight to Barcelona was scenic enough that even Aislin had her window shade up for most of it so she could watch the snowy crags of the Pyrenees level off into the Mediterranean. As the plane turned to follow the coastline, she was actually wriggling around in her window seat to try to see out Daddy's window on the other side, enjoying the "ocean here, mountains there" view. It really was stunning, I have to confess.

We ended up at a hotel on Las Ramblas, which was touted as one of the most important areas in Barcelona. I had embarrassingly little time to research the city before we arrived short of the research involved in booking the hotel, so I was amazed at how phenomenally beautiful it was (the occasional gutter stench aside). We were blocks from the coastline and the medieval center of the city, so there was plenty to stumble across even for the uneducated and weary traveler dragging two equally weary children behind.

We wandered into the first tapas restaurant we saw for lunch, which was not what the kids would have picked. Horrible service, "weird" food... Aislin actually wishfully mentioned the KFC she'd spotted up the street, but we stuck it out. When they delivered the various dishes, the selection of which was at the restaurant's discretion, we ended up with -- among other things -- a small bowl of tiny octopi in sauce. Aislin and Dylan briefly pondered the little tentacles curled beseechingly to the heavens and promptly concluded that this was some sort of small aquarium and that such things could not possibly be fit or intended for consumption. Jeff, on the other hand, proved that he is far cooler than I could hope to be by popping one into his mouth without so much as grimacing and proclaiming them very yummy.

After one pass around the table, there were still (surprise!) several of the little critters left in their bowl. Dylan was curious, so I started to lift one of them out of the bowl for him to peruse more closely. This evidently convinced him that the octopus was alive and possessed of the ability to leap at his face, thus eliciting a piercing shriek that was followed by that wonderful and all-too-familiar moment of silence in which everyone in the restaurant checks more or less furtively to ensure that they do not have a duty to report any child abuse, and then returns cautiously to their meals. That moment of silence that tells you you're under observation for the next few minutes.

I explained to Dylan again that they weren't alive and were for eating, then proved it by eating one myself. Not bad. Particularly if you chew very quickly and have a four-year-old whom you want to imbue with culinary adventurousness inspecting your every subtle expression. He eyed the bowl suspiciously and slowly extended a single finger to touch one of the remaining heads. When the finger emerged intact from the encounter, we went for putting one on his plate. In another phenomenal display of courage, I'll be darned if Dylan didn't pick it up unbidden and pop it into his mouth. And then ask for another. Dad caught some portion of this (although not the shriek) on camera; here are the bookends of "fear" and "relish":








Yes, that's my boy.