Because someone has to work ...

The European Society of Cardiology had their annual meeting in Barcelona, Spain this year. As soon as Ben told me he was going for his "work", I asked if I could tag along. We decided that it would be a fabulous way to celebrate our 10 year anniversary (which isn't actually until Dec. 18th). We asked our sweet Barbie to fly out and watch our kids for the 6 days we would be gone.

I got my first passport, and come August 27th we were off. The flight across the Atlantic was during the night, so we arrived in Barcelona around 9am. We spent the first day at the beach and it was amazing to swim in the Mediterranean Sea -- the water was so calm. We were tired from the time change and from not sleeping very well on the plane, so we actually took a nap on the beach. The weather was beautiful. I didn't take my camera to the beach (I was afraid that it might get stolen while we were swimming), so I don't have any pictures to show how pretty it was - you will just have to trust me.

That evening we met up with the Abbate's (Antonio works with Ben) to have dinner and walk around. This is Ben at a little "water fountain" along one of the streets. About one minute before I took this picture we saw an old lady "freshening up" in the fountain, I guess during the summer the kids also play in it to cool off -- I guess it is well used.


Every night after dinner we went to the Gelateria, to get Gelato. Now if you know me at all, you know it wouldn't be a vacation without lots of ice cream. Yum . . . the Nutella was the best!


Although this trip was mostly for pleasure, there was a little business to be done. We spent one full day at the Cardiology Congress.


I was delighted to have the privilege of watching my brilliant husband at work. He had gave an oral presentation as well as presented two posters. It was so fun to see him "doing his thing."


Another one of the mornings Ben had to go in EARLY to the Congress, so I opted out and spent the morning with Antonio's family and sister's family being a tourist. Gaudi is a famous architect that designed a lot of buildings in Barcelona -- I got to see a few of them. This is me looking particularly touristy on top of one of Gaudi's buildings called Casa Mila.


Ben and I spent a lot of time walking around the city. Being in a city that had so much history was amazing to me. As we were headed from major site to major site we saw so many other wonderful and beautiful sites that would have been missed by taking the metro or a taxi. And I also loved all the time that we had to visit with each other and hold hands.



We ate a lot of yummy food and had some great company to hang out with. This is a dinner we had at the marina. There were five people from VCU (including Ben), that attended the Congress - the rest of us were family (either from the USA or Italy) that decided to tag along.


I think my favorite part of the trip was walking down "the Rambla" and looking at all of the culture around us.



I especially loved the narrow streets with the tall buildings on either side. The architecture was absolutely breathtaking.


This last picture was fun to take. Our hotel had a pool on the roof and the view was amazing. We actually tried taking this picture about six times, but kept getting our heads in the way of the view or only getting half of our heads in the shot. It was so fun to be so nerdy with my favorite person in the whole world. It was an amazing trip . . . it has been an unbelievably wonderful ten years.