There was no rain in Spain!

Finally, here are some pictures from our trip to Europe. I have not yet figured out how to upload my phone onto my new computer (#moderndaylivingfail), but here are the pictures from our "real" camera.

I'm breaking this trip up into two posts. This first one is about our jaunt to Spain with our lovely friends from Scotland, Austin, and Houston!

First, here's a picture of all of us:

(excuse the arrows, I stole this off of my facebook page)

So from left to right, we have: 

Eric and Brian. Brian went to UT Law with Greg and was in Houston for awhile, but he and Eric now live in Austin. 

Next, are Greg and Liz. They were our besties until they abandoned us for the exotic life in Scotland! Then there's us- obviously the most color-coordinated of the couples.

To the right of us are Alison and Andrew. Andrew works with James and is also good friends with Greg  and Brian, and Alison just moved to Houston after graduating law school, and I am so excited to have another girl friend in town!

And then there is sweet Julia and Troy. They joined us for the Barcelona leg of the trip, and I'm so glad they did! And if you ever want someone to take an amazing picture of you on an iPhone, Troy is your guy.

Ok, now that everyone's been introduced, here's a bit of info about the first part of our trip:

Sitges, Spain:

Sitges is a sleepy little beach town about 30 minutes outside of Barcelona. This was a great way to start our vacation since all we did was lay about by the hotel pool, sun on the shore of the Mediterranean, and drink Sangria while mingling with the locals. Muy Bueno!

 This was the view from Brian and Eric's hotel room! They had an amazing balcony which we took advantage of for pre-dinner cocktails and late night dance parties!

We also enjoyed the beach as well. I didn't know what to expect of the Mediterranean, but I'm certainly spoiled now. Calm, blue waters and picturesque mountain scanes will make it hard to enjoy Galveston (well, it's still hard to enjoy Galveston even if you haven't seen the Mediterranean).

 That guy's tank top is epic. I would totally rock it with Lululemon yoga pants and a bright head band.

And Sitges was so picture perfect, that I went ahead and took everyone's holiday card pictures while we were there. You're welcome!

Don't we have good looking, preppy little friends?! We also tried to do a girls picture and a guys pictures. The girl one was pretty easy to pull off:

But the guy picture was a process. It involved lots of "Jantz dance" and yelling. Here's a photo montage:

Like I said, the girl picture turned out great.

Once we thoroughly wrecked Sitges, our merry little group headed on to Barcelona. There, we met up with Troy and Julia:

Barcelona was fascinating. We got to know the city by taking a Fat Tire Bicycle tour with our uber cool guide, Buddha (seriously). Here are a few shots of Buddha and what all we got to see on our bike tour.

 I would take the time to label the buildings and what makes them special, but lets not kid ourselves, I barely cared at the time, and you definitely don't care now. 

(These are the steps where Columbus met Queen Isabella after discovering the New World aka Near Where Houston Is)

 Buddha! This picture does not do justice to his epic dreadlocks.

The classic monument to the NBA. Another favorite of Columbus.

Our tour ended at the beach in Barcelona. And interesting fact about that, is the sand has all been shipped in from the Sahara dessert, because there was no original sand at the beach.

Oh, and one of our group bikers, Rosie, got hit in the face by a soccer ball while we were there. It was quite the talk of the group for awhile, but I showed some restraint and didn't take her picture.

On our last full day, we went to Montserrat where James lit a candle for his grandfather, and then we toured two wineries:

 "The Amontillado! Ah yes, the Amontillado!" Edgar Allan Poe, anyone? Anyone?

If you've never been before, you need to put Barcelona on your bucket list. These pictures just do not even begin to capture how beautiful it was. We loved every minute we were there, and it would certainly be worth the effort to visit again someday.

Next up, Paris . . .