bad hair day...good hair day.

March 31st--Best laid plans often go awry...we had planned to get up early today to get more of a Gaudi fix, but when we were up between midnight and 3:00 a.m. with a coughing 3 year old...well, we slept a little later once everybody got back to sleep. Austin has his first international "head cold". It's one of those where he goes along throughout the day just fine, but once he lays down, he gets all stopped up. Anyway, when he woke up at midnight, we gave him cough medicine, Claritin, and rubbed Baby Vicks on his chest and feet. I blew his nose for the next hour or so, but he finally fell back asleep and slept perfectly fine the rest of the night (or morning). He's been fine today other than the occasional cough and runny nose, but at least it's coming up. He got a little sleepy at lunch and basically laid down on me and went to sleep. See the picture...it's too cute! Anyway, I just skipped a little ahead on the day. Before lunch, we headed for Palau Guell by way of La Ramblas. The kids wanted to go see some more of the mimes on the street and even had there own money to drop in the buckets. As we approached the bottom of the Ramblas, we turned off to go to Palau Guell to get our Gaudi fix for the day. The Palau Guell or Guell Palace got its name because it was commissioned by the wealthy landowner, Eusebi Guell. The Palau Guell is the only building that Gaudi actually completed (1890). This building shows Gaudi's first attempt at a curvy style with an arch doorway and was a private residence for the Guell family until 1936. In the middle of a renovation, the main floor and the Neo-Gothic cellar are the only areas open to the public. The cellar was used as a stable and there are still rings on some of the posts. It didn't take us long to walk through the areas that were open, but it was neat to get another look at some of Gaudi's work. We then went back up the Ramblas to get some lunch. We couldn't enjoy any of the mimes on the way back up because it started to rain. So, we headed into Hard Rock Cafe located in Placa de Catalunya. It was packed with a lot of Americans and people trying to get out of the rain. Luckily our wait wasn't that long and we enjoyed a nice/relaxing lunch. Austin was so tired, he could barley eat. As I mentioned before, he fell asleep only after a few bites. After lunch, we did some shopping at ZARA. We have seen this store all over Spain...think Gap. Austin needed a few things so we thought this would be a good place to go. It was a successful shopping trip, and we caught a taxi back to the apartment. Upon arriving back at the apartment, I asked our new friend, Sam from the ItalianJob restaurant if there was anyone around the area she recommended doing my hair. She was immediately on the phone with her French hairdresser. He was available right then and was only a few blocks away. I took off to get my hair done on a "bad hair day" day while Mike and the kids just hung out at the apartment watching a movie. The owner of the salon, Ana, is from Barcelona, but speaks excellent English. She just married a guy from Dallas and absolutely loves Texas. In fact, her husband was in Austin and she was on her way there next week. Daniel, from Paris, was my hairdresser. He did a great job so my first European hair experience was a success (until I had to walk back in the rain).