Exploding with Happiness!: The Color Run!

Upon our arrival in Barcelona, Laura greeted us with our Color Run t-shirts and other goodies. She had signed us up a month or two ago to participate in the Color Run in Barcelona, which took place today. Our team (“Las Patatas Bravas” – which is a delicious and popular form of tapas widely available here) consisted of the five of us plus a couple of Laura’s friends. The Color Run is an event put on in cities around the world. It’s a 5k in which volunteers squirt and dump powdered paint on the participants at several stations along the route. It’s really more like a big party, in that (at least in our experience) there is lots of loud music and more dancing than running. At the finish line, there is more music, dancing and paint for those who didn’t get enough during the race. The whole point is for everyone to have a good time.

Anyway, we joined in the fun. We met up with Laura’s friends at the starting point and walked the course together. By the end, we were all rainbow colored. It was great fun to see people of all ages out enjoying the event – from babies in (plastic covered) strollers to people even older than Steve and I. I’d say our kids were probably about the average age of the participants. Many teams came in coordinated costumes. There were quite a few groups sporting tutus or grass skirts, plus lots of silly wigs.

After all this festivity, we returned home to shower – which we did fairly successfully, although we discovered later in the afternoon a few traces of color remaining in eyebrows and ears. We were starving, so Laura lead us to another great brunch place. This one was called Brunch and Cake and was very close to the main campus of the University of Barcelona, where Laura attends classes. One of Laura’s roommates, Yaz, joined us for brunch. Brunch was fabulous. We had some very creative dishes, including different forms of eggs benedict (e.g., on a hot dog, or with thin sliced turkey on a waffle) and exotic sandwiches. The only slight downside of lunch was that, in order to avoid a long wait, we took a table outside and the weather had become rather cool and windy. Apparently that is a common problem for patrons of Brunch and Cake, for they brought us blankets to wrap around ourselves.

For the rest of the afternoon, we thought we would go check out the Picasso Museum. However, it is free starting at 3:00 on Sunday afternoons, and by the time we got there, the line to get in stretched far longer than we cared to wait. Instead, we wandered around the old city (same general area as our walking tour yesterday). We thought we would go back to the cathedral and take the elevator up to the roof for a look down on the old city and the port. To avoid paying 6€ each to get into the cathedral, we decided to wait 40 minutes until it was free. We were entertained unexpectedly by another troupe of street performers. Their break dance / acrobatic routine was every bit as much fun as the group we saw yesterday.

When the cathedral dropped its admission charge, we went in and headed straight for the elevator we had seen a couple days ago. Strike two: for whatever reason, the elevator wasn't open for business this afternoon. Instead, we wandered around the church again and went into the cloister, which we had missed previously. The cloister was lovely, with a lush, peaceful garden in the middle and 12 rather rambunctious white geese. We had read that there are supposed to be 13 geese, representing the 13 trials of St. Eulalia, but we counted only 12.

In the evening, we went to another of Laura's favorite places to eat. This place has 100 different kinds of little sandwiches. On Sunday nights, everything on the menu is only 1€. We had our fill (even Evan!) of delicious sandwiches, salad and beer for only about $30! We also ran into Karina, Laura's other roommate, who had been there for an hour waiting for Yaz and, unbeknownst to us, the five of us! She sat and had a drink with us before she had to go.

Our quick supper was en route to our last activity and the perfect finale for the day that began with the Color Run. We went back to Montjuic, the area where we had assembled in the morning for the Color Run, but this time the attraction was the "Magic Fountain," a colored light/water and music show that runs all evening after dark. People come with picnics or a bottle of wine or just come, as we did, and sit and admire the show for as long as they like. We met a couple of Laura's friends there. It was a pleasant evening and we really enjoyed just hanging out with the locals. When the show cycle ended, we made our way back to the Metro and headed home.