Before I continue on the Eurotrip, I would like to write a special thank you to our cruise liner and it’s staff, Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas , for taking excellent care of us on our Mediterranean Cruise . For the whole week that we were cruisin, I was pampered, fed (A LOT) and treated very politely by everyone on board.  So Kudos to the Captain and his mates! * The Barcelona Pier is just awesome, looking a lot like an airport terminal complete with restaurants and souvenir stores, which my dad (guy on the right) took advantage of.

The first stop on our Eurotrip was Barcelona .  I was told by all of my friends not to miss this city as the culture and history is just so beautiful.  In many ways, they say that it is even more beautiful here than in Madrid (which I hope to see in a future trip).  Now apart from seeing the Sagrada Familia and Barcelona Cathedral , here are 7 other things that one MUST do while in Barcelona. 1.  Walk Down The Las Ramblas This is what travelling is about!  Full of great shops, cafes, street performers and interesting sights, walking around and getting lost in the various alleys intersecting the main street is such a pleasure.  Stretching on for about a kilometer and a half, this is the main tourist spot in Barcelona, kind of like how Times Square is to New York and Nanjing Road is to Shanghai.  Prepare to get culturally stimulated, just mind the pickpockets! (And there are a LOT of them)

1. The Barcelona Cathedral Imposing and located on the famous Gothic Quarter next to the Las Ramblas , the Barcelona Cathedral is a masterpiece of Gothic Architecture.  Dark, huge and full of gargoyles, the Cathedral manages to retain some sanctity as there were more people praying in it than people taking pictures.

Europe has always been my dream destination. Having been to the Americas, China, Middle East and around Southeast Asia, it was the one area of the world that seemed so elusive to me.  Part of what made it so was the fact that my family always chose to go to the States for the holidays. So when I found out that there was a chance that we were going to go this August, I was beyond excited. My cousin, Rachel , decided to have a destination wedding; and being the romantic that she is, she decided to have it in an actual castle in Florence, Italy . * Ate Rachel and her fairy tale wedding. Now it seemed like we were not only going to Europe, the whole family was going as well.  Around 20 of us, including my lola. The month leading towards the trip, I got excited about the prospect of seeing all these beautiful faces that I had only read about in books and seen in movies. I got word that the wedding was going to be part of a Mediterranean cruise . So I suggested to my folks