Sandwiches, Smiles, and Spoons

Early this month, I had another slew of visitors to brighten my day.
Including my very good friend, Jim.

Jim and I with the lions

Jim, Max (another fellow fabulous IG!), Varun, Andy, and Jack came to spend their Spring Break with me in Barcelona. That's right, they flew across the ocean just to give me a hug and eat some delicious Spanish sandwiches.

The guys at Cien Montaditos, one of my favorite Spanish food joints
They have over 100 types of sandwiches!

As always, it was a lot of fun to walk around the city and share my wealth of historical, cultural, and other tidbits of knowledge with fellow Badgers. (As you all know, I've been lucky enough to have plenty of visitors during my stay here, so Molly's Tour de Barcelona is more than polished.) And as always, in return for my tourism services, my friends made me laugh, and provided some much needed hang out time in English. They're also a pretty good excuse to eat out.

Paella for lunch!

Although the weather was a bit rainy, we got some good sightseeing in. We walked around the Marina, watched a few football games, and played some lively games of Spoons. (Which I dominated, by the way. Did not lose a single game. I think I discovered a hidden talent.)

During my stay across the ocean, I have overall been quite happy. And I know that I owe a lot of that to my great fortune of having so many visitors. It's as if the Universe said, 'Okay, Molly. Since you can't (or won't) be in Wisconsin, we'll just bring Wisconsin to you." Seriously.

My friends are always a constant reminder of everything I love in the world, and always know how to make me smile. And if I ever felt lonely in my new Spanish life, I always had the comfort of being able to think, "It's okay, Jojo/MelGrau/VIP/Jim/etc will be here next weekend." And that has been invaluable to me.