Random cathedral concerts...its what we do!

So, it's 130 a.m. and we are just getting home from dinner...apparently we've acclimated to the Spanish culture! We had an amazingly unexpected day - everything we did was unplanned yet turned out perfectly! We set our alarm for 9 a.m. this morning, which we ignored! We had breakfast at the hotel and set off around noon...where we would end up we didn't know. We knew we wanted to do some sightseeing...and we did! We went toward the Gothic district - we saw the Palau Reial de Pedralbes - which now houses an amazing ceramic museum, Arc de Triomf, ate an amazing lunch (more on this later) and stood outside the cathedral in Barri Gotic square - we're sure it's pretty inside, however we'll never know since we didn't leave the square. When we arrived we had every intention of exploring the inside of the cathedral but we were awestruck by the pageantry outside...there were groups of people in circles dancing serenely yet in lock step to some of the most soothing and beautiful music we've ever heard!!! We learned this dancing was native to Catalonia, the region when Barcelona resides, called Sardana and the soothing music these groups dance to is Cobla! We met a girl for, Team Mare Nostrum who explained the tradition as something the locals had been doing for centuries...this team was the defending champions of their sport and they would begin tomorrow defending their title with the first competition of the season. What an amazing experience we had when we happened upon this square! With FC Barcelona ending their season tonight with their final match, I'm sure the Barcelonians were thankful for this until "football" season started back up ;) By the time we got back to our hotel it was 8 pm and we needed to think about dinner...by the time we got to the metro it was 10 pm and we were headed downtown to a recommended tapas place that we couldn't find so we settled on a pizzeria...yet another brilliant happenstance of the day!!!! We are tired, yet fulfilled...we owned Barcelona - on to Valencia tomorrow! Our highlights: an amazing lunch - a pitcher of sangria, pumpkin with marscapone soup and salmon carpaccio to start, pesto gnocchi for Valerie and spaghetti bolognese for Rachel...um, it was amazing! Good night or good morning (depending on how you look at it)!!!