Barcelona Day 4

We were supposed to go back to Chatel today but we are having so much fun in Barcelona we decided to extend our visit! Since the taxi strike was over we took a trip into the city to have breakfast and do some grocery shopping. We had breakfast at a place on La Rumbla. All the drinks were served in giant liter mugs. Penelope and Reilly thought this was great. They also enjoyed some churros with chocolate sauce.

After grocery shopping Brian decided he wanted to stay and walk around the city. The kids and I wanted to get back to the hotel and enjoy some pool/beach time. We headed back down to where the taxi dropped us off that morning. It took us awhile but we found a spot with taxis lined up. We saw a group get into the front taxi and take off. We were 3rd in line. The group in front of us tried to get in and that's when all the taxi drivers got out and went back on strike. It is about this time that I burst into tears. I'm alone with my kids in a city I know nothing about. In a part of the city I hadn't been to before. Penelope and Reilly were amazing. They saw a Metro sign and remembered we took a train to catch the bus on one of our other trips. Of course the part of the city we were in didn't have a direct route to the bus we needed. Penelope and Reilly studied the maps and figured out which 2 trains we needed and where we needed to go. I was so proud of them.
By the time we made it to the bus stop we were all so hot and sweaty. We stopped for cold drinks and to use the bathroom before the long bus ride back to the hotel. It was a big joke that we could barely get our pants back on because we were so sweaty. We waited for the bus for a good 90 minutes before we realized that things were not normal. The sign said the bus would arrive in 20 minutes, then 15 minutes, then down to 11 minutes, then it would go back up to 20. We are hot and cranky and tired. There is nowhere to sit down. Finally I decided to find some food (and beer) and try to come up with a plan.
I had heard from Brian and he was able to get on a bus but his bus was stopped on the highway because the taxi drivers were forming a human barricade. We couldn't communicate much because his phone was dying.

After some chicken fingers, potato chips and beer at Barcelona Brewing Company we went back to the bus stop. We noticed a few people who were at the stop when we had arrived almost 3 hours before. Most of the people we ran into in Barcelona spoke English. This was not the case for the people at the bus stop. We did meet a lady from the Philippines who spoke English but not Spanish. Around this time I started crying again. I sent my mom a text telling her I was freaking out. Brian was back at the hotel by this time but couldn't figure out what was happening or how we could get back.
I was close to getting a hotel room, buying new clothes and dealing with it in the morning. We finally found a man who spoke enough English to explain to us that the roads in the city were blocked and buses couldn't get to us. He and another man took us, and the lady from Philippines to the Metro which took us to a part of the city where the buses were running. 7 hours later we were back in Castelldefels.