Barcelona

Any time one can spend two unadulterated days with a one Janelle Mackereth it´s bound to be a good time. If you can do it once in your life, I highly recommend it. Thus said, Janelle and I, quite the little world travellers that we are, managed a weekend by ourselves in Barcelona.

Barcelona is quite the capital of fashion and all things cosmopolitan and I think I would have enjoyed it more if was not for the crappy hostel accomodations. I am not going to get into the details because I know there are those who read this that are just itching to give me a good lecture on the values of personal safety blah blah. Let´s pause for a moment and give them their five minutes....

Moving along, Barcelona was great. We packed so much into two days, so much so that by the time we got to Park Guell on Saturday afternoon it was all we could do to stumble into the closet approximation to a deli for what turned out to be one of the best tuna sandwiches of my life. Friday was the Picasso Museum, the Christopher Columbus monument, basilica (where they were excavating a skull when we were there!! And true to form I tripped down the stairs)waterfront, Las Ramblas, Drew (my friend from Ithaca), Olympic Park, Oveja Negra (for some kicking sangria). Saturday was a little bit less organized as we walked right past the Pedrera and somehow wound up instead at the Sagrada Familia. But we went to the top, which all I could think of was my dad and all of those times I bailed on rides at amusement parks. Dad, if you´re reading this, all I could hear was your voice in my head, even on the precarious descent on the spiraly staircase of death (one of the Italian ladies in front of us was practically in tears). It was worth it, quite the view of Barcelona.

Upon returning to Sevilla, I was a little disconcerted to find Conchi not at home, and when I woke up she still wasn´t home, which caused some serious consternation on my part. Turns out she was just at her daughter´s house. Conchi and Danielle got quite the laugh out of my hostel experience. I´m glad I could finally get across some humor in Spanish, even if it was a really horrible experience. Janelle and I were talking about how it´s hard for anyone here, especially the Spanish speakers, to truly know us. Sometimes humor and personality quirks don´t really translate well, you know? I think the only case where this could be a problem is the intercambios. Everyone wants to make a good impression, but it´s hard enough in English.

In other news, tomorrow night I´m going to see some flamenco. Also, as a side note, if anyone is interested, the Center has a webcam and every Monday and Wednesday at 4:30 Spain time (10:30am NY time) you can watch via the link of the right. It must be pretty comical to watch.

My headphones are slowly dying, I have to make my way to the Corte Ingles for a new pair. Currently I´m only getting sound out of one ear but who knows how much longer that will last.

And I think we finally finalized all of our travel plans...Granada in two weeks, Italy for part of Semana Santa, Lagos (Portugal) somewhere in there, Morrocco, London, Paris, Geneva. Seven countries in total. Phew.

I´m hoping to start incorporating some pictures into the blog, plain text is so 2006.