Barcelona rambling

Greetings from Barcelona. It´s been a weird trip. Half relaxing, half stressful. Which means it´s been less stressful than most of my holidays. Barcelona in the poorer districts looks exactly like New Jersey and New York. It´s very odd. In the more colourful parts of the city it reminds me more of Nice with random architectural craziness thrown in.

Ryanair are insane and made us wait 1 1/2 hours for a bus into Barcelona on top of our flight and all else. Was rather peeved by that. Ryanair is never very convient, and sometimes really isn´t worth the money. Anyway, the weather here is a slightly too hot, 85 on average. Don´t ask me what that is in celcius...

I´m amused at how easy it is for me to function in a Spanish speaking country. I´m actually the most fluent speaker and reader in our group, which is pathetic considering my mum took and my bro takes Spanish in high school. I love when we find things written in Catalan too since that´s even easier for me to read.

We´ve been limiting ourselves to doing one or two things a day with my little bro sleeping in until 11 or noon most days. I can´t sleep past ten myself, but it´s nice that he´s getting extra sleep. We´re staying in this strange four star hotel that´s really nice, but has some quirks, and we have to buy food for breakfast and snacks and water well in advance to bring back to the hotel so we don´t pay for their exorbiant food prices. I´m reading Gormenghast, but beginning to think it was the wrong book to bring to a hot, sunny place. Spending more time writing my book, and the One Piece/POTC crossover. Discovered my mum really will watch any reality tv show, regardless of language. Was very amused to watch Master & Commander in Spanish though...

This seems to be a city obsessed with desert and sugar. It´s in everything. For example, we bought what looked like cinnamon croissants for breakfast today, and found that in addition to cinnamon and sugar, they had chocolate inside them. Talk about overkill. *L* Anyway, what´s best is that they have real Italian gelati, which anyone who´s been to Italy will tell you, is one of the only reasons to visit Italy;) We have therefore, been having breakfast at the hotel, then simply eating gelati for lunch-desert-midafternoon snack. God, how I had missed good Pistachio ice cream, though tiramisu, melon, and cream catalonya (sp?) are all perenial favourites. The rest of our food has been rather variable, mostly because we´re eating too early for this country so we end up at tourist places where the food is okay, but not too spectacular. Did have a fantastic steak at one point, and the lemon chicken and spring rolls last night were great too, oddly enough.

Now for where we´ve been. I did have witty commentary for all this being written in my head as I visited, but now you´ll just have to settle for the bare bones due to time limits and my being too tired:P Our first day, we took it easy, slept late and visited the Cathedral which was very pretty and thrilled me by having a lot of remains of its original paint still left on the cieling. It also had the most gorgeous cloister I´ve ever seen. The next day, we were smart and went to the aquarium, where I got some of the best pictures of fish I´ve ever seen. *huggles digital camera* I also got to play in the kid´s section. Yay! *pretends to be a pirate fish* Then we went to the nearby IMAX for a film about traveling down the Nile. It made perfect sense without any need to understand the language and it was air conditioned, so all was good *g* Yesterday, we went to the Picasso Museum, which was, er, boring, but at least I can now say I´ve seen far more Picasso paintings in person than I ever had before. Am also quite enamoured of his Blue period. We then made our way to the Maritime Museum which was nicely set up so everyone got an audio guide which kept some of hte exhibits from degenerating into boringness. I´m glad it was cool and cloudy yesterday though since it was hot enough. Also attached was a special exhibit called A Day in Pompeii which was basically daily life and the expolsion with some nice if sparse displays of artefacts. The exhibit was more informative than the day I spent in Popeii two years ago sadly enough...

Today, was a beach day, on my insistence, since if I´m going to go to the beach and get it out of my system for the summer, I´d rather go to the Meditterranean any day *g* So, have just got done with spending the past couple of hours playing in the nicely cool water with my bro, then lounging on the beach and sunbathing. Also got to wear my bikini for the first time, and was very amused by its effect. You´d think I wouldn´t stand out in this city since there´s plenty of beautiful women, but I guess my breasts make all the difference *eg* My mum says all the men keep staring at me as well, but I rarely catch them at it - probably because they think my bro is my boyfriend and he looks so grouchy and big, they don´t want to be caught. *L* I expect I´d be having a lot more trouble if I weren´t with my family. (I knew there was a reason to travel with people.) Tomorrow, we may visit the Egyptian museum, and then just chill on Monday since the museums are closed. We´re actually in the city a bit too long since we have to draw out our visits everywhere and kill time just to make it to dinner, so we can go home to the hotel afterwards. Ah well. Wish I were getting back to Edinburgh sooner but it´s a nice place, and there haven´t been too many arguements. I´ve been trying to visit places everyone will enjoy (don´t ask me why I end up planning where we visit...). You can tell we´d all rather be someplace with our own computers and internet though. If I hear my Dad complain one more time about missing World of Warcraft...

Anyway, must go. Ja ne!

Barcelona rambling

Greetings from Barcelona. It´s been a weird trip. Half relaxing, half stressful. Which means it´s been less stressful than most of my holidays. Barcelona in the poorer districts looks exactly like New Jersey and New York. It´s very odd. In the more colourful parts of the city it reminds me more of Nice with random architectural craziness thrown in.

Ryanair are insane and made us wait 1 1/2 hours for a bus into Barcelona on top of our flight and all else. Was rather peeved by that. Ryanair is never very convient, and sometimes really isn´t worth the money. Anyway, the weather here is a slightly too hot, 85 on average. Don´t ask me what that is in celcius...

I´m amused at how easy it is for me to function in a Spanish speaking country. I´m actually the most fluent speaker and reader in our group, which is pathetic considering my mum took and my bro takes Spanish in high school. I love when we find things written in Catalan too since that´s even easier for me to read.

We´ve been limiting ourselves to doing one or two things a day with my little bro sleeping in until 11 or noon most days. I can´t sleep past ten myself, but it´s nice that he´s getting extra sleep. We´re staying in this strange four star hotel that´s really nice, but has some quirks, and we have to buy food for breakfast and snacks and water well in advance to bring back to the hotel so we don´t pay for their exorbiant food prices. I´m reading Gormenghast, but beginning to think it was the wrong book to bring to a hot, sunny place. Spending more time writing my book, and the One Piece/POTC crossover. Discovered my mum really will watch any reality tv show, regardless of language. Was very amused to watch Master & Commander in Spanish though...

This seems to be a city obsessed with desert and sugar. It´s in everything. For example, we bought what looked like cinnamon croissants for breakfast today, and found that in addition to cinnamon and sugar, they had chocolate inside them. Talk about overkill. *L* Anyway, what´s best is that they have real Italian gelati, which anyone who´s been to Italy will tell you, is one of the only reasons to visit Italy;) We have therefore, been having breakfast at the hotel, then simply eating gelati for lunch-desert-midafternoon snack. God, how I had missed good Pistachio ice cream, though tiramisu, melon, and cream catalonya (sp?) are all perenial favourites. The rest of our food has been rather variable, mostly because we´re eating too early for this country so we end up at tourist places where the food is okay, but not too spectacular. Did have a fantastic steak at one point, and the lemon chicken and spring rolls last night were great too, oddly enough.

Now for where we´ve been. I did have witty commentary for all this being written in my head as I visited, but now you´ll just have to settle for the bare bones due to time limits and my being too tired:P Our first day, we took it easy, slept late and visited the Cathedral which was very pretty and thrilled me by having a lot of remains of its original paint still left on the cieling. It also had the most gorgeous cloister I´ve ever seen. The next day, we were smart and went to the aquarium, where I got some of the best pictures of fish I´ve ever seen. *huggles digital camera* I also got to play in the kid´s section. Yay! *pretends to be a pirate fish* Then we went to the nearby IMAX for a film about traveling down the Nile. It made perfect sense without any need to understand the language and it was air conditioned, so all was good *g* Yesterday, we went to the Picasso Museum, which was, er, boring, but at least I can now say I´ve seen far more Picasso paintings in person than I ever had before. Am also quite enamoured of his Blue period. We then made our way to the Maritime Museum which was nicely set up so everyone got an audio guide which kept some of hte exhibits from degenerating into boringness. I´m glad it was cool and cloudy yesterday though since it was hot enough. Also attached was a special exhibit called A Day in Pompeii which was basically daily life and the expolsion with some nice if sparse displays of artefacts. The exhibit was more informative than the day I spent in Popeii two years ago sadly enough...

Today, was a beach day, on my insistence, since if I´m going to go to the beach and get it out of my system for the summer, I´d rather go to the Meditterranean any day *g* So, have just got done with spending the past couple of hours playing in the nicely cool water with my bro, then lounging on the beach and sunbathing. Also got to wear my bikini for the first time, and was very amused by its effect. You´d think I wouldn´t stand out in this city since there´s plenty of beautiful women, but I guess my breasts make all the difference *eg* My mum says all the men keep staring at me as well, but I rarely catch them at it - probably because they think my bro is my boyfriend and he looks so grouchy and big, they don´t want to be caught. *L* I expect I´d be having a lot more trouble if I weren´t with my family. (I knew there was a reason to travel with people.) Tomorrow, we may visit the Egyptian museum, and then just chill on Monday since the museums are closed. We´re actually in the city a bit too long since we have to draw out our visits everywhere and kill time just to make it to dinner, so we can go home to the hotel afterwards. Ah well. Wish I were getting back to Edinburgh sooner but it´s a nice place, and there haven´t been too many arguements. I´ve been trying to visit places everyone will enjoy (don´t ask me why I end up planning where we visit...). You can tell we´d all rather be someplace with our own computers and internet though. If I hear my Dad complain one more time about missing World of Warcraft...

Anyway, must go. Ja ne!