Monday, 5-26

Wake up this morning, it's pouring. Derek comes by when we should be leaving to say we'll be doing stuff later. Breakfast at 9. Head up to Stewart's, hang out. They get pastries, we eat a ton of them since everybody else went back to bed. Best pastry ever. Apple filled, Nutella filled, Catalan cream filled, chocolate filled, and bread-type products you couldn't top if you tried. And this is the run-of-the-mill stuff.

Later, we hit up the Palace of the Kings of Mallorca despite the driving rain. It was cold, it was wet, it was windy, but the palace was kind of cool. Could heat rooms without fireplaces by making parts of the walls brick, i.e. connecting rooms via chimney. Nice garden outside (but inside the walls), where Wazoo proposed to me, as is the fashion in that locale, it seems.

Sunday, 5-25

Up bright and early for the three-hour trainride to Perpignan. Ride passed rather quickly. When we got to France, I was so entirely not at home. I didn't understand a word anyone said, and the cabbie took advantage of us. He dropped us off farther from the hotel than the other cabbies, and charged us 15 Euros for what cost everyone else about 7. We checked into the hotel (1 of the 3 stars on the sign now painted over). Our room had a single and a double, with a bath and sink and toilet and bedet. Headed to the laundromat where Benjamin had an extended conversation with a Nigerian named Sunday. First experience with food from Quick. Evening comes, and we wander the city. See the river, and other minor local attractions. Also see the Cathedral, home of one of the largest reliquaries in existence. See the house where that guy we heard about in HST 200 was stabbed 52 times by the woman acting alone, supposedly. It was orange. Quick again for dinner. Deadwood in our room. Everything here closes way, way early, if it's open on Sunday at all.

Saturday, 5-24

Today was beach day. We went to Castelldefels, which has one of the largest beaches in Spain. It was a fabulous day. Not too hot, but the water wasn't frigid. Good body surfing. The beach sloped out gently so the breakers were a long time in forming. Built "Fort Awesome" collectively, and it stood for much of the day. Way too many topless women, but so it goes in Europe, I guess. Derek got a pretty fascinating sunburn. Pretty typical beach day, all told.

When back at the hotel, we packed and Prosp3ct thought we could finish off the Jameson's, but I thought there was more in the bottle than he realized. We had a few shots but then left a good deal in the bottle and left the bottle in Barcelona. Showed him.

Friday, 5-23

Today was so-called "Adventure Day." My group consisted of myself, Derek, Wazoo, Brittany and Benjamin. Stweart sent us to Penida del Mar, a rather small but touristy beachfront town. Before we left, we had the following conversation with him:
Stewart: "Outside of the town, there's a castle somewhere in the mountains."
Us: "And you want us to find it."
S: "Yes."
U: "What's it called?"
S: "Tell me when you get back."

So, we hop on the train and go to this town. As we get in, there's a street market, so we pick up a few small pastries and a fresh pineapple. Then, we head into town thinking, "Okay, somebody here will be able to help us out." After a few blocks we go into a rather shady-looking tourist shop and ask the guy at the counter if he knows where a castle is. "Castillo?" he says, then proceeds to talk to his compatriot in Catalan. After a minute or so he turns back to us, says he doesn't know anything about any castle and tells us how to get to the Information booth. So, we walk the few blocks there (picking up some baguettes along the way), to find that the sign on the door says it's open, but the door is obviously locked. We see a man sitting inside smoking, so we jiggle the door until he opens it. "Is closed," he says. Wazoo and I immediately start telling him, in Spanish, what we're up to and kind of shove our way in. When we tell him we're looking for a castle he asks what it's called, and when we tell him that we have no idea he says, "Hay mucho castillos." At some point during this conversation he starts speaking English with us (after Wazoo says we're from Barcelona. Idiot). Eventually we get out of there with a few semi-useless tour guides and some nearly useless maps. The man closes up shop and leaves, and we figure out that the place we're looking for is Montpalau, the remains of a castle that was around at least as early as the 11th century. So, once we know this we eat some bread and pineapple, then head off in the general direction of the mountains.

We're headed uphill through this residential area and this man in a hard had his trimming his very high hedges. He stops, and says (in English), "Do you live here?" We respond in the negative and he says, "There is no castle here! Only houses!" It was the little man from the info booth. Apparently he was giving himself the afternoon off to do yardwork. Since he just kind of popped out of nowhere we decided that he must be a leprechaun, and so we called him thus, and kept expecting him to rear his head at every other bend in the road. He tells us that to get to any castle we have to go "to the other one," by which we assume me means hill/mountain, which requires going back through the city. So, we do that. Eventually, we figure out from one of the terrible maps that we have to follow this highway-ish thing toward Girona. In the distance, I see this thing on the top of one of the large hills/small mountains that looks kind of manmade. So, I snap a picture and zoom in and decide that must be it. So, we hop off the highway down a road leading towards that peak. At this point, I begin telling the Lobster House joke, which lasts a while. As I'm nearing the climax of the joke, we approach an intersection. If we continue straight, there is a paved road that doesn't look like it leads up in any way whatsoever. To our right is what seems to merely be an access road straight up the mountain a ways to a high-voltage tower. So, we decide that when in doubt, go uphill (thank you, Uncle Lynn). The access road then ends at the tower itself, which isn't all that high up. So, we scramble directly up the mountain through the woods and underbrush and thistles and whatnot.

After a while, we encountered a path, which we promptly followed. It had arrows pointing vaguely downhill, so we went the other way. After we had been on the path nearly as long as off, and had in fact made negative progress altitude-wise (major chunks of the path went down a long ways, and then up a bit) and were on the totally wrong side of the mountain, we said "Okay, we're going to go around this bend, and then we're just going to try to head back to where we got on the path in the first place." Luckily enough, around the bend was a path intersection with a sign with a man hiking that said "Montpalau, 1km." So, we followed that. It took us rather quickly to the remains of the castle, which was really just some walls. There, we found a shady spot and sat down to some bread and Nutella for a rest. All in all, the trip up to the castle once we got out of town was about two hours.

We head back down the path and see that the intersection sign also said "Penida del Mar, 3 km" (or was it five?). Thus, we follow a rather easy, sometimes paved, walking path back down the mountain. We found at the bottom that the initial intersection where we went up the access road had a sign (invisible to us where we stood early, merely a slit) that said "Montpalau, 3km." Oh well, so we're idiots. We still had fun. On the way back to the city we took a brief side-trip to the remains of a Roman aqueduct. It only had four arches remaining, but it was still pretty cool. We booked it back through town, pick up some water and snacks at the grocercy store, then hopped on the train. Probably one of the most interesting days we've had yet.

Tonight, went to the Matrix Reloaded. Sold out of 10:15 show, go to 1 AM show instead. Before the show, we get dinner and then head down to what we assume from the music is a row of dance clubs. Find out it's a row of strip clubs. Kudos to Tamara for knowin' how to pick 'em. One of the guys from a male joint dressed as a sailor approached me and handed me a flyer. I set it down without even looking at it and said, "I need to go have the manliest drink I can find just to make up for that experience," to which Kosik replied, "Will this work instead?" and took my arm. Then, to the Matrix. Good flick. To quote Sebastian about the first Matrix, "That was the coolest thing I've ever seen."

Thursday, 5-22

Today we took the train, as usual, this time to Terrassa. This is a heavily industrial town, though the city itself doesn't contain as much industry as it once did (it's all in the surrounding area now). While there, we went to what was once the home of a wealthy industrialist but is now a museum owned by the city or the province or some other form of the state. It was Art Nouveau and was tremendous. Every floor in every room was unique, always some sort of wood or marble (generally marble). The art on the walls and ceiling were remarkable, and it had the best glass patio I have ever seen. There were three pianos in the house (2 grand). What was most impressive about it, however, was that this palacial home was nestled amongst smaller homes and shops right in the middle of the city, and if you didn't know it was there, you'd probably miss it.

Here we also went to an industry/technology meseum, which had its moments of interestingness. The coolest part was that the entire museum had been a huge textile factory at one time. It had fantastic ceilings that were these wavy paterns of bricks with nearly vertical windows. Just as cool as any gothic ceiling I've seen yet. And they say that nothing good has come in the past few hundred years. They should take a look at this roof.

We had our discussion groups in a small park in the middle of the city. In the middle of it is a smokestack that they left standing as a monument to industrialization. Also, I saw some fabulous graffiti: "No a la guerra imperialista yanqui! Si a la guerra de la proletaria!" Go communists.

Wednesday, 5-21

Mom and Dad called around 1 AM, which would have been fine, but we had to leave for the train station at 6:15.

We took a 3 hour train to Puigcerda, a little town right on the border. There, we went to the early gothic style church, and then headed over to Bourgh Madame in France, where we had lunch. After that, we split up. I went with Stewart, Natalie, Derek and Emily, and we went to an old 7th century (I think) bridge with a fantastic view. And Derek tried to find a chopper at the helipad so we could fly to Andorra, but no copter was to be found. Because of that, he was in the dog house with Emily because she wanted to "eat every meal in a different country." We caught the early train back and then went to the net cafe and have been hanging out ever since, waiting to see who caught the late train and who missed it. The scotch blend tastes good.

Tuesday, 5-20

Today, partially because of Wazoo and partially because, I think, Stewart sensed that everyone needed a bit of a break, we slept in and, after some brief sightseeing, went our various ways, shopping and whatnot. We went to the parish of Santa Maria del Mar, a church done in the high gothic style, which was absolutely awe-inspiring. Apparently, there are lots of weddings there.

After lunch we went shopping. Prosp3ct and I went into H&M, where I found that while clothes here are cool, they are designed for men of a much smaller frame than I. Then we just meandered to different places, and went to a tobaccanist. Prosp3ct got some Cubans and I found some Davidoff Scotch blend to replace the stuff Nik got me that went bad.

At night, I played Deadwood with Prosp3ct, Tamara and Wazoo.

Monday, 5-19

Today we took the train up to Malgrat del Mar, a little tourist trap with fabulous beaches. We walked out of Malgrat up to Palafolls. On the walk between Malgrat and Palafolls I picked up a large shaft of bamboo as a walking stick and kept adding flowers to it as we went along. Stewart called me the "shaman, going along collecting herbs either to heal or to kill, depending on the situation." On a large hill outside of Palafolls are the ruins of the medieval castle belonging to the duke of the region, Palafolls. They were quite ruinous indeed, but still pretty and interesting nonetheless. I got a picture of Wazoo as the god of Wind atop the highest point of the Castle, and the three of us (Wazoo, Prosp3ct and I) collectively stormed the castles, the first people in history to do so successfully. Prosp3ct nearly lost the flag, but we got it back. At lunch, a picnic, Stewart had decided to turn the statement Prosp3ct and I had made earlier about not allowing any leftovers into a personal challenge, and therefore had bought entirely too much food. We both ate ourselves nearly sick, and the trip back down the large hill/smal mountain depending on whom you ask was not too fun. Wazoo for some reason nor another developed some horrific cramps that lasted well into the evening, so that wasn't good.

After retruning to Malgrat, we spent a little time in the Med. The water was cold, but by no means frigid. The Beat guys stormed the beach and took a bunker that was there, and we had some fun body surfing.

After retruning, there was a rather lengthy group discussion that later splintered off into smaller groups about drinking. I learned some interesting stuff about various people, particularly that Emily is not at all a teatotaller. Go figure. It went late into the night, and Lee, Prosp3ct and I ended up not getting to bed until about 4.

Sunday, 5-18

Nik called at about three o'clock this morning. It was nice to talk to her, but man, that was early. She's taken a second job as a "Sandwich artist" at Subway.

This morning, I got up late and headed over to a local parish for Mass with all the Catholics. We got there to find that we were rather early so we went over to the Cathedral to find it crowded and that we were rather late for that Mass, which also happened to be in Catalan, rather than Castellano. So, we headed back to the smaller church (Santa Ana, I believe), and were approached to do the readings, but respectfully declined.

Later in the afternoon, some of us went to Pizza Hut for lunch with Stewart and then to the zoo. I got some fantastic video of Prosp3ct scaring pigeons.

On the way to the zoo we saw the Barcelona Arc of Triumph (built for the World's Fair), and the humorous nearby Arc of Peace. Take that, pacifists. We also saw the monument to the massacre by the French on 11 September, 1714. An enternal flame and mulberry trees. Quite moving.

After the zoo, we headed back to the hotel, and a number of us went over to the Cerveceria across the street. Here, we had our first experience with getting screwed as tourists. We just wanted to sit outside, have a few drinks and some tapas. There was no room outside, however, so they took us upstairs where we were seated by a somewhat elderly waiter, probably the upstairs manager, "Paco." After Paco had said that he was from Seattle and then found out that Brittany was too, Brittany asked for some tapas, and rather than bringing her the menu he said, "Okay, I bring you the sampler." He then proceded to bring out eight plates of food, and all of us were to big of wimps to send it back. Brittany tried to send a few plates back, but wussed out, and by that point Wazoo had eaten some of the ones to send back, so we couldn't anyhow. When the bill finally came, the tapas, a bottle of wine and two beers came to a total of nearly 98 Euros. Brittany covered about half the bill beause it was her mistake, but we all chipped in for the rest because we had obviously been eating, too. I need not say that we'll probably not be going back. At least it tasted good.

That night, Prosp3ct, Tamara and I played "Deadwood," the game Amy sent me for my birthday. It's quite fun.

Saturday, 5-17

Today, we took a train up to Tarragona, once capital of the Western part of the Roman empire. The cathedral there was magnificent, though not nearly as grandiose as that of Barcelona. After wandering around the town for a while, seeing the remains of the old Roman city that were still there (mostly the wall), drinking from the "Font of health" and hanging the Beat flag from a statue of Augustus Caesar, we had lunch by the Roman aqueduct that is one of the three largest still in tact. It was quite high and quite beautiful.

We then headed home. In the evening, Tamara, Brittany, Prosp3ct and I headed out to La Plaça Catalunya and just hung out for a while. While there, I learned a new Spanish word for pot from several gentlemen along the way, "porro."

Friday, 5-16

This morning, we hiked a ways across the city and up a very large hill. At the top of this hill, which was right seaside, was a large fortress, which once essentially controlled the entire city. In the fortress now is a military museum, which was really quite dull. There were a few cool weapons and the pictures of all the monarchs were interesting, particularly accompanied by Dr. Stewart's stories about them, but other than that it was more than a little dry.

Lunch was at a fabulous hole in the wall that Stewart had never been to, "El Bistro." The waiter was frantic and more than friendly, and at the end of our meal gave out a round of virgin green apple schnapps. Tucker liked it so much he bought some more at the store later. For my meal, I had paella for the first time. It was good, but a bit too much saffron for my liking.

Lunch eneded around three and we headed up the street to the Barcelona Maritime Museum. Sadly, about 1/3 of the museum was off-limits because of reconstruction, but what was open was still quite interesting. The museum is housed in what was once the royal shipyards, and is enormous. They also had these cool personal audio tours via headsets where you entered the number of a specific exhibit, and it would talk about it in whatever language you had selected. Cool music, too.

Dinner was at Pastafiore again, so nothing special there. After that we took the metro out to near the museum of art where there is a rather large fountain that has a nightly music and light show that was pretty to look at. Stewart and Wazoo tossed the disc with a few Serbians. Then, we walked to some strange large metal slide near the train station, and took the metro back to the hotel. Apparently we're up bright and early tomorrow to catch the train. Joy of joys.

Thursday, 5-15

Today, we went to an old Monastery that also housed a rather large collection of Early Modern art. Not much too exciting happened there, but it was still interesting. The churh had a fantastic organ that was playing all the while, and it sounded amazing.

After lunch we went to Parc Güell, a large city park boasting a lot of archtecture by Gaudí. There, Dr. Stewart gave an overview of Catalan history, and they tossed the disc for a while.

For dinner we went to a restaurant that had some genuine Spanish food (I had fried squid and croquetas), but it wasn't all that great because it was kind of a touristy part of town.

At night, Prosp3ct, Brittany, Alicia and I went to this little tapas bar down the road about five blocks, out of the tourist section, so the waiters spoke no English and the place was pretty quiet.

In other news, Prosp3ct and I awoke quite late and had to run out the door without showering or anything, and Prosp3ct didn't realize that I had left the keys with him, so we were quite fortunate to not have our room ransacked upon our return.

Wednesday, 5-14

This morning my alarm went off at "eight" twice because it was running too fast because of the difference in voltages in the outlets. Obviously not a quartz movement clock. I finally got up around eight, and nearly killed myself on the wet floor of the bathroom. For breakfast, we had some great apples, grapes and strawberries. This morning's journey took us to the old part of the city, where there was a lot of medieval architecture. We also saw the ruins of the Roman city that had been excavated, and the site is now a museum. Stewart commented that he wonders where the dust comes from. Just out in the open there are some Roman graves, too.

We had lunch at the food court in the mall, where I had a falafel sandwich and a Corona, here called Coronita. It was better than the Amstel, but still not something I enjoyed. After lunch we went to the largest Aquarium in Europe, which was a lot of fun. It had a rather lengthy section with moving sidewalks that go under the main tank. Sharks were swimming right over us. There was one fish that had some bites taken out of its back. I also saw some conger eels. This was the first place that we claimed some territory for the Beat.

After the aquarium, we hit the beach for quite a while. We claimed the point for the Beat, played some frisbee, and laid out. I fulfilled my civic duty by hitting two pigeons with rocks. From the beach we went for some churros, then headed home for a while, where I accidentally took a bit of a nap.

Right before dinner, we celebrated Dr. Stewart's birthday with an ice cream cake and two Catalan copies of "The Three Musketeers" children's books.

Dinner was at a sit-down and be-served with real plates and silverware fast food Italian place, called Pastafiore. It was tasty. Then it was time for gelatto and back to the hotel. After being here not long at all, I went to an internet cafe down the street with some of the folks. It's quite cheap, thankfully, and I plan to frequent it at least somewhat.

After returning, Prosp3ct, Brittany, Tamara and I went to a jazz club a few blocks down. There was a piano-bass duet playing, and they were quite good. The drinks (just a brandy for me) were rather expensive since they covered the price of the entertainment as well. On the way out, we had to go out through the bar. We decided we'd stop since there was Guinness on tap. I really wasn't into that, either. I don't think I'm going to be much of a beer-drinker. However, I tried some of Tamara's Murphy's Irish Red, and that was alright. Prosp3ct said it was "really hoppy" but I'll have to take his word for it. As we were about to leave, the bartender said he'd do a shot with us, on him. So, he poured us half a shot of Jack Daniels and half of peppermint schnapps, and we threw them back. They were... minty. On a side note, we also had some teriffic potato chips, and almonds coated in salt and butter. Then, it was time to head home. Tamara went to bed (she seemed a bit tipsy, asking Prosp3ct about "where all those Romans went"), but Brittany, Prosp3ct and I stayed up for qute a bit longer just chatting and muching on Cheez-Its.

Here we go. Each following post (at least for a while) is an entry from my Spain journal. Some of it's boring, but it will be your fault for reading it if it is. As a word of warning, these only go up through May 26 (I got lazy or busy or both), so after that I'm going to just rehash as much as I can. Enjoy.

Tuesday, 5-13

It's about 7:45 PM here, which is about 1:45 PM back home. I've been up since eight o'clock yesterday morning, EST, but I'm still going strong. The hotel here is kind of interesting. A sink the the room, but the toilets and bath are down the hall. Some of the girls have showers in their room, but no such luck for us.

Not long after we got in we walked around the block just looking at stuff, and went to this fantastic old cathedral. I don't remember the name of it, but we're going back tomomrrow to actually learn stuff about it. After that we went to Bocatta, a native Spanish chain restaurant, for dinner, and I had a sandwich consisting of a rather tasty baguette, pork chops, and some form of cheese, probably a mild swiss. It was a decent little place.

On the plane this afternoon I had my first drink, a gin and tonic. It's one of those things that if you have the proportions right it can be downright good, but if they're a bit off, it tastes awful. But mine was good. Lee had some of his gin left after making his, and so we mixed it with some sparkling mineral water. It tasted so bad that we had to share it with everybody else.

It was rather hot when we came in today, but it's getting rather chilly now, and it looks like it will probably rain. Cold front moving in or something. Should make going out with Prosp3ct and Tamara and whomever else for tapas and sangria rather interesting. Guess we'll see.

Went out with Prosp3ct and Tamara for drinks and tapas at a little place right across the street from the hotel. We split a pitcher of sangria, and I had an Amstel. The sangria was good after a while, but I really wasn't into the beer. Prosp3ct and I split an order of caragoles, which were quite tasty. We had a very cool waiter that had spent a lot of time in the U.S., and had even been snowboarding in Michigan. He was from the Czech Republic.

Well, I've been back in the States about a week and a half now, and things are pretty slow. The first week I was back I spent running lights at the local theatre for a dance rehearsal. I was up in the booth for about twelve hours every day, and elsewhere in the theatre for two. Fun times. The only work I have now is six hours a week running a videoconferencing lab in Mansfield, which means I also have four hours of commute a week. So, other than not working much (though I'm still looking for other forms of employment) all I'm doing is playing a bit part in Anything Goes, put on by the Mount Vernon Players. I didn't really know the show very well at all and was pleased to find that "I Get a Kick Out of You" is part of it.

In other news, my entire household is partaking of (or abstaining via?) the Atkins diet. After two days I had lost five pounds, so let's hope it keeps up. Maybe by the end of the summer I'll be back to the old sveldt 180 I once was.

That is all.