Barcelona

6:30 AM flight to Barcelona on Sterling Airlines. Very much the Southwest (or less) of the Nordics. No food was free, you had to buy everything but water. I actually don't mind this too much as airplane food is rarely exciting. A free coffee would be good but I am not going to argue with the economic model.

We were some of the last people to check in and got seats in the last row of the plane which do not recline. This is of course significant because I am tall enough that if the person in front of me reclines, I will literally have to sit halfway in the aisle. Fortunately I put my son in front of me to prevent that. The guy across the aisle from me was not so lucky. The guy in front of him reclined immediatley and he was forced into the aisle. He used the two crutches that have a c-shaped grip around the forearm and seemed to have something wrong with his feet or lower legs. He couldn't move them very well from the aisle and his pants were almost identical colored to the seats. This mean that everyone that came down to go the bathroom or driving a drink cart either kicked the guy or crushed his already semi-useless legs. Had he displayed any grace about the situation I think the flight attendants might have taken some pity on him and tried to help him out. Instead, he glared at everyone that came by. It was a bit more sad than menacing but it still had the armless-burned-leper-on-the-corner effect in that everyone just pretended he didn't exist. Unrelated but significant, there were alot of people on the plane wearing VonDutch hats. I find those corny in an un-funny way.

You notice the humidity immediatley off the plane. It creeps in and then greets you as a phsyical presence on the jetway. Due to the EU there is no passport control which is simultaneously efficient and dissapointing. We got all the bags except the jogging stroller for my 2 year old daughter who must weigh 30-40 lbs by now. The baggage people took a very Spanish speaking approach ie. manana, manana (can't find the squiggly n so you'll have to pretend I can spell). It never showed up which sucked because we had to either make her walk or carry her for 2 days until we could find a place open to buy a stroller.

25 minute cab ride into Barceloneta which is an old working class fishermans area being renovated to be a tourist area. The streets are tiny as are the apartments and we had to spend some time w/ the cab driver finding the street on a map.

If you are an American travelling to Euroupe, I can't emphasize enough that they have a 0th floor. Our '4th' floor apartment with no elevator was in point of fact a 5th(!!!) floor aparment with no AC. It was small quaint and other than hauling bags and kids way the hell up there and sweating like a bastard (sweating like a bastard I think will be something of a theme for the trip) was fine for us. The Scots that had been staying just before us had only recently vacated and the Spanish cleaning lady was still there. She was easily, without a doubt the best dressed and hottest cleaning lady on the planet. They should have pagents for various occupations like cleaning lady, stewardess, nurse etc. but I digress. The rental lady met us there to pickup the money and she happened to be Swedish and look exactly like my cousin Charlotte. She walked us over to a bar on the corner that ended up having the best tapas we would get for whole stay. We tried to go back several times but the Spanish opening and closing times sort of defeated us.

I'll break the chronology at this point and hit the highlights.

We saw alot of Modernist (I think this is right term) architecture from Gaudi and his buddies. The partially complete Sagrada Familia was the craziest looking church I have ever seen or heard of. My description would do nothing to help you see it but it won't be finished for another 25 years so you have time to get by and check it out. We also toured through Parc Guel which was the olden days version of Civano but with WAY cooler design. The other buildings were residences or apartments and very unique. The Chris Baker summary is that they all avoid sharp corners and are very organic and fluid. Also they have alot of mosiac tile stuff which I liked.

We hit 2 art Museums (Picasso and Miro) which with kids age 2 and 6 is an absolute freaking miracle. I liked Picasso's much better, I don't know alot about art and abstract stuff like Miro's just misses me completely. The Picasso museum showed alot of his very early work (like age 9 and up) and its interesting to see the development of his art. It turns out that a crazed cubist is actually a talented artist in the 'objective' sense. I have always wondered how actually talented are the guys who splash paint and poo etc. haphazardly at a canvas. I liked the series of paintings (an example) he did based on a Velazquez painting (love the Wiki) that I recognized from an art history class in college.

We hit the beach several times and were a little surprised that all the beaches are de facto topless beaches. I am not a gigantic prude but still this threw me off a bit. Less by the topless-ness generally and more with the specifics of old, fat granny's hanging out there for the world to see. One corpulent septegenarian spent a solid 20 minutes standing ankle deep on the beach vigorusly scrubbing all of her situations. Analyzing the topless beach you can't forget the granny factor. That aside, there were some really great views and I would like to thank all the good looking Spanish women for making my vacation a little bit brighter. There was also an old woman who floated in the water for at least an hour singing all the while. She had a nice voice and it was kind of surreal rising and falling in pitch as the waves tossed her around.

Did I mention that it was murderously humid and that I was constantly sweating like a bastard? I was not the only one and on many occasions I found myself confronted by a 3 foot radius of stink surrounding an otherwise normal looking guy. This really was the only downside to the trip as I overheat pretty easily and turn into a giant baby when I can't cool down.

Next post more about the food.