hi---haven´t had much time or ability to blog lately as our hotel in barcelona had limited internet access...so i´ve been away from the computer for the last few days. anyhow, to sum things up:



sri & i arrived to sunny barcelona on wednesday. ah, what a beautiful city. our first day there, we embarked on a crazy long walk all over the city. this won´t mean much if you don´t know the city...but we walked from our hotel (the derby hotel) which is near the metro hóspital clinic along the avenida diagonal...down the paseo de gracia, across the plaza catalunya, down las ramblas, and then crossing all the way over to the olympic port. whew! hours and hours of walking...but very enjoyable with all the quaint shops, palm trees, people and waterfront to view. that night, we ate like queens at the El Cangrejo Loco Restaurant in the port olympic--i had a very yummy lobster and sri had monkfish. yum yum...after dinner, despite how tired we were, we wandered over to one of the many bars in the olympic port--a shisha bar nonetheless! .. although it was quite a ripoff: 15 euros just for one bowl of shisha! but shisha just sounded so wonderful at the time so we just went for it...and it was quite a good decision. we hung out there until, oh, 2 or 3 in the morning and then headed back to the hotel.



thursday, we woke up very late and headed straight to the catedral de la sagrada familia, my third time there...but still awe-inspiring each time. fortunately, there wasn´t a line and we got to go right in. sri & i climbed the 75 meters up the spiral staircases for an amazing view of barcelona. i´m hoping that this cathedral gets finished within my lifetime....it´s that spectacular. after that, we walked over to see Casa Milá, aka La Pedrera, another well-known Antoní Gaudí building. later in the evening, we met up for dinner with stephane, a former amazonian and friend who moved to barcelona earlier this year....very good to see him. we caught up over dinner at a cute local restaurant and then got a drink in the Plaza Real. Yay.



friday, sri & i woke up late...again (this spanish time of eating dinner late and staying out late makes it quite difficult to get up in the morning!). we got a café con leche and headed over to the Passeig de Graçia to meet up with Matt at the Avanade Spain office...very chi-chi...only to learn that he had quite the elaborate late afternoon plans with his coworkers. instead of kidnapping him to go to the parç guëll with us, we split up for the afternoon. the weather was absolutely gorgeous and Sri & I took a long walk over to the park. this was also my third time there...but i love that park so much. we lounged around in the sun a bit, took some pictures, breathed in the fresh air (which is hard to get in this smoke-laden country) and headed back to the hotel for a rest....before meeting up with Stephane again to check out his new flat, which is oh so cool. the ceilings there are so high and the place is so extremely quaint. loved it. after fussing around with his new internet connection, we headed out for an extremely good italian dinner at one of steph´s favorite restaurants in the barri gótica district. after dinner, we finally met up with matt & his coworkers for a few drinks in the born district. the night ended with me, stephane & sri checking out a place i went to back in 98, the maremagnum complex with two huge discotecas at the top. unfortunately, it wasn´t quite as hopping as i remembered it to be. the three of us chatted for a bit on the waterfront and said our adieus eventually, somewhere around 5am. it was very nice to see stephane and i think it was nice for him to see so many seattlelites.



today--our last day--sri & i left barcelona and flew back to madrid. we checked back into the same hotel and immediately headed out to see picasso´s guernica at the reína sofía, only to be sadly disappointed to find out that the museum just happens to be closed today for some reason (we think it´s because there´s a holiday, but we´re still not sure...all the shops were closed today and we saw a bunch of festivities around the plaza mayor) so we wandered over to the Parque Retiro, which was just absolutely lovely. the weather in madrid today was ten thousand times better than earlier in the week when we were here. apparently, in the park today there was una fiesta de los niños, and all sorts of little spanish children were dressed in cute period outfits. everyone was out, soaking in the sun and enjoying a gorgeous saturday afternoon. i don´t think i ever got a chance to enjoy a nice day at the park retiro.



tonight, we had a great dinner at a place called Entretapas. afterwards, i insisted on taking sri to an area of town that i used to hang out at all the time, near the alonzo martínez metro stop. sadly, i didn´t enjoy it as well this time--because EVERYONE hanging out at the bars in this area seemed so young to me! of course, the last time i was here, i was perhaps 19 or 20...which was perfect for me at the time. after a drink, we felt awkward enough to head back to the puerta de sol area and try out a club that i remembered thinking "seemed like an older crowd" before...a discoteca called Palacio Gaviria, which ended up being so much fun and definitely more our style. after dancing a bit, we had to leave due to the inability to breathe much more (there was way too much smoke there...) but we had a great time. I forgot how beautiful of a discoteca that place was.



it´s now almost 5am and we need to wake up in a few hours to get ready, have a desayuno and head off to the airport for our long flight back....i don´t think i ever adjusted to spanish time (in the sense of going to sleep or waking up at any decent hour)...which, i hope, is good...so that i can readjust to seattle time quite quickly. we´ll see.



this was a short trip but extremely enjoyable.