Hola!

Hello from Barcelona! It´s a beautiful city and we´ve loved our time here, lots of great things to see. We´ll try to add some photos from Lyon but it´ll depend on the computer and how organised we are.

Let´s see... Wednesday I updated and that afternoon Laura had a meeting for her new part time job that she starts next week so I went to the art gallery without her. It was very nice, lots of lovely impressionist pieces and a very impressive sculpture collection. I was about an hour or so there and then I went and got a coffee and pastry (of course, what else would you do in France?) Although the coee here is surprisingly bad, especially after Italy which had great coffee! Then I headed home with a few wee supplies because I was cooking! It was fun, the first proper meal I´d made since before I left NZ. I made casserole with mushrooms, chicken, potato and zucchini. Rather tasty if I do say so myself.

Thursday we had decided to go around a couple of the vintage shops which Laura had seen in her wanderings but it turned out they were all closed in the morning so we walked for a while before heading back to try and use up four zucchini for lunch (we went a bit courgette-mad at the market.) We managed three so I think that was a good effort. Then back out to find the vintage stores and somewhere nice for dinner since we decided to treat ourselves. The first vintage store was a let down, very overpriced. The second however was a treasure trove of cute dresses, none of which fit me right, and a beautiful jacket/cardigan which fit perfectly. I´ve been making do with my sweater, very stained from Africa and not the prettiest even if it is practical. So now I have a practical and pretty wee jacket - from a little boutique in France! Just to make you all jealous.

That night we wandered for a whil to find a dinner place, had a drink in a really nice little pub and then headed to a favourite of Paul´s (friend who used to live in Lyon.) I had a lovely ravioli and a local main called Quenelle, a sort of dumpling with lobster sauce. Very yum. Then cheese and dessert. We were out with Laura´s friend Sondra, who very kindly spoke French for me even though she obviously wasn´t very comfortable with it, I do feel so bad sometimes. She was very sweet and it was a lovely evening.

Friday we flew to Barcelona! This required being up at 6.45 to get a bus at 7.20 to get to the airport by 8.30 for our 9.45 flight... arrived very tired but determined to make the most of our time here! We ditched our stuff and headed out to see the cathedral, the gothic quarter and the Picasso Museum. We saw the outside of the cathedral, which was covered in scaffolding, but didn´t go in. From what we saw on a postcard later it is a very impressive cathedral! We hit a corner of the Gothic Quarter and found the museum. The Picasso exhibition was amazing. It was chronological so you could really see the development from being an immensely talented child to being an unbelievably creative adult. After that we just wandered for a long while and found ourselves at the beach! We sat for a while and just enjoyed the view and the people around us before wandering along the waterfront down to the giant Colombus monument and back to the hostel. Another walk later that evening, free dinner at the hostel and lots of chats with other travellers before we went out for a wee drink. We met a nice french guy, Jean-Marie, who is here for the weekend too and has no spanish and not great English so he and Laura had a nice chat in French. He had been recommended this lovely little bar, attached to the wax museum of all places! It was sort of forest themed so it had a great ambience, we shared a bottle of wine and Jean-Marie practised his English for my advantage.

Yesterday morning we got up around 8 but pottered around with internet and breakfast for a bit before heading off at about 10. We had read about a flea market which was not too far away so we wandered that way and found one of the best markets I´ve ever been to! We spent about two hours there wandering and browsing and spending money. It was a bad couple days for me, I lost my sunglasses and broke my watch so they were priorities for me to replace, success on both counts for only €10 total - love markets. We had designated today Gaudi Day so we left to find the Sagrada Familia. Gaudi designed this big amazing cathedral which is still being built and probably won´t be done for at least 20 years. It was absolutely amazing, one of the best things I´ve seen on this trip I think. So complex and beautiful, a stunning building. I don´t know how to describe it, google it and times the impressiveness by about a million.

After that we found a few more Gaudi buildings including his old home, Casa Batllo but missed one of the big ones, La Pedrera. We headed back to the hostel for a nap because Saturday was dancing night!! We rested up and had planned to go out for dinner but tortellini and rice with veges were on the menu at the hostel for free so we decided to save some money and eat in. Met up with Jean-Marie again and decided to walk out to the west and see the ¨Magic Fountains¨which we´d been told about. Took a totally roundabout route before we finally got there, but it was fun and so worth it. The fountains only run at night and they light up pretty colours. Then we walked back to El Raval for a drink, or a couple of drinks actually. We had mojitos which were really great and then some wine and nachoes. Chatted for a long time and invited Jean-Marie dancing with us, he had to change etc. so we went back to the hostel and on the way got discount tickets for the club which is right next-door. That solved the question of where to go, although teh cover charge was still pretty high. We got there around 1 and at first we couldn´t find the room which wasn´t hip-hop so we danced for a bit to some really horrific music before finding the other room which played everything from Elvis to U2 so we had fun and Laura made fun of my utter lack of musical knowledge. At around 3 I couldn´t handle the cigarette smoke anymore (Spain still lets people smoke anywhere so it gets a bit painful) and we went home to bed! It was a really great night.

This morning we were still up at 9, although moving a bit slower than usual. There was a funny little market outside our hostel which we checked out before going to explore the western area which we looked at yesterday in the dark. Found the park, a bunch of museums and a great gallery with heaps of free exhibitions, we saw one of Mucha and one of religious art on loan from the Uffizi. Very cool, spent a long time in the shop but didn´t buy too much. Then we wanted to see the Gaudi we missed and on the way found a wedding expo, which would have been cool but it cost too much to get in so we flagged (gee Catie, what an awesome story.) La Pedrera was beautiful and we saw a postcard for the Palau de Musica which looked pretty and was in the part of the Gothic area which we missed Friday so that was next. Very impressive stained glass windows and Gaudi mosaics, and the rest of the Gothic bit was very cool too.

So tonight we´re going out for tapas and paella, necessary I think, and then probably early to bed because all the coffee in the world is not going to keep us awake for long. I think we´re getting old.