wow. such good things happening here in barcelona, the city is really quite amazing. its really neat too, being in a city for this long, especially one where there's plenty of stuff to do. we're completely comfortable with the city, we've practically walked the entire thing many times. and thanks to the wonders of having a kitchen, i'm eating on about $2 a day. las ramblas, the main street, its THE most incredible, if i wasn't in constant fear of being pickpocketed there, i could just sit and watch the people passing for hours. more so than in any other place that i've been. anything you want to see, chances are its there. and i continue to just have the greatest time with jim and vanessa, i find myself in tears laughing far too often. mansize magazine jokes, the old guy being molested by the scam artists, "that guy's an encyclopedia!", "thats like saying, you know whats a good follow up to 'our father'?.. who art in heaven"... and so many more that i hopefully will be able to remember and jot down somewhere.
2 days ago, we made our rental car reservation. so its official, we're going to pamplona on sunday. rather surreal actually, it took a while for it to sink in. there's 4 of us going, jim, me, vanessa and another guy, david, from mexico. he speaks spanish, naturally, so it'll be a little better having him along. and in doing so, we've mapped out a route there and back that lets us see soooo much more than if we had never got the car. i'm quite excited about it.
after that, we managed to just sit in park guell, a gaudi designed park, for hours. my journal is in a constant state of not-up-to-date-edness, so it was really quite nice to be able to sit and write for a few hours. and in such a lovely park no less. a spectacular view of nearly the entire city, plus it was SUCH a nice day. at times the breeze teetered on being *cold*, believe it or not.
stopped on the way home at the venerable CHAMPION grocery store, where we picked up foods for the night. loads of fanta, pasta, and boxes of red table wine for a lovely grand total of something like $4. so we had another lovely pasta dinner, and drank our wine, with a girl from quebec named marie-helen (who was eating steak, and i was jealous, but ours was good nonetheless). the night progressed, as we continued to polish off $0.45 liter after $0.45 liter of not too shabby wine. we ended up on the roof of the building for what seemed like just a little while, but ended up being a few hours. me, jim and vanessa, marie-helen, CARLOS, david, jason from new zealand, and 2 or 3 other mexican guys. it was the greatest. although, sometime in the revelry i managed to lose my swiss army knife, which we were using to slice open the boxes of vino. hmm. perhaps its still on the roof. who knows.
needless to say, yesterday everyone was a little slow getting out of bed. it is nice though, to be in a place where they don't kick you out at 8am or some such. so we're taking advantage of it. after checking the internet for some train schedules, and picking up supplies for a chorizo sandwich to end all chorizo sandwiches ($2 MUCH better spent this time), we finally are able to make our way to the beach, the extent of our accomplishments yesterday. a manmade beach, the sand was strange, but it was beach nonetheless, and there were WAVES, which provided us with quite a bit of excitement.
back at the hostel, another round of pasta and baguette, and polished off our fanta. then went out on the ramblas with marie-helen for ICE CREAM, she got the last waffle, i had to settle for a cone, but mmm do i love ice cream anywho. we sat at mcdonalds' outdoor cafe to eat it, thanks mickey d. the ramblas are so different at night, they come alive in a completely different manner, chalk full of performers and such. we stopped forever to watch these 2 guys and a girl do some flamenco dancing. it was unbelievable. a fitting end to a lovely evening.
and with that, it is now today, i do believe its the 4th of JULY! my sense of what day it is is completely screwed up, but happy 4th to all those on american soil. first one i've missed in forever, its rather odd.
and although its not ALL of my pictures, i've posted a great many new pictures. the new ones begin about here:
Europe 2003 - Temporary photos and i will post some of my favorites below..