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Arrival

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BaBarcelona This trip snuck up on us and almost succeeded in surprising us entirely.  Two weeks of lots to do, Abbey at the Cape and me in Oneonta, and suddenly our E. A. Poe readings, which I produced and directed, and Abbey's various classes, show applications and pottery projects, were done – it was Saturday morning, and before we knew it we were on our way to Randall and Lily's.  Which is to say that we have given very little thought to the trip, and here we are in the airport waiting to take off. Great time with Randall and Lily and Gwen.  Then somehow it was embarkation day noon, and we piled into our car, with Randall driving, and got dropped off at Logan Airport in Boston (thanks again!).  We'll leave our car in their driveway, so they'll have two cars for three weeks, and our car won't just sit in a parking lot (like last time) and drain the battery. I have said before, that the time before a trip – actually, before we actually get going on our exploration ...
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Barcelona - Montserrat

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  Montserrat – Nov. 25 I miss spending the pre-dawn hours on the roof deck of a riverboat.  So much to see and hear and smell.  The world going by – approaching, here, and gone, as the sun rises.  Very nice. This morning, the predawn hours were spent in the lobby of the hotel, in a comfortable chair, mostly reading.  American pop music played very softly over by the registration desk, where a lone attendant read his phone. Breakfast, downstairs, was a nice buffet, not as elaborate as the ones in France, but pretty good.  All the selections were labeled, and all the labels were in English.  They know their clientele. I'm circling back from much later for a second here because it may be of interest to know that Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, which, according to Wikipedia, “is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a 'nationality' in its Statute of Autonomy.”  I will learn, in time, what this actually means, but it at least means tha...
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Sagrada and Thanksgiving Dinner

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Happy Thanksgiving! Sagrada Familia  Man, what a day.  As noted earlier, a very long day, and a day I chose not to bring my cane/seat so I could take pictures without having to hold on to it at the same time.  It was a bad foot day (arthritis), a bad Mystery Knee Ailment day, and a normal day of back pain brought on by standing still a lot.  In addition, we seem to be susceptible to “second night jet lag,” where we can't get to, or stay, asleep.   OK.  Enough of that.  Very light jazz in the lobby this morning, very nice.  Another great breakfast, and we left at 8:00 instead of 8:30, for an unknown reason, on a day when Abbey could have used that extra half hour of sleep, and made it 3½ hours instead of just 3.  We walked to the bus again; at the end of today, we will have walked two miles just getting to and from the hotel from the bus. We happened into the front seat, and as we approached Sagrada Familia, it just rose out of the urban ...
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