Also I saw storks yesterday. They build huge nests on top of churches! And here in Spain they also bring the babies, but they bring them from Paris. Yep, all babies come from Paris by way of Stork.

A Snailing We Will Go

It was Lauren´s birthday! But I didn´t call her or anything. And now she´s going to go spend the summer with Fish and Jade and not me. Oh well.
This weekend was more like the old Spain. I went out to dinner and dancing, came home at 5 in the morning, got up early the next day and saw Lleida and Sorrós, the hometown of Isabel. About 21 of us went to lunch and everybody ate caracoles (snails) except me. Why? Because they look gross. That´s why. Also everybody told dirty jokes. It was lovely.



These are some previous snailing activities held here at the house. They are very popular. And expensive, apparently. which is silly because there are tons just crawling around. I also find it funny that after you catch them you have to scare them, and then let them sit for a few days so they poop all their poop. Nobody, however, could give me a good explanation as to how you scare a snail.

(p.s. the uppermost foto (except for the text bubbles, which were added by yours truly) is by someone named Cornelia O´Donovan)

Glutinous Tree Expedition

I have to say I am not at all suprised that there is no old growth left. If I am to believe Pirates of the Carribean one can expect to go through about 4 masts per boat per expedition.

I also got on the wrong train yesterday. Once I saw the ocean I knew something andaba mal. My undying gratitude to the man who told me that I had to get off and go back to Barcelona, the lady who told me that that train DID, in fact, go to Barcelona, the Renfe man who let me back through the gate and the woman from Bolivia who let me use her cell phone.

Barcelona

Barcelona is just amazingly gorgeous. That´s all. Everywhere you look there are incredible, beautiful, distinctive buildings. It has character. Barcelona has eaten its vegetables and split firewood and all those sorts of things.

At times I think I love Barcelona. I look around and I think, "Amazing! Wonderful! Interesting!" and I feel a sort of comradeship with the city for, oh, maybe even several minutes before something offensive happens. Like narrowly avoiding the umpteenth pile of human feces. Or like seeing that those weird lumps floating in that beautiful pond are bird wings. Just dismembered bird wings. 7 pairs of them.

Like I walk down Las Ramblas and enjoy the fresh breeze and understand people talking and admire some crazy gargoyle or weird seaweed like ironwork or the bank that is covered in cement japanese umbrellas and stained glass and look forward to getting home and eating, only to find that somebody kindly deposited their half eaten WHATEVER sticky mess in my bike basket. Thank you Barcelona. But then I bike back home and it feels great, so it´s okay.

Or I get out and find someplace that doesn´t smell bad, that had trees (because the parks here are really lovely. Full of random ornate marble statues and complicated fountains and paths and people walking dogs or children etc) and I´m breathing it in, I´m in a beautiful foreign city! I´m eating my lunch and reading about the history of the castle I´m soon to enter to see famous art! Life is wonderful! And then all of a sudden some sprinkler system turns on and oh my goodness get the book! Get my bag! Get the camera and the lunch and get out! "Gosh," we say to ourselves, "Funny things happen somtimes," and that would be that IF the sprinkler water didn´t smell like it came straight out of somebody´s septic system so OF COURSE I have to throw away my lunch (because who really wants giardia? Again?) AND my water AND I smell like excrement.
But then I go into the musuem and chat with the guards, who try to guess my nationality and name every country in northern europe, plus france. And I see piles of exciting art.

But that´s just Barcelona. Doing its best to drive home the point that this world is made of both beauty and poop.