NOT DEAD!

Now I know there were some worried folks out there but I assure all I am still alive and kickin. This has completed the Sarah portion of my holiday which means I now am not playing tour guild and bouncing around Barcelona all day everyday and can update my public on the adventures...and reassure all that I am still breathing and haven't wandered off the map.

I'll try to sum up the ten days with Sarah here without being overly detailed and such but I'll start by saying much fun was had. I got off work early the last Friday of work to go meet her at the airport...which ended up taking over 2 hrs because of some bad directions I got from some metro worker. Which also means it took me longer to get to the airport from Premia than it did Sarah to get there from Madrid.....ridiculous. But I did make it, and only about 5 mins after she had gotten there so that was good. That night was interesting. We went to a work dinner at a pretty cool restaurant that I cannot now remember the name, but it was good. We got there about half an hour late after hanging out with Adrian and then trying to rush showers and such which didn't work too well. Once getting there however, we had a relaxed and Spanish-length dinner which was nice because there were like 3 appetizers which meant Sarah got a nice taste of all Spanish had to offer...or at least everything that didn't have meet. Toward the end of dinner James even showed up with his newly arrived friends from England. Sarah and I finished our time at the restaurant at the English speaking side table talking to James and his friends and having some drinks. The after dinner adventure was interesting. We headed to some bar that was doing some kinda weird karaoke and had overpriced drinks but it was nice enough and everyone had a good time talkin and hangin out for a bit. We ended up next door at some dance club but more or less took over the upstairs bar above all the dancing craziness. We spent the time bouncing around all the work folk and James' friends just talking and drinking and goofing around, but it was in the end a good night and I think everyone had fun.

For the rest of the week Sarah and I did everything we could find to do around Barcelona. We went to the beach here a few times, we bar hoped in Barcelona. We had a few lazy days, that helped up prep to go adventure to some places that I hadn't been. That turned out to be nicer than me trying to play tour guilde because I didn't feel any pressure to find cool stuff to do because we were both equally lost. We found a very cool national art museum that was huge and as any good Spanish attraction had a bar/cafe to recharge half way through. We were there for about 5 hours but really only saw about half. I ran through most the the rest, but Sarah , hung out and bought some gifts at the gift shop. It was a good change from bars and wandering...however after we took the bus down and ended up back at Las Rambles for a little dinner and bar hopping on our way home. In the same area we found a cool Greek garden that I forget the name of but apparently the do little plays and stuff there and it was really cool just to spend an afternoon walking though some really nice gardens with statues scattered about.

We also spent some a day doing some of the Goudi things I had done with the Frenchies. We didn't get to go up inside the Sangra Familia because one of the elevators was broken and the wait was over 2 hours. But I think Sarah still enjoyed it and then we went to the Parc Guill (think that is how it is spelled, minus some crazy punctuation) which was alot nicer with Sarah than with the French family, it also helped that it was after one stop, instead of 5. We ended up finding it by fallowing some equally lost tourist up a giant hill which was not the way I went last time but it was cool to see a different part of the park and be able to rest and have a expensive sandwich and some sangria as we were attacked by pigeons.

So at this point I think I've given most of the highlights. Once I get some pictures from Sarah's camera I can put up some photo adventures. As for now I've finally come out of vacation stupor and managed to clean the apt, the disgusting fridge and even go to the store so I can have a dinner that doesn't involve pasta and tuna....not that there anything wrong with that. As for the rest of my vacation...which is until September 3rd...which is amazing. So I think I'm gonna take a day trip to Tarragona, unless I can find some cheaper trains to Malaga where I would really like to go. Unfortunately, even staying in Barcelona for ten days has sucked out alot of my money so we'll see what I can work out. But now that I have come out of vacation coma for the last 2 days I have even got a few emails out so hopefully I can graduate soon so I'm thinkin anything is possible.

Hope all is well back in the US of A and everyone feel free to email or get in touch whenever, I should be around for the next day or two at least and I'll probably even take the computer if i leave town so I hope to hear from ya soon.

Hasta luego!