Our home in Barcelona

Barcelona has been a wonderful place of relaxation for us. I always enjoy this city when I visit, but this time it has specially felt like home. We are living in a wonderful fifth floor apartment on a semi pedestrian street just three blocks away from Paseo de Gracia, Barcelona's most upscale boulevard. The architecture in Barcelona is unique from anywhere else in the world having had a huge influence by Modernist architects such as Gaudi. The buildings we face are some of the most photographed in the city.

We've spent much of our time here just reading, lounging, and taking leisure walks to the Gothic quarter or down Las Ramblas. We actually haven't done much sightseeing since we've visited the major tourist places in previous trips. I've been hooked on a wonderful novel that takes place here in Barcelona, The Shadow ofthe Wind, and have enjoyed long days reading without feeling the rush or obligation of a long list of 'to dos'.

Here are a few pictures of our place -- this will get you a better sense for where we are actually living. Life is good.

Did I already mention that I loved Paris?

We've decided that since we liked Paris so much, we would end our trip there by going back one more time. In the meantime, here are a few pictures of the magical city.

Notre Dame Cathedral - a tiny bit blurry but we'll take a better one next time!

Paris in all its splendour from the top of the Arc de Triomphe

The Champs Elysees and the Place de la Concorde. Notice all the trees are lit up in blue -- it was beautiful!

Standing by the Arc de Triomphe -- we climbed the 300+ stairs to get to the top for Paris' best view (much better than the Eiffel Tower)

On our first night at the Eiffel Tower!

Wiggin' it...

New Year's Eve dinner in a posh Madrid restaurant -- for the amount of money we payed, they better let us wear our wigs.


Chilling on New Year's eve.

Later that night...Europe hasn't changed Ian a bit!

We have to get up to date!

We've fallen slightly behind with pictures and stories to tell! While these are a bit out of order, I find it hard to skip such fun moments without blogging them. At least through pictures, we can try to get up to date with our current location before we are ready to leave Barcelona!

Christmas dinner with my aunt, uncle, and cousins in Marin. I had not seen my aunt in about 13 years!

My sister, brother, and aunt in Marin

At the courtyard of El Escorial in Spain

We caught Melanie in Madrid peeking in and she won't say what she saw!

Love it or hate it -- Paris

The last couple of months have passed me by too quickly. It's been hard to put into words the emotions felt at each place and although each has left an impression on me, trying to recapture them for the blog would be a very difficult task. I've decided instead to blog more recent events in attempt to get up to date with our current location.
After a crazy and messy Madrid visit, we moved on to Paris. I had concerns about Paris given the many stories I had heard about the French's dislike for Americans and the poor service one receives for not speaking their language. I realize many of those stories were based on other people's travels and perhaps founded on limited exposure with the French and their city of lights. I, however, fell in love with the city almost instantly upon seeing the Eiffel Tower on our way to the hotel. Our days in Paris were also spent with my sister, brother, and sister in law -- which of course added a certain emotional element to our visit.
Paris is by far one of my favorite destinations of this trip. It seemed that everywhere I turned I could find some building of outstanding beauty to admire. The Seine river running through the city only added to Paris' air of romance and elegance. The sparkling light show of the Eiffel Tower captured me every time. The art of the Louvre, the Van Gogh's at Musee D'Orsay, Rodin's The Thinker, the Champs Elysees all dressed up in sparkling blue, the food at the Latin Quarter, the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe...and so much more that left me breathless.
On our last night in Paris, Ian and I sat down at the Trocadero square watching the Eiffel Tower in all of its grandeur standing in front of us. We stayed until we were ready to say goodnight to Paris -- a city we know we'll have to come back to.

Pictures from the Alhambra

The Alhambra on the edge of Granada was a palace and fortress complex for the Muslim kings of Southern Spain.

An outer wall of the Alhambra and some of the city of Granada creeping in on the left.

There were many beautiful gardens.

Haitham - translation please. :) Many intricate decorations covered the walls of the inner palaces.

The running water is a definite theme in the Muslim architecture. Many of the inner courtyards had beautiful pools of water steadily overflowing at all sides...

Pics from Sevilla Marbella Gibraltar

Sevilla was like a little dream city...

There were so many pictures to choose from... here's one across the Quadalquivir river of Sevilla's Torre del Oro.

One of the towers of the Plaza de Espana

Our view from our villa in Marbella (Thanks mom and dad!)

I had to play golf at least once in Marbella. If I remember right, I hit this one too far, and it splashed in the Mediterranean.

A shot from the top of the Rock of Gibraltar.

Small apes on the rock of Gibraltar. These apes have it right. The mom is watching the boats come in while the child cleans her coat by eating the ticks off of it. The good life.

Pics on the way... I swear

I just noticed that the last pictures we posted were from over a month ago. I'm going to try to pick a few of the best over the last months before I start posting Madrid / Paris pics.

Wiggin'it in Madrid on New years

The locals buy funky wigs in Madrid for the week of New Years. We never quite learned the reason but all five of us decided to join in the fun so we bought ours at Plaza Mayor. I suppose we should have noticed that in certain parts of town we were the only ones wearing wigs but you can't be bothered by small details when you're bouncing around a city like a bunch of fools. Anyway, it became very obvious that we were the only people wearing wigs when the security guard at the Prado museum asked us to kindly remove them. We complied.

For the passing of midnight on New Years eve, the six of us (we added a friend for New Years) had the urge for a gourmet meal and decided to go to a nice restaurant a few blocks away from the apartment. The food was easily the best we had in Madrid and the service was equally brilliant. After chowing down, we got a few funny looks from a few of the 'stuffier' patrons when we donned our funky wigs. Surprisingly, no one else had their wigs with them! Anyway, at midnight we ate the traditional 12 grapes and danced around the restaurant until the small party died down.

The walk home took a while as we waded through millions (literally) of people in the Plaza del Sol. It was pretty sick too... I'll sum it up: Drunks, vomit, bottles flying, alcohol everywhere, paramedics mending people who were cut with broken bottles, garbage everywhere. It was nasty. I kept thinking "Man, I'm about 10 years too old to get hit with a flying bottle." Anyway, we finally we made it home and watched some of the action from the safety of our balcony before calling it a year and going to sleep. Pics to follow soon... Ian