happy Cinco de Mayo to all you people at work

Day 2 in Barcelona. So far, we have walked roughly 300 miles, which is a lot even for me.

Yesterday we walked to the beach, where there were some very unfortunately naked people, and then Mike and Cameron napped for roughly half a day while I watched some amazing music videos (remember when the Offspring didn't suck? Me neither.). Then, for some reason (namely, hunger), the Baron and I decided to go back outside.

Continental Europe operates on a schedule very much like mine. People eat dinner at 11 p.m., watch sports highlights into the early morning, and mostly don't sleep (on the flipside, they are much, much, much, much better looking, and that includes the strange street mimes who dress like trees and robots). After the required 10 p.m. Espresso Hour, Cameron and I went to one of the town squares and got drinks, and I am pretty sure that, along with the bothersome tourists and homeless jugglers, there was a school field trip or three that showed up after midnight. And they all stopped to drink beer with us. So that was cool. Then I went back to the hotel and singlehandedly deciphered the secrets of the Metro system while listening to the sage advice of 90210 in Translation.

Today we pretty much had our minds blown by the Sagrada Familia (the church designed by Gaudi) and Park Guell (Gaudi's hilltop park-city). Both places are a testament to the fact that sometimes individuals come up with things completely beyond comprehension or imagination. Beautiful, creepy, monumental, magical... I've had nine hours to think about what I saw, and I still haven't come up with much. I spent a lot of time walking around looking up and running into poles and swallowing flies and being one of those people that I usually point and laugh at and give incorrect directions to.

This would be the point for photos, but unfortunately Cameron is asleep on the floor. There will also be photos of Cameron asleep on the floor once I figure out how to hook his camera up to the computer.

Tomorrow: bike tour! Mike and I are going to dress up like Lance Armstrong and Floyd whatever his name was and wear bright yellow spandex. It will be glorious.

London Part I, postscript

We're not in London anymore, but we do have internet, and this is what I wrote sans internet a couple of evenings ago (also, my apologies for the lack of photos, but that is what Cameron and his digital camera are for [more to come on that later])...

Christy picked a good hotel. It has art and things, including a painting of a giant panda face, which is pretty awesome because it is like they decorated the hotel based on our softball team's name (the Stupid Pandas, for those of you not familiar with the team; and I say "our" team despite the fact that I am not on the team. I feel that I contribute quite a bit to team morale by joining Mike's grandpa in yelling from the bleachers.).

The hotel is at the southwest part of West End (I figured out we were in West End because we are down the block from where "Wicked" is playing, and one of the posters outside said something about it being a "West End sensation"; that is a significant improvement over the book, which blew.). We are a 10-15 minute walk from the Thames and Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, which all look spectacular at night. The Abbey was built in something like 1065, which is just silly. That was, like, before the wheel was invented. We are also about 10 minutes from the Albert, a Pub we have already hit up twice. It serves "extra cold" Guinness, which is pretty much the greatest thing ever. It also seems to have a playlist that only consists of disco and Queen songs.

We went to a football match today. I will leave it to the football fans (i.e., go see Mike and Christy's blog: http://twovillasineurope.blogspot.com/) on this trip to describe it justly. Suffice to say, my new crapass team to support will be Fulham, because I was the only one who managed to get a jersey, and because I am all about lost causes. Fulham is at the bottom of the Premiership standings and in danger of dropping into the lower division, and when they scored a goal to make it 2-nil with about 10 minutes left, the crowd started chanting, "We will stay up! We'll stay up!" We had seats in the second row, close enough for everyone (including the two 10-year-olds sitting in front of us) to scream obscenities at the opposing team's players. The energy in the stadium was palpable, even though it was a match between bottom feeders in the Premiership.

and then we left England way too early on Sunday morning to go to Barcelona, where there is real food... and moving on to blog #2.

Lethal Weapon 4!!!!

In case anyone was wondering, Lethal Weapon 4 is no better when watching it in England 15 or so years after it was released. Contrarywise, eastern European men's water polo is awesome, especially when the announcers get excited.

On a related note, our hotel is about a fifteen-minute walk from Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Thames (which all of us hope to learn to pronounce correctly at some point), and, supposedly, a dungeon. We hope to find the dungeon today.

All Roads lead to Cockfosters

Made it safe and sound to England. No one is dead but everyone is tired. We are having breakfast after a great walk around town during the night. We finished things off with a night cap and are getting ready to visit some palaces, maybe a dungeon. Everyone is staring at me so I think I have to finish up and get on my way. Cheers to all!

Pictures to follow...

Time to go

Since none of you will hear from us for approximately I don't know how long, I will leave you with this photo of Cameron and a friend from a couple of years ago.

Cheers! I am at work this morning and as soon as I finish payroll and some general number crunching I will be on my way. I had a nice little farewell dinner with my sister and Alex; Matt was there too. I now owe Matt a low four-figure sum which I am sure he will remind me about during the trip. The reason is because I have limited success booking my own tickets and reservations. Since, we all want to enjoy our trip I was not allowed to plan anything. My next stop is London where this Saturday I will be attending my first "footy" match. Hopefully, pictures and stories to follow.

I will be away from work for two weeks for some well deserved vacation. I don't think I will miss working, but I will miss someone...my 10 key...

We almost have an itinerary

We leave in less than 24 hours. Today, Cameron and I finally decided it was time to look into what the hell we will be doing in Ireland in a week. After about an hour and $400 (I cringe thinking of how many burritos that would buy--at least 61, plus a couple of rolled tacos), we had found ourselves a place to stay in Dublin. We had also booked a flight out of Cork, so at some point on May 9 (the day after Cameron hopefully gets punched in the face by an Irish girl) we will make our way southwest.

This brings Cameron's tab up to something over $1,000.