And now on to London!

i believe the last time i blogged was when it was hailing in barcelona. now, i'm comfortabley housed in claire's spare bedroom in london. note: i'm not using caps because i find that the caps lock button on uk keyboards is where the shift key is on north american keyboards so either: a) i yell at you, b) i type in no caps, or c) i stay up until 2 am blogging with perfect capitilazation. b) it is.

anyway, the rest of bcn was super fun. i would definitely put bcn on my list of recommended cities for anyone to visit. there were a few things i would have liked to do but didn't get to do because of the rain: mainly going for a bike ride, spending more time at the beach, and heading up to Montserrat.

after hiding out in a coffee shop watch the downpour on tuesday, becca and i decided to head to an indoor mall to wait out the rain. it was a good thing we did because this lead us to finding barcelona starbucks mugs! we both collect city mugs and would have been sad if we left the city without one.

after that, we headed to the picasso museum. this museum is tucked away in the old part of barcelona: the buildings are high and the streets are narrow and windy. it's really cool, but makes it tricky to find things. after a few wrong turns, we made it, and had a nice afternoon at the museum.

we tried to go for an early dinner that night: two nights of eating big meals at european times (9 pm) were we wreaking havoc on our systems. a restaurant called el quatre gats was recommended to us by becca's friend: it's where a lot of the city's artists/intelligentia used to dine. we got there too early for dinner, and the menu was a bit expensive. instead, we stayed there for xocolata calenta con xurros. (i'm using catalan... that's hot chocolate with churros!) It was sooooooo rich! It was pretty much straight melted chocolate with fried dough to dip in.

after that, we didn't really want a big dinner, obviously. we wandered around some more, and settled on a place for a little bit of tapas, salads, and sangria. then we walked to see how 'the dragon house' looked at night. i'll post pictures of that when i'm back.

yesterday was our last day together. we went to La Padrera which is an amazing apartment complex designed by Antoni Gaudi. it was amazing. then, we headed out to the beach in the rain since we had a couple moments on the waterfont during our tour, but wanted to spend more time there. it was still fun in the rain.

becca and i finished our time together by checking into my new hotel. i had decided to splurge on somewhere nice for my night alone in barcelona, and it was a nice boutique hotel right by the cathedral. it's crazy to be staying in such a modern place that's located in a gothic square.

last night, i spent some time tracking down my friend fea's fave spanish candy, wrote some postcards, had a quick dinner, took a bubble bath, then went to bed early. it was nice to spend some time lavishly sleeping on vacation: i usually just go, go, go until i'm ready to pass out.

today i awoke to sunny skies! giant d'oh! oh well, becca t and i had so much fun in rainy bcn that maybe sunny bcn would have been too much to handle! i went to see the inside of 'the dragon house', then spend some time sitting in the sun in the placa catalayuna. then it was off to the airport to travel to london.

and i made it here! i've had a great time catching up with claire who i haven't seen in almost two years. she's sleeping now (work for her in the morning) but we have lots of dinners and fun stuff planned. i'm also meeting up with a former work colleague tomorrow, my cousin on Saturday, and i must go shopping at my fave uk store: monsoon. and i'll get to see siobhan on saturday dinner too (so i've heard). so much to look fwd to!

hasta luego!