Collapse Into Now.

Part One of Post: Weekend Recap

This weekend consisted of finally sleeping off my jet-lag (I hope), watching a lot of 30 Rock (I just got season 4) while eating Pad Thai and drinking red wine with enjoyable company, a lazy Saturday morning followed by a stroll to Starbucks and the bookstore, and then the drive to Stratford and back to pick up Ms. Rilo, who is hiding from me right now. I think the trip back exhausted her.

On Saturday day night I also went out in Stratford with two Go9ers, Teresa and Vern. It was fun catching up and having a low key evening with a couple of friends.

Once I got back to Toronto, I returned my car and went to the gym for a proper workout. I think I must be over my jet lag since I wasn't near collapsing after 30 minutes like I was on Thursday. Man, transatlanticism takes it out of you!

I have a pile of dinner dishes to do. I actually cooked for myself tonight! I rarely do that; I only really like cooking when I'm cooking for someone else. Making a meal for myself seems like too much work, when I'm just as happy with a bowl of soup or a sandwich. However, the leftovers are a great bonus. I'll have lunch for a few days!

Part Two of Post: Music Geek-out

I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I LOVE the new REM album Collapse Into Now. I've been an REM fan since I was six, and they've been with me through high school, university, and I saw them at SXSW in Austin Texas a few March Breaks ago. Anyway, their new album is stellar, and exceeded my expectations completely. Check it out. My favourite songs are "Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter" (with Peaches) and "Blue" with the fabulous Patti Smith who I am in love with, as you all know, since reading her memoir "Just Kids".

Also, Matthew Good has posted a couple songs from his upcoming album on his SoundCloud page. I love them both. He actually won a Juno this weekend for his album Vancouver, which seems very odd to me because it came out in 2009. Anyway, I'm excited for his new album.

And, there's a new Sloan album coming out too! I like the first single Unkind. It's catchy.

Tonight I am going to watch the Junos. I love Canadian music despite the Bieber, despite Hedlely, and despite Nickelback, who I'm pretty sure won't be there for a change. However, there will be performances by The Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene so hook it to my veins, as Barney Gumble would say.

Part Three of Post: Rainy Barcelona Pictures

One night Becca and I went out for an amazing tapas dinner and downed a super affordable (9 Euros!) pitcher of sangria. Afterwards, we walked around to hopefully digest the meal. It was a little bit rainy out and the streets were wet. This was actually when we discovered the Barri Gotic: the really old part of the city. Wandering through medieval streets makes for a pretty magical evening.

Here's a picture I took of the Portal del Angels, which is a busy shopping street during the day. I think this is one of my fave Barcelona pics.

Here's our feet on the slippery surface of the Placa Catalunya. My feet (on the bottom) are wearing my new Camper shoes, which were my shopping splurge in BCN. I'm going to wear those suckers a lot this summer.

Here I am in front of a fountain in the Placa Catalunya.

Here's a picture by Picasso that's on a building near the cathedral.

Here's a picture of a rainy street. Becca says she'd like to live on this street and drive a red Vespa.

When it was hailing out, and we were stranded in a coffee shop, which is not the worst place to be stranded, I took a video of the hail.

The streets in the Barri Gotic are very narrow. They were usually wide enough for one car, and a sidewalk big enough for one person on either side. I often felt that I could easily get hit by the car's mirrors. It made me feel a little claustrophobic.

Here's a shot of the park near our hotel. I would have liked to explore it more, but this is how it looked most of the time. Look at all those modernist swimming pools, ha-ha.

This is the older cathedral; i.e. not the Sagrada Familia by Gaudi. It's all right, I guess. My splurge hotel was around the corner from it.

Here's another foot picture from a late night rainy walk after sangria. These are the streets of the Passeig de Gracia, which were designed by Gaudi. At a museum, I bought a coaster designed like a tile, which I thought was a great souvenir.

Here's the Casa Batllo at night. Love it. I took a tour of this house on my last day.

Here's La Padrera, an apartment complex designed by Gaudi, that we visited on our last cloudy day together.

Here's the roof. It was lots of fun running around on the roof.

I would have loved to bike around BCN on one of these bike-sharing bikes, but it was too rainy, and I couldn't really figure out how to rent one. Paris has the best bike-sharing system hands-down. Put your credit card into a machine, and blam! you get a bike!

Here I am walking along the waterfront in the rain.

And here's how the city looked on the day I had to leave! Meh. Rainy BCN is pretty amazing. The sun is completely extraneous.

I think I'll post one more batch of trip pictures: some randoms from BCN, and some of the few that I took in London. Since this was my third trip to London, I didn't take very many pictures.

Hope you all have good Mondays!