Hotel Indalo Park Santa Susana

... my flat in gracia looked over the Sagrada Familia!

There is nothing I could complain about in Barcelona, its such a a beautiful city..the only thing is that being a student, it was quite expensive, i had to budget with food and going out sometimes but it didnt stop me having a great time. While i was in spain i bought the connect club card actually which saved me money, it gives you discounts in bars ...

... was the designer and project manager, so although his stuff is amazing, what is probably more amazing is that he was able to conceive these ideas, and he left plans and models, so that even now, the building of the cathedral Sagrada Familia is being continued. If I had read more about Sagrada Familia, I would not have been surprised when I went in - one description was the worlds most visited construction site. Well, I have paid for a few grams of concrete in it!

Well i left off with us on the train to spain! Becky and I decided to take a night train to save money on not buying a hostel bed for a night! The ride on the train to spain is all a story in its own! So being that its a night train becky and I fell asleep OBVIOUSLY! Later on we wind up stopping for like 20 min. We were thinking train matenance? NOPE it was DEFINITELY NOT! The train split in ...

... result it does seem to be a city of dust and hoardings. We walked a hundred or so blocks, and nothing seems to have been finished since the seventies. It was therefore with joy that we headed to the train station to get our little rental car for a three day escape. Claude has asked me to reserve judgment on Barcelona until after we stay downtown on our return from the car trip. I guess that's only appropriate, it wouldn´t seem right to actually finish the judgement. * * *

... I'm not sure when but I assume recently, the airport train stopped stopping at Catalunya station. It must have been recently because even the tourist map I had showed it as an airport train stop. Regardless, after four stations of waiting and watching for Catalunya station I had arrived at the end of the line...literally the last stop. I did know where I was (remember that map?) but the last train station didn't ...

... my journal than I´ve had time to type, so some of this may be published upon my return to the States). My first night in town I stowed my gear in the locker provided by the hostel. There were four bunnkbeds in the room, so eight people total were racking out there. It could have been worse. Some of the rooms held up to 20 at a time and it was only 20-euro a night, so this would be a cheap week as far as the hotel bill was concerned. I think the bar tabs may have made up for that though. So ...

... 8:45 for the 9:20 tr*in, *nd surprise! (should h*ve seen this coming) A HUGE line *t the ticket window mostly m*de up of people trying to get to P*ris. But mir*culously we m*de it to the front of the line with *t le*st 5 or 6 minutes to sp*re to find (should h*ve seen this coming)the tr*ins to P*ris were *ll booked until one *rriving *t 10:30, when the g*me would be mostly over. [sigh of defe*t] So Kelly, the ticket l*dy, *nd * m*ss of swe*ty, incre*singly ...

... to Fred Flintstone & Barney, and even a Che Guevara. I got roped into being an "assistant" for a magic show, where the magician used cleverly-tied knots to attach me to another volunteer, via my sweater, and then released us with much pomp and ceremony. We also made a little trip up to the Sagrada Familia, which was of course quite an interesting contrast to all the cathedrals we had seen so far throughout France and Spain.

Like Dante, I have descended into the depths of hell and emerged into the heaven that is Barcelona relatively unscathed. I had a nightmarish airplane trip from Toronto to London to Barcelona, which (like for soldiers) was filled with long hours of boredom and brief moments of terror -- the terror stemming from whether I would be able to find anything to buy in the duty free shops to get rid of my last few bits of currency. After landing in London´s ...

... I particularly enjoyed Alhambra Palace - I think that this was the place where Queen Isabella sent Colombus off on his mission of discovery. Marvellous. We returned to Spain in 2002 for a trip to Barcelona. I love surrealism, so I had a great time at the museums. I saw of lot of Joan Miro and of course, the wonderful Park Guell created by Gaudi. There is a fabulous staircase with a lizard type thing at the bottom ...