Filling in the gaps...

  Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain and Canary Islands
Wednesday, July 16, 2008

So it's been a pretty awesome rest of the trip.  I told you guys I would be back to try and fill in the gaps so here goes...

Went to Sitges and basically vegetated for a while.  No phone, no internet, no alarm clocks...truly unplugged for a bunch of days.  What a relief and release.  At first the apprehension of being unplugged makes ya nervous...you just feel like there might be so much happening out there that you're not aware of.  Then it starts to set in-----> that marvelous feeling of complete and utter freedom. 

Sitges is an absolutely beautiful town along the coast of Spain.  We got to know the city and the little shops and restaurants.  Hung out the beach most of the time.  Did some distance swimming (for me) along the coast in the Med.  Snorkeled a bit...some pretty decent sized seabass are in abundance along the rocks, along with a ton of other more exotic looking creatures of the sea.  Every now and then, you run into some topless folks and at some beaches...totally nude folks.  Unfortenately the lot of them were gay...which to me infects the raw beauty of things with a bit of human unnaturalness.  But, with a conscieous effort to look past it - I did.  And thank God for the cleansing ability of the sea. :)

We also took the train a bit further south on the line to a stop called St. Vicent de Calders.  This took us to a smaller, more local type of place and the beaches were massive compared to what we'd so far in Barcelona and Sitges.  Best of all, there were tons of kitesurfers  around Calafell...

Kite Beach

something not allowed on the beaches of Sitges and Barcelona (due to the amount of tourists).  So this was a breath of fresh air...it was troublesome to not have the gear to go out because it was a perfect beach for it. 

Lots of campgrounds around for vacationers...mostly aimed at the family crowd.  Booked far enough in advance, the cabana's at these campgrounds would be a pretty cost efficient way of travel if we were to ever to do it again.

On the train back to Sitges, we felt the baby kick for the first time.  Pretty wild feeling.  It was actually pretty active once we could feel it.  Another thing to note about the trains, is that throughout the trip...little bands would come onto the trains and play folk tunes.

The bands on the train

It was the coolest thing...

Back in Sitges we got some rain our last night there which was really cool...  There was a percussion festival during the rain storm which consisted of about a dozen percussion teams rolling through the village streets on their instruments.  Was pretty cool.

Percussion Festival

The train-ride back to Barcelona was surreal...it was too bad we had to leave.  Sitges sort of became our home and it was like pulling off duct tape from your skin to leave.

Getting ready to leave Sitges

Back in Barcelona, we rolled through the sights of Pablo Espana,

Pablo

the olympic stadium area,

Olympic Stadium

museam of contemporary art

In front of the Art Museo

, and other odds and ends of the city

Torre Agbar

.  It was just cool to relax at some of the vistas around town

Steph having a great Barcelona view

...didn't want to take it too rough, because the baby was starting to feel heavy for Steph.  We were going to go and see a bull fight, but while we were in line, there was a guy who was protesting the cruelty of animals and Steph got sad, so we decided we didn't want to go and watch it.  That damned guy.  

The Bullfighting Stadium

 

To be honest though, we were both exhausted from the trip.  It was either time to go back down to Sitges and max out our credit card...or come home and rest.

It was a blast.  Can't wait to go back and bring our kitesurfing gear next time!