I just had a computer breakthrough–I successfully found a good free ftp client, backed up all my files, and uploaded the files for the new wordpress. Then I found out that my webhost doesn’t support it. So I got to re-upload everything. It was way fun. Actually it was pretty exciting when the website still worked after all of that. Anyway, if anything screws up for you, let me know. No guarantees that I’ll know how to fix it but I’ll give it some well-intentioned thought at least.

Here’s day 1 of Barcelona, which will have a lot fewer pictures than day 2.

And here’s where we play: What famous mud-slide-looking building is this?

Does this help?

How about this?

Or this?

Okay I’ll stop being obnoxious. In case you don’t know, it’s the Segrada Familia, and I thought it was really cool. In fact I stepped out of the metro station and gasped. Beyond the obvious, though, I did really enjoy the small man placed in every model to give you perspective. I liked how he stood serenely, sometimes in oddly-chosen places, with his hand in his pocket. If he were real, I wonder what kind of stories he would have to tell about the Segrada Familia at night. Would he have adventures, adventures way better than the movie A Night in the Museum?

That afternoon we went to the beach.

I like how you can see me in this picture. That’s why I made it so huge.

Chelsey and Zandra look for sea glass. I think. I’m not really sure what they were doing at this point.

It won’t stop raining here. Well, that’s not exactly true. It stops raining for about five minutes, enough time for the sun to peek out and taunt me, and then go back behind the clouds so it can rain some more. In less than two weeks my family will be here, which is fab, and weird. Time seems to be passing really slowly and really quickly. No lo comprendo.

So ten of my twelve hours for the week are done. No movie night tonight because RM is still in Germany, apparently she’s sick. I might still go to a movie tomorrow just because I’m bored out of my mind. Or maybe I’ll just do laundry and go grocery shopping.

Anyway here’s Valencia. There aren’t very many pictures. Valencia wasn’t very nice to us. We kept getting the feeling that it was trying to get rid of us. We got there at 5 am after a night train from Granada and of course none of the hostels were open. We tried a few anyway. Then Marcela and I went back at 8, leaving the other two in the train station with our bags. We looked for an hour but everyone said no. So we went to the train station tourist office when it opened at 9 and the lady there found us a hostel and made us a reservation. It wasn’t a bad one either. (Purple Nest Hostel) Then we went out for cheap Chinese food that wasn’t really very good, and then we slept and did laundry, and then we got up and tried to find paella. Since it comes from Valencia. Only it turns out paella is both 1) hard to find and 2) very expensive. Weird in both ways. So here we are wandering around Valencia looking for a good restaurant:

Plaza de la Virgin in front of the cathedral

fountain in the same place

I should note that after about an hour we did find a very excellent restaurant, where we drank Spanish wine, and were fairly convinced that the waiters (none of whom were Spanish) thought Marcela was cute. There were awesomely weird things hanging on the walls, like a spatula hung from a nail with a frame around it. In true Spanish form we finished eating at around 1:30 am, I think.

The next day we got up intending to go to the cathedral but got waylaid by the market. We all bought rings or sunglassses for something like 3 euro.

Zandra shows off her loot.

Supposedly Valencia does have the biggest food market in Europe, but of course, in Valencia fashion, it was closed just for us. (Just kidding, it’s always closed Sundays.) Anyway it usually takes place in the building on the right:

We took a really slow bus to the bus station to catch our bus (too many buses in this sentence) to Barcelona, so we ended up getting to sit in the station for two hours. Valencia just really wanted us to connect with its transit centers. So we ate really crappy bus station tapas and ordered not so bad bus station ice cream. We had to work our way through a confusing situation without Marcela when the server thought Zandra wanted two cones, one with strawberry and one with chocolate, instead of one with both, but I think we did fine. (The direct translation of what I said is “No, the chocolate and the strawberry here.”) Anyway, even though Valencia was kind of a bitch, she was still pretty hot.

I thought I would hold back and only do five or six photos per city or something, but that’s just unreasonable. Especially since the trip to Granada included the Alhambra. So here are quite a few.

Our hostel in Granada was wonderful. It had this cute little balcony and free spicy tea in the mornings. The owners were a really friendly older Spanish couple who decorated the hallway and played CDs and burned incense. We were so spoiled by our luck with this hostel that it was a bit of a comedown to arrive in hostile (no pun intended) Valencia where it took us four hours to secure a place.

One afternoon we walked up into the Albaicin and Sacromonte neighborhoods which are on the hill opposite the hill that has the Alhambra. So it has great views.

This is a panorama and me surprising Zandra.

The next day we went to the Alhambra.

These birds live at the Alhambra.

So does this kitty. You can’t see them, but we peeked into the hedge and there was a whole kitty gang hangin out in there.

reflecting pool

I loved all of the arches and this dome.

I think these are the towers (torres) of the Generalife.

from the top

mailbox at the post office

I had a horrible allergic reaction to the gardens so there’s a huge gap in my pictures when I was just trying to make it through. But it was really beautiful and now we can say we’ve lived. Other high points of Granada included the pita place we went to once every day where we spent 3.50 on dinner/lunch, and where Marianella found us and surprised us one night, Chelsey being asked out by a souvenir shop owner (“I … like … you”), cheap jewelery, and mullet watching on the Plaza Santa Ana (although to be honest we did that all over Spain). Granada, in spite of the cedar trees, was my favorite.

The madness of spring vacation ended a few hours ago when I said goodbye to the anglophones on the train to Nancy and stepped off at Bar le Duc. Needless to say the entire thing was pretty fab. Spain was sunny, warm, cheap, and facilitating of many inside jokes. Getting back is a bit of a downer but before classes on Monday I have to upload pictures, do laundry, buy food, and watch some tv.

So here, for your viewing pleasure, is round one.

the modern art museum in Madrid–El Gran Masturbador is usually there, but this week it was in New York. Go figure.

Chelsey, Zandra, and an array of people sprawled out in the sun on Plaza Mayor

the bar we went to in Madrid

We spent an afternoon in Toledo. You can’t really see the town here because this is looking out from it, but it was very pretty.

This building was in the Parque del Buen Retiro and I pretty much was fascinated.

Usually I like to save these for right before I leave, but I’m bored and the blog has been dead, so I’ll do it tonight. It’s vacation again! I know, WEIRD. But wonderful. Fantastic things are happening starting tomorrow. So, unless I post tomorrow, I won’t post again till around the 23rd or 24th or something. So here, for interested parties, is what I will be doing, approximately, the next two weeks.

Sat Feb 10: train to Nancy
Sun Feb 11: train to Paris, plane to Madrid
Mon – Wed: probably in Madrid with a visit to Toledo to see Ashley P
Thurs Feb 15 – Tues Feb 20: somewhere in Spain
Wed Feb 21: plane to Paris
Thurs Feb 22: The Decemberists!
Fri Feb 23: Probably back to Bar le Duc, but not sure

In case of emergency I can still be reached at my cell phone, but I can’t make calls from it because Bouygues Telecom has the most confusing website ever.

Yeah, so, nothing’s going on here. Things will start going on tomorrow, but I won’t be here to write about it.

Hey. I got back from Nancy this afternoon. I thought I was coming back last night but since there was nothing crazy cool (Chelsey’s words) happening in Bar le Duc (shocking) I stayed another night. Also I took a bunch of Chelsey’s pictures from her computer because our computers can talk to each other, like this:

So cute. They were bluetoothing. It was really social.

Therefore, these pictures are obviously all taken by Chelsey and date back to the f?™te de St. Nicholas back in December.

Part of the show on the Place Stan (those were little gold paper circles)

That weekend, Inga, Chelsey, and I all also bought the same hat.

Les Am?©ricaines before the parade

Me + Zandra + large mice undoubtedly from a children’s movie that I haven’t seen (and Gavin taking a picture)

Next, from a few weekends ago in Nancy:

Apparently the British slang was so funny I wanted to surreptitiously strangle Chelsey.

Then, when people came to BlD:

Marianella and Susanne in front of Bar le Duc’s castle/museum

Me + Chelsey by the ?âglise St. Etienne

Chelsey made all of us do this. We’re on the ramparts near the castle. I think it was a bit uncomfortable for Richard.

Now, last Friday night:

The cake Zandra and Gaven brought to accompany dinner.

Gavin, Zandra, me

What I like about this picture is that you can’t really tell if Gavin is prepared for what’s coming.

Didn’t you know, Zandra is an amateur contortionist.

No!