Barcelona style

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So I arrived in Barcelona a little tired but in one piece. The flight over was pretty good - we flew over the Swiss Alps which was amazing!! It made me really excited to go and spend some time there. After landing in Barcelona I hopped on a bus - from hell. People drive fast around here and it doesn´t help when you´re standing with a 50lb pack on your back.

Last night was a HUGE party night in Barcelona. They had just won for the right to play in the Champions league against Madrid and the streets were filled with people celebrating. The paper this morning estimated there were over 1Million people out. I thought that was as close as I would come to ever seeing a celebration that would compare in size to Toronto winning the cup... tear...

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My presentation went well this morning. There was a pretty decent crowd out for it but it went smoothly. It´s good to have it over with though. On the way home from dinner tonight Greg and I stopped in to a grocery store and found some really cheap wine. He bought a bottle for 1.19€. That was a little too expensive for me so I went with the cheap stuff - 1.16€. I hope all of Europe isn´t this tempting... who am I kidding???

We went for a pretty long walk around the city today. I am so amazed with the architecture. It´s so beautiful here! - cobble stone streets, palm trees, nice narrow alley ways. It makes Toronto look like a hole. Tomorrow we´re going to see some of Gaudi´s unfinished work - there seems to be a lot of it, unfinished that is. I guess that´s what happens though when you step off a curb into the path of a tram one day.

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I just got back from dinner - it´s a little after midnight. People don´t eat here until 10! It´s crazy! But I guess it´s been worth the wait so far. I haven´t begun to starve yet, courtesy of my generous travel allowance (by my standards) from Dr. Birk. But it´s a good thing - Dr. Birk doesn´t do McDonalds. Only top notch restaurants with plenty of wine. But I´m not complaining - I´ll be eating only bread and butter soon enough!!

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So another update from Barcelona before I take off...

Yesterday was a great day. Greg and I must have walked 50km around the city. I dragged him everywhere but I think he enjoyed it - although he complained everytime I stopped to take a picture. We went to the unfinished cathedral by Gaudi. I´m sure most of you have seen it, so I won´t go into detail, but Greg and I took the stairs up one of the towers!! It was incredible!! A spiral staircase, about 2m in diameter, for about 50 m up, and then another staircase for another vertical 25m. And the view from the top was spectacular! I was actually a little nervous being up so high - I was holding on tight to the railing the whole way up. I can´t believe the attention to detail in the cathedral and wondered how much of it Gaudi actually planned, and how much of it is an as-you-go thing??? Pretty amazing though. Following that we went to the Olympic plaza which is on a huge cliff over-looking the city. Again, just the most amazing view of the city and the Med!!

One thing that has really amazed me about Barcelona is their transportation system. For a city the size of TO, they´ve got such an advanced public transport system with so many more lines and so much accessibility. There´s also a lot of emphasis on bike lanes which you also don´t find, to the same extent, in North American cities. Not to mention that I haven´t seen a single SUV on the road here. I imagine much of Europe will be the same but I think we´ve got a few things to learn from these people.

Until next time...

Next stop - Granada and the Alhambra