Katherine the Great says...

Barcelona blog #7 -- home sweet home!

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:19:26 GMT

On my last night in Barcelona, Diane and I went out for dinner at a touristy seafood restaurant near the beach-- I made sure to order the pallela (thereby guaranteeing my return to Spain sometime in the future).

Mmm, sangria.

The next morning I began my 18 hour journey back to San Francisco. During my layover in Munich, I was tickled to find this sex shop in the airport:

I didn't go in, though.

Then began the 12 hour long flight from Munich to SFO. ugh, ugh, ugh, there is nothing fun about a 12 hour flight, even though we did take the far northern route, crossing into the Arctic Circle and flying over Norway, Greenland, and Baffin Island. The view outside the window was lots and lots of snow and ice:

Still pretty cool, I think. We chased the sun into the west, and I *finally* arrived in San Francisco, back into the arms of my sweetie! After falling asleep delirious and dizzy from being so jet-lagged and exhausted, I woke up well rested and recovered this morning, phew!

In the "random coincidences" category, on my Munich-SFO flight I ran into one of the people in the village I camp in at Burning Man-- a guy named Russell, who I collaborated with two years ago on an art project he was putting together (and earning myself a free ticket in the process!). He was on his way back from a theoretical physics conference.

Thus ends a wonderful trip, and BOY am I glad to be home!

Barcelona Blog #6 -- Picture-riffic Park Güell

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:32:57 GMT

Today is my last full day in Barcelona, and it was a lovely one! It took me a long time to get my butt out the door-- I seem to be allergic to something (I suspect Diane's cats), and I took a Bendryl this morning to see if that might relieve my sore throat and dry nose. All it did was make me too tired to do anything but nap through the morning, so it was about 2PM when I finally got out and about!

I headed in the direction of Park Güell, which is another one of Gaudí's creations. It's north and east of where we're staying, away from the downtown area. After faithfully copying down walking directions there, since there isn't really a direct route, I instead decided to follow the road signs. That turned out to be a bit of a mistake, since it took me over hill and dale and eventually (after the dreaded touristic moment of consulting the map, argh!) to the back side of the park. Which was nice for a time, since the trails were more hiking-type trails than the ones at Montjuïc yesterday (better workout), but I ran into trouble when the signs for Park Güell pointed me to a series of closed gates. Argh! Nothing for it but to skirt around the circumference of the park, and after dodging through the middle of a construction zone in the footsteps of some German teenagers, I finally found my way to an open entrance to the park. Phew!

But the adventure turned out to be worth it-- this whole park is detail-riffic, with lovely mosaic-tiled railings, fun statuary, and a whole series of very natural looking stone arcades which (apparently) have really good acoustics:

This is a very handsome busker who I sat and listened to for quite some time-- he was playing some delightful love songs on his guitar (I could only catch about every sixth word, though). Not quite traditional Spanish guitar, more modern stuff.

This is the dragon fountain, which has been reproduced in every kind of souvenir imaginable-- bookmarks, shot glasses, figurines of all sizes, plates, postcards, keychains, T-shirts, bags, calendars, the list is endless. I think my favorite, though, was the human-statue version, who I caught moments before she got out of costume (I was trying to be sneaky about taking the photo, which is why it's her backside):

Park Güell also has a pair of lovely buildings that flank the main entrance, this is one of them behind me in this photo:

Another attraction at the park is the Museu de Casa Gaudí, which is a house that he lived in for some time before he started living in his workshop at Sagrada Familia:

It was quite nice, since it showed off many pieces of furniture and details that he had designed for other buildings, and it had all of the original tilework and ceiling murals and designs. I took a million photos in here, especially of the ceiling, because they were covered with these gorgeous Art Nouveau/Modernisme graphic designs-- my favorite! I'll only bore you with one:

According to the signs I saw in the museum, Gaudí was the *first* designer to create ergonomic furniture that follows the contours of the human body, if you can believe it! I'm not sure that I do, but it's tempting to believe, considering what a smart guy he was. Certainly worth more research! Here is a photo of one of the settees he designed, I think for the Casa Battló (the bony/dragony one I didn't visit):

I am hanging out back at the place we're staying, waiting for Diane to get back from her first day in her new office, meeting everyone and getting acquainted (she will be working next to the observatory and fun-fair at the top of Tibidabo mountain, and will commute there by funicular railroad!). We're going out for seafood tonight, now I just have to pick a restaurant!

Barcelona Blog #5 -- From the mountain to the sea

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 19:49:17 GMT

It was lovely to spend a day 'in nature' after having so much exposure to the urban environment the past few days. After a nice sleep-in, I headed for Montjuïc and the Joan Miró museum. Montjuïc is a large hill very close to the seaside and to the west of the main part of the city. I tried using the Metro for the first time, which was a lot easier than I thought it would be-- the Metro stop right by our house is on the same line as one that goes very close to Montjuïc (even if it is a bit of a circuitous route). I took awhile to get my bearings once I came up from the underground station, but eventually I figured out where I was going.

In many ways Montjuïc reminded me of Golden Gate Park-- there were all sorts of nooks and crannies, special gardens, and plantings all over this mountain, as well as several museums and special buildings (including the Olympic stadium).

The first thing I came across was something called the Font de Gat, which is Catalan for "the Cat Spring." The actual fountain itself is kind of a disappointment, but I LOVED the decoration over the gate that leads to the swanky cafe on the terrace next to the fountain:

Black kitties!

I had to walk through just a little bit of the larger Montjuïc park to get to the Joan Miró museum. I realized that I had taken the *smart* way to get there when I stepped from this fragrant, calm garden with lovely views out onto a busy street with tourist coaches zipping by (including the giant city-run Bus Touristics that are a rip-off at 21 euros for day, none of that for me thanks!).

Into the Miró museum, which unfortunately was scheduled to close an hour after I got there :( Bad timing on my part-- I didn't pay any attention to the Sunday hours of most of the places I wanted to see today, drat! But nonetheless, I paid extra for the audio guide again and tried to squeeze in the museum-ing. Only to discover to my great surprise that I don't like Miró as much as I thought I did!! What I remembered of this Barcelona native were his playful cartoonish bright shapes, but from what I gathered from the audio guide, his intention was NOT to be playful, but to be anything but pretty (which apparently he greatly disliked-- making pretty paintings). So none of the playful quality that I had read in his work.

BUT! All was not lost-- what absolutely made this museum worth the price of admission was the chance to see three Calder sculptures! (Alexander Calder is my all-time, hands-down favorite artist!) And one of them was truly breath-taking -- his mercury fountain:

No, that's not water, it's liquid mercury! The fluid hits a large paddle-shape at the base of the vertical hinged piece, which makes the red circle and the wire that's attached to it dance back and forth and wiggle. This was made as a commemoration for the people of the Almaden village who were massacred during the Spanish Civil War-- Almaden was a mercury-mining town. The reason why there are so many Calders in the Miró museum was that the two artists were very good friends during their lives. Perhaps I should have been more skeptical of a museum started by an artist in his own honor...

After they kicked us out to close the museum, I wasn't sure what to do. My tentative plan had been to go back to the Textile museum, but that also closes early on Sunday. So I looked in the trusty guidebook, which I had thankfully brought with me, and lunched on tuna fish sandwiches while I made up my mind.

As it turned out, I was very close to one of the ends of the tram that goes from Montjuïc all the way to Barceloneta, which is a spit of land that sticks out and makes a nice, safe harbor for the port of Barcelona (like Alameda in Oakland, or like Harbor island in San Diego). "Cool, tram ride over the harbor!" The more I thought about it, the more excited I got. I walked over to the tram stop, and got some fantastic views of the harbor along the way, in the appropriately named Miramar park. ("mira mar" means "sea view"). The tram was closed for lunch when I got there (totally a Spanish thing), but at least they only closed for one hour instead of the customary two or three. Not knowing exactly what time it actually was (no watch, and my cell phone thinks it's on East Coast time, since that was the last place I used it where it works), I sat at the handy cafe to pass the time and had a THREE EURO Diet Coke! That's a record-- the equivalent of $4.50! So I parked my butt there for a really long time to get my three euros worth of cafe time-- read my magazine, read the guidebook, enjoyed my sunniest and warmest afternoon so far in Barcelona.

So then I got in line for the tram... loooong line. In true Spanish fashion, the trams only went about once every twenty minutes or so, and I had to wait for two trams to go and come back before it was finally my turn to go.

The view was pretty interesting, I must say, but it wasn't exactly worth the price of admission, especially since the tram didn't go all the way to the far end of the harbor like I thought-- we stopped at the tower halfway across instead and go down in the elevator. Argh.

But, in the end my unexpectedly long walk to the beach proper was fortuitous-- I walked by some lovely stuff, including a little antiques fair, and some nice boats.

Along the harbor front, I saw an assortment of creepy African men selling sunglasses and cheap knock-off purses-- they were all holding ropes that attached to the corners of the blankets that their goods were on-- I suppose in case the police come along, so they can make a quick getaway. I don't know why this creeps me out as much as it does.

Eventually, after much crowd-dodging and gandering at boats and sky and wind, I came to the beach, where I had a quiet sit-down looking out across the Mediterranean. Mmmm, it really is lovely. Tiny waves, chunky sand, and lots of people enjoying the lovely sunshine.

Mmm, sunshine. When I had my fill of wind, I walked back to the nearest Metro station, and headed for home!

Tonight it's a toss up between staying in for dinner, finding a seafood place, and heading for the Slow Food restaurant I looked up called Sesamo. We'll see!

Barcelona Blog #4 -- Saturday at Sagrada Familia

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 22:49:31 GMT

It was another Gaudí-tastic day, with a lengthy visit to the Temple of la Sagrada Familia (the holy family), which is far and away Antoni Gaudí's masterwork. And it's reputation is well deserved! The project is so complex, and so much work is involved, that I was reminded of what I've read about medieval cathedrals and how they take hundreds of years to finish-- this is one of those projects!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. My mission when I first set out this morning was Mercat del Encants, a funky flea market (I don't know why I love flea markets in other countries so much, I just do). And it was well worth it! I found a great gift for my sweetie (not telling, Sam!) and a nice new dress for myself (which I should have bargained for, but didn't, oh well). There was a little bit of everything on offer-- cheap new clothes, new and used kitchen appliances, fabric, antiques, cords for sound systems-- "un euro, un euro, solamente un euro" called by the hawkers. Very busy, and even better, there were very few tourists. Much more my kind of shopping, I think.

Then I went to meet Diane at la Sagrada Familia around noon, and we toured around with the help of our audio guides (well worth the 4 euros!). Even more so than yesterday, I am truly floored by how amazingly clever some people are-- this guy was BRILLIANT! The tragedy is that at some point during the Spanish Civil War, all of Gaudí's drawings were burned, and his plaster models of what he envisioned for the work were smashed. But despite this, the pieces have been put together as best as they can, and from what remains, the work continues.

I've seen pictures of the temple before, especially the eastward-facing Nativity façade, and I've heard about how great it is, but honest to goodness you really have to be standing in front of it to see how amazing it is-- it's just too complex to translate into a photograph. And that it's a work-in-progress is really neat too-- there's all kinds of scaffolding and masonry equipment everywhere. And it's no secret that the admission fee helps to pay for the completion of the project-- I really wonder how much of the project is funded through tourism...

Even though I am not a Catholic by any stretch of the imagination, I have to think that it would be worth it to come back when it's finished (probably towards the end of my life, I'd imagine) and hear mass. It'll be spectactular, I think!

I was also really excited to get a good view of the school building that Gaudí constructed for the children of the stonemasons-- I first read about it in yesterday's exhibit at La Pedrera, and I wanted to see the real thing. Basically, clever guy that Gaudí was, he realized that he could get around the inherent instability of squares and planes by making his planar surfaces wavy. Both the walls and the roof are rippled.

What's also neat is that because the roof is supported from the inside with steel beams and wooden cross-pieces, the walls don't have to be very thick (which is normally the case for brick buildings I guess, so the walls can support the weight of the roof). I am dying to figure out how to build a wavy-walled structure for Burning Man with this neat roof arrangement-- practical and looks cool too! I don't know why people haven't started building more buildings like this!

After a short, late lunch, I headed back out again to walk around and possibly do some shopping. By the time I made it down to the more populated areas, the streets were PACKED with people and I was quite tired. I guess *the thing* to do on a Saturday night in Barcelona is to go out and walk around-- it felt like everyone in Barcelona was in the shopping district! I didn't have any fortuitous cute and funky shops appear in front of me (unlike last night with Diane), and all the miles I walked today started catching up with me in the form of exhaustion. The tipping point came when I saw in a India/Nepal import store window a pocket belt that looks suspiciously similar to mine. I had to go inside to check it out, and saw to my dismay that it was 10.50 euros (about $13). Even though it's made with canvas-type fabric and has a velcro closure, the shape is very similar and I was just disheartened enough to call it a night. So I did. Back home to watch some Dr Who DVD and go to bed. Planning on sleeping in tomorrow, mmmm. Then possibly Monjuïc and the Miró museum.

Barcelona Blog #3 -- Gaudí's great!

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:41:00 GMT

Friday in Barcelona was much warmer than I expected it to be-- initially I had layered on what felt like all the clothes I brought because the wind yesterday made it pretty close to miserable outside. But it was only gently breezy today, and the sun felt warm and strong as you walked down the street.

Diane had some important errands she had to run before everything official shut down at 2PM, so I went off on my own to La Pedrera ("the Quarry"), one of Antoni Gaudí's most famous buildings. It was AMAZING! Until this point, I have only seen it in art history slides and textbooks, and let me tell you, they don't do it justice by any stretch of the imagination! The place is designed down to the doorhandles and plasterwork on the ceiling-- everything is integrated into his vision of what the building should be. What's pretty neat is that it is still fulfilling its original function-- it was built to be an apartment building, and it still is (though thousands of tourists are crawling over it every day).

Here's one of the crawling tourists on the roof.

The shape of the building and its roof (and to some degree, it's coloring) reminds me of Torrey Pines park, where the waves have worn away the sandstone into the most glorious sinuous shapes and curves. It's really exquisite, La Pedrera is, and photographs just can't do it justice!

I headed back to our place for a late lunch (well, perfectly on time by Spanish standards), and then Diane and I planned out the rest of our day before a short nap. She wasn't as interested as I was in the Museu Téxtil y d'Indumentario (whatever that second thing is), but she did want to see the Museu Picasso which is right across the street. So she stayed home for a longer nap, while I headed to see some textiles! But when I got there, I was confused-- I didn't see any signs for the Textile Museum, just this thing called the Disseyo Hub Barcelona, with high-tech video screens outside-- the whole thing looked like a contemporary art museum, bleagh. Wha?? Walked up and down the street a couple of times, checked the address in my guidebook, did everything short of asking where the textile museum was. Assuming that my guidebook was out of date and there is now a different museum in place of the textile museum, I opted instead for the PreColombian museum next door, which was both cheap and small, though they did have some lovely pieces from certain periods in Mesoamerica.

Made it to the Cafe Textil (where Diane and I had agreed to meet), sat down and waited. While waiting, I slowly realized that although the name had changed, what looked too flashy to be a textile museum was, in fact, the textile museum. Duh. But the cafe serves a good cup of chai! By the time Diane and I got out of there, it was too late to make it through the Picasso museum, so we did the second best thing and visited the gift shop!

The real highlight of the evening I think was our walk through Barrí Gotic after that, which is the oldest part of Barcelona. We came across the cutest flamenco shop, and I picked up something for myself as well as a prezzie for my sister (I'm not spoiling the surprise, Le!). Diane kept getting sidetracked by all the cute boutiques along our little jaunt, and all told I think she took the card of four places that she wanted to come back and visit again.

Hunger beckoned, so we decided to head for home to pick up more cash to go out to dinner as we had planned. On the way there, we got a lovely view of another Gaudí surprise, Casa Báttlo (also known as "the house of bones" and "the house of dragons").

This is another fun one, if anything a bit more ambitious than the other one. It's very incongruous sandwiched between two rectangular, normal-looking buildings on some innocent street-corner. This photo I took magically got all sparkly, I'm not sure how. The moon is the dot of white in the upper left corner.

Diane and I finished the day with a dinner at a restaurant called Tapa-apaT that's just down the road from us. Fixed price "menu nocturnal" with choices for appetizer, entree, and dessert (ensalata with tuna, breaded monkfish ("rapa"), and flan, yum!) Looooong Spanish dinner with customarily slow service... Home to bed rather late, considering I'm planning on getting up early to head for the Mercat les Enfants, the funky flea market I've seen mentioned in several places. We'll see what adventures tomorrow brings!

Barcelona Blog #2 -- ¡Hace viento!

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:26:05 GMT

My goodness! Today has been an incredibly windy day! In the middle of the night, our balcony window blew right open because it wasn't latched properly. But nonetheless we got out and about for some Barcelona enjoyment in the afternoon. We got a late start-- out the door at about 1PM-- Diane was moving a bit slowly this morning because she didn't sleep from about 2 until 8 since she's still not time-adjusted. Our first stop was the police station, where we unsuccessfully asked about Diane's ID card that she needs to work. It wasn't the right place to go, apparently, and all official businesses (like banks and police stations) close at 2PM every day. So that will be a tomorrow errand.

Our next stop was the bank, where I withdrew enough money to pay for our accommodations, and was pleased to discover how much money I had in the bank in euros (rather than dollars). We then went back to our little flat with a quick detour to the 'Chinese shop' down the street (one of those places that has all kinds of things imported from China for cheap). Successfully obtained the litter scoop for the kitties, plus a food bowl and some other sundries. We lunched at the kebab shop two doors down from our place ("kebap" in Catalan, hee hee), where we were entertained by Turkish pop electronica as we ate our fatty chicken sandwiches (yum!). Dill flavored yogurt sauce, mmm. Much better than the tuna-fish sandwiches I brought along just in case.

Then we went for a big excursion, headed for La Rambla (The Ramble), which is a nice little shopping sort of a walk. On the way there, to my great delight, we discovered one of the Gaudí buildings that I REALLY wanted to see! It's called La Pedrera (the Quarry), and it was originally built as an apartment building, but nobody wanted to rent it because none of the rooms are square! It's really exciting to see something that you have only seen in textbooks, right there in real life! Here is a picture of me across the street from La Pedrera in my European 'disguise' (note the blue neckerchief, juxstaposed with my Oakland local pride hoodie). I wanted to stick out a bit less if possible. The hippie backpack kind of ruins the effect though.

About a 40 minute walk from where we are staying (totally reasonable, yay!) La Rambla is basically a wide pedestrian avenue, lovely for people watching. Lots of tourists, and accordingly, a postcard/souvenir shop every 10 meters, street 'statue' performers, buskers, and cheap art sellers. We walked all the way to the docks, where there is a statue of Christopher Colombus pointing out to sea (though he's pointing to the southeast, not towards America?). On our way back, Diane and I struck a deal-- we would stop and get gelato for her (which I had poo-poohed on the way down La Rambla) if she would accompany me to the Museu de l'Erótica, which sounded too interesting to pass up.

To get there, we took the long way throught Barrio Gotic, with its windy narrow streets and gloomy alleys that open up into sunlit plazas. This appears to be the place for my kind of shopping-- we passed by some lovely-looking antique and vintage clothing shops-- tempting enough to warrant a second visit, at a different time of day since most of them were closed for siesta.

The Erotic Museum is exactly what it says it is in my guidebook-- "somewhere between titillation, tawdriness, and art." The visitor is greeted by a giant wooden phallus at the top of the stairs (we're talking 2 yards tall), but despite the cheesy sign next to it, there were some lovely artistic and interesting works in there.

One of my favorites was this articulated metal statue, hee hee:

The funny thing was, since this museum is on the second floor, right across from this HUGE market called La Boqueria, you get an awesome view of the market entrance from the window of the museum. Who'd've thought?

After getting our fill of tasty gelato and tasty erotica, Diane and I headed for home, with lots and lots of windowshopping on the way. If I didn't know soccer was so popular here, I would venture to guess that shopping is the national sport. Yikes! Nearly every thing we passed was a shop, and even I started wondering if I should be tempted... European leather shoes are pretty nice by all accounts. But we made it back to the house without any major purchases, phew! Diane has gone down for a short nap, after which we will do dinner of some kind I think, and we'll just see what happens after that!

Barcelona Blog #1.5 -- settling in

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:40:53 GMT

Today has been mostly about getting settled here-- we're both too tired, and the weather is too rainy to really do much exploring of the city today. After a short trip to the supermarket, I cooked us up a pasta dinner. Unfortunately I didn't scrutinize the label of the tomato sauce I bought to doctor up with fresh onions and leeks, and it ended up resembling ketchup for sweetness-- yuck! Who adds glucose and fructose to tomato sauce?? But dinner turned out tasty nonetheless, and I'm proud of myself for braving the strangeness of the grocery store in Catalán -- thank goodness for recognizable pictures on the labels! And yum for overripe bananas being turned into sauce/compote for dessert (only other ingredients were honey and water).

Kitties are FINE-- within a few hours of being let out of their containers, both of them were passed out under the covers on Diane's bed. Food, water, litter, what more can a cat need?

Tomorrow, in addition to sorting out some bureaucratic stuff for Diane, we might try to do some fun exploring. At the very least, make a list of fun things I can't miss!

Barcelona Blog #1-- arrived!

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:05:28 GMT

We've arrived!-- two humans, two cats, four suitcases, and two carryons, 24 hours in transit from San Diego (well, technically almost 36 hours for me, if you count the flight from San Francisco to San Diego on Monday night). After I got in to San Diego, Diane put me to work packing a year's worth of clothes into three giant suitcases (and then weighing them, and then removing a few things here and there to get them down to under the 50 lbs limit). We worked on that until about 1:30AM, when I had to shut my eyes for a bit. Up again at 4:30 (late!) to finish up (no sleep for Diane), go fetch Dylan and Zach (the cats), and get to the airport.

How to move two cats and two humans to Barcelona in six easy steps

Step 1 - check in. This involved getting the aforementioned three giant bags, plus cats, plus Diane's violin, and my bags inside the door and to the ticket agent. Dylan and Zach weren't quite given their meds early enough to take effect before they got stuffed into the travel bags, so they let us know about their general state of unhappiness in no uncertain terms! Diane had to pay even more than she had been told to bring the cats on the plane ($125 per cat for domestic flights, $200 international). While she was negotiating with that, I took a precious meditative moment to do some deep breathing, trying to recover my destroyed nerves after the poorly placed cat carrier that I was in charge of fell off the ticket counter (poor Dylan!).

Step 2 - get through security. Luckily we ran into some TSA 'cat people' who were very nice. They had to run the carrier bags through the x-ray machine without the cats in them, and either we can walk through the human screener holding the cats (no chance in hell! they'd be gone in a flash), or we could do this private screening business where we go to a room on the side, with doors that close, and the cats aren't in danger of running away. Never underestimate the power of sympathetic cat people. Though they did confiscate my yogurt :(

Step 3 - first flight (San Diego to DC). Unhappy maowing cats, Zach more so than Dylan. The meds did lower the volume significantly, but they were still really displeased with the whole traveling business. I offered an extra pair of earplugs to all the folks around us 'if the cats get annoying'-- their response? 'Cats? what cats?' Which means they're probably not going to get annoying to our fellow passengers. We had to keep an eye on Zach, since he successfully busted out of one of the carrier bags last week during a test run, and now knows he can if he's persistent. Diane passed out and didn't even wake up when I shook her for the drinks cart.

Step 4 - transfer in DC, second flight to Frankfurt. Slightly surprised to see snow on the ground as we were landing (duh). Very busy terminal, but we were saved by documentation! A quick look at the terminal map showed the location of a 'family/companion' bathroom, with a sink and toilet, and a door that locks. We holed up in there for most of our layover, and gave the cats a break from the carriers. Diane got a photo of me as the ultimate cat mom-- apparently they liked my lap more than the cold tile floor!

Borrowed some containers from Starbucks for cat food, cats not interested, more interested in this new frontier. After we stuffed them back into the carriers (still making unhappy noises), we went to the international terminal, requiring a short ride on a shuttle that resembled a giant room-on-wheels-- weird. The immediate drop in ambient noise in the other terminal amazingly calmed down the boys, and we got checked in through to Barcelona with Lufthansa. After a few phone calls to credit cards ("yes, those charges in Barcelona will in fact be done by me, so don't flag my account!"), we were on our way and starting the 7+ hour overnight flight over the Atlantic! More meds for Zach partway through, poor guy.

Step 5 - transfer in Frankfurt, third flight to Barcelona. After a lovely flight with generous meals (and free cocktails! those 4 crying babies around us do get aggravating after awhile), we made our way to the third flight. By now we had figured out that covering up the carriers makes the cats a little calmer when carried through a busy terminal-- we swiped a blanket from Lufthansa. Again finding the private restroom (which come in several flavors in Germany, men's, women's, and handicapped) and giving the boys a breather. My instincts told me that we might want to be quicker about it, and good thing we did! In transferring from one terminal to another, we had to go through security all over again! ARGH! This time, no sympathetic cat people, no private screening, and my crappy, almost forgotten German to boot -- "wir haben tswei katchen". And I got a claw-gouge in my shoulder to show for it, from Dylan who's usually the sweet one! And was the plane at the gate? Heck no! We got a bus ride to the plane, parked out on the tarmac, and climbed the stairs amidst all the crazy loud engine noise. Poor, poor kitties. Thank goodness this flight was a little more empty, and we had a row to ourselves. Snoozing girls through the whole flight.

Step 6 - make it to where we're staying! The Barcelona airport is pretty fancy, and looks brand new. Claimed our bags (free luggage carts, I like Europe!), and nervously approached customs. Diane was nervous-- she had all the cat's paperwork in order, they've had their shots, they're clean of any bad diseases, etc. They're covered in the blanket to keep the noise down, and we breezed right through customs! No need for paperwork, just the need to keep on walking like we know what we are doing. We caught a taxi outside who knew where we were going, and got our first look at Barcelona as we drove to the house that we're staying in. Had a bit of a challenge, since it's on a pedestrian-only street, but we finally made it here, made it inside, up the stairs, and we're settled in!

And now I think it's time for a shower and a change of clothes-- my first since Monday morning (ugh).