We arrived back in Barcelona on tuesday morning. Our train was nearly two hours late, apparently due to some sort of railway workers' strike. This was actually fortunate, because it allowed us to check into our room in Barcelona immediately, without waiting around for an available room.

We had lunch at Les Quinze Nits, a reasonably priced Catalan restaurant with excellent food and mediocre service. As usual we had the Creme Catalán for dessert (which is much like Crème Brulée, only better). Then we took a nice long siesta because we really didn't get a very good night's sleep on the train. I think the Spanish are definitely onto something with this siesta idea.

Our plan for wednesday was to take a day trip to somewhere up on the Costa Brava (the part of the Mediterranean north of Barcelona). Almost all the towns along there are named [something] del Mar. There wasn't any regular train service up there, but the buses ran regularly. Anyway, when we woke up in the morning, it was raining! Not much, but not really a great day to go to the beach. So instead, we went to see the Palau Güell, a national historic building that is in the process of being restored. We only saw the stables in the basement, and the roof, and one of the interior floors. But it was very cool.

By the time we were done with that, the weather had cleared up and it was sunny again. So we decided to head to the bus station to pick a $random_del_mar to visit. We decided to go to Tossa de Mar, a little resort town with an old medieval castle and ruins. But not 20 minutes after we left Barcelona on the bus, it started raining again! Sure enough, it was still raining when we got there.

Not to be deterred, we got a map and wandered toward the beach area. The town almost seemed deserted, especially for being in the height of the summer season. There were a row of shops selling cheesy beach stuff and souvenirs, and we popped in there a bit to avoid some rain. But by the time we made it to the beach, the rain had almost completely stopped.

The beach at Tossa de Mar is not really sand but more of a fine granite gravel. We walked along the beach for a bit and the sun peeked out, so Amy laid out a towel and I poked around the rocky coves and such. After we sat on the beach for a while, watching people slowly come back out to the beach after the rain, we headed over to the old medieval town to check it out before our bus returned to Barcelona.

Thursday was my last full day in Spain, and we started it by sleeping in a bit. Amy wanted to get a bit more time at the beach (after the mediocre beach day in Tossa de Mar), so she headed down to the Barcelona beach while I explored a market and bookstores etc. In the evening, we took a sail on a 75 foot catamaran along the Barcelona waterfront. It was quite relaxing, and we had wanted to do some kind of sailing since the first few days we were there.

My flight home left at 10:40am, so we figured I should get to the airport around 9am. We got up on friday at 7am or so, did final packing and so on, and took the metro to the train station. The trains to the airport leave about every half an hour or so. We looked up at the departure monitor, and it said 8:38 to the airport, and my watch said 8:37! We heard a train arrive and quickly purchased one one-way and one round-trip ticket to the airport. Ran downstairs and there were two trains, luckily I had noticed which platform was airport-bound. 30 seconds later and we would have missed the train.

When we arrived at the airport, we said our goodbyes and Amy took the train back to downtown Barcelona. I headed to the terminal area and looked around for the Delta checkin desk. There was a mass of people in all kinds of lines extending around the area, and I had to cut through a few to find Delta. Then I followed the line back, and back... and back! There were probably 200 people in line. So I located the end, confirmed with somebody else in line that this was indeed Delta, and waited. This was 9am. At 10am, after waiting an hour, I had moved perhaps 20 feet. My international flight was leaving in 40 minutes, this was not good.

I had overheard the Spanish-speaking couple in front of me mention that they were also heading to Nuevo York. The lady had gone up to the desk a couple of times to see if she could figure out what was going on. Eventually she came back and motioned for her husband to bring everything and go with her. I followed, knowing that this was probably my best chance to get on this plane. Spending a day or possibly a night in the Barcelona airport was not my idea of fun.

We cut through lines and went straight up to the first class checkin desk, with me following trying to look like I belonged there. The agent hurriedly helped the couple with their checkin and bags, and then I said that I was on the same flight. The agent asked me how long I had been waiting (I said an hour and a half), she kind of sighed, asked me how many bags ("just one"), and finally said "ok, give me your passport". She quickly checked me in, I put my bag on the carrier they had specifically for our three bags, got my boarding pass, and headed up to security. Fortunately, the line there wasn't long. Then I realized that I wasn't in my originally assigned seat, but I was in 2G, a first class window seat! I ran to the gate, avoided the long line of people waiting to board by joining the first class boarding line. I was seated and had finished an orange juice by the time the rest of the people were done boarding. What luck!

Since it was a daytime flight, and I wanted to make sure my internal clock didn't get further screwed up, I stayed awake for the whole 8.5 hour flight. Believe me, if you're ever going to have a fortunate bump to first class, you can choose no better leg than the longest flight on your way home. That definitely made up for the extra JFK-ATL connection that I had to take on the return trip.

If you have read this far, you've reached the end of my journals for this trip. As your reward, my pictures from the trip are now online in my photo gallery. There are 190 photos in several albums (watch for the sub-albums especially the three in Barcelona). Enjoy! We certainly did.

Just a quick note this time, we're about to leave San Sebastián on the night train back to Barcelona. We've been taking it easy for the last couple of days, enjoying the sights around the city and of course, the restaurants. We were here one more day than we had planned because the train on sunday was full when we bought our tickets.

The weather for the last couple of days has been a bit varied. Yesterday afternoon a thunderstorm suddenly rolled in and almost completely emptied the beaches. I tried to take some lightning pictures over the harbour but was not lucky enough to get any. It only sprinkled a few drops of rain that time. This evening it started raining a bit harder, so we sought cover in the internet café before dinner.

Apparently the Basque language is spoken by about 30% of the population here. Under Marcos' leadership 20 years ago, teaching of the Basque language was forbidden in schools. Now it is being taught again, and its use is quickly on the rise. Most signs, even in store windows, are in both Basque and Spanish. One person we talked to said that in 40 years, everybody will speak Basque again. It's cool that a language spoken in such a small area can thrive.

They say the rain in Spain falls mostly on the plains. Well, the only place it has rained on us is here on the coast in San Sebastián. It's all good though!

Off to find some tapas for dinner at our favourite tapas bar ("Garroti" in the Parte Vieja). They have been closed the last couple of times we stopped by so hopefully they are open again today.

We arrived in San Sebastián early on wednesday morning, after an all night train ride from Lleida. We got the bus just after lunch from Sort to La Pobla de Segur, hung around there for a couple of hours until we could get the train from there to Lleida. The train was supposed to leave shortly after midnight, but ended up being about 20 minutes late. We got a sleeper car so we quietly crept into the bunks with four other travellers who were en route from Barcelona to San Sebastián.

After some looking around finding a place to stay (all of the places we looked at were full or note quite sufficient for us), we finally checked into a nice hotel right on the beach. It was a bit more than we had been accustomed to paying for a room, but it seems that at the start of summer vacation here the city is quite full. We only booked it for three nights so today we found another place for €30 less per night. That way we can afford to get a better place when we return to Barcelona next week.

San Sebastián is great! The city is beautiful, its centerpiece is definitely the huge beaches. The beaches are well protected by an almost completely enclosed bay, plus an island at the mouth of the bay. Yesterday it was a bit cloudy but today and wednesday, as one of the books we have says, the beaches were an "almost impenetrable mass of flesh". Amy did some sunning and swimming today while I was doing internet stuff and trying to find out whether we could rent a sailboat (unfortunately, no), and I hope to do some swimming tomorrow.

The food here is absolutely amazing. We've found that one of the best things about spanish food is the "tapas" bars that are open all afternoon and evening. They have small open sandwich type things to eat for usually about €1.50 to €2 each, two or three of those is a great snack. One of the best we found today was a sun dried tomato with brie cheese on a slice of bread. Wonderful!

We just got back from an amazing dinner at a restaurant right on the dock. We had king prawns, calamari, a salmon steak each, plus dessert, wine, and bread. You can't get seafood any fresher than that. Now we're off to try some cider (which this region is known for), and perhaps some ice cream. You can't throw a stone without hitting a "gelateria" around here, and we have certainly been taking advantage of that. Good flavours: pistachio, cream cheese with nuts, banana, coconut, and so on.

Our Spanish is definitely improving, it's no longer a problem if somebody at a hotel or restaurant or wherever doesn't speak English. We refer often to the dictionary and are challenging each other with learning and using a few new Spanish words each day. Here in Basque country, although the native Basque language is completely unfamiliar to us, Castillian Spanish is spoken by everybody.

We're about to leave Sort en route to San Sebastián. It's beautiful here and we would enjoy staying longer, but it is time to move on. We have made some friends here, Núria at the tourism information office and Ales whose family owns and operates a very nice hotel and café/bar here.

One of the first things I noticed about Sort when we arrived was the unusual abundance of Land Rovers here. You can hardly look down a street without seeing at least one or two. They come in all kinds, lots of older Defenders like mine, in short wheel base, long wheel base, two door, four door, hard top, pickup, many beige, some blue, green, and red. There are also some newer Discovery models and some Range Rovers. I suppose they are popular around here because of the rough terrain, for which Land Rovers are of course famous.

Another thing we noticed soon after arriving was that the amount of water flowing in the river changes several times throughout the day. When we went kayaking in the afternoon it was a strong current, also when we went rafting in the morning, but in the evening we noticed it was much less. It's not the rainy season here, so it isn't natural variation. It turns out that there are dams upstream that control the water flow, and they let out more water about three times a day, specifically to support the rafting business. When we did hydrospeed at noon yesterday, the river was quite low just before we left, but after we returned it was much higher. They had let out more water right at noon for us. That was good, because in the shallower sections of the river it was easy to knock your knees against the rocks. Miguel said it should be called "hydro-hit" instead!

Today's weather is not windy at all, so today might have been a better day to go hot air ballooning. Unfortunately, we already extended our stay by one day because we had scheduled to go yesterday, and they also require at least four people to book a trip. Perhaps we will try doing that again later in the vacation.

Everybody says San Sebastián is beautiful and the food is amazing, so we'll report on that once we get a chance to sample it. ¡Hasta lluego!

We have been in Sort since last thursday. On friday we did some river kayaking lessons. Kayaking is hard work! One of the first things we did was practice turning over and getting used to being under water. Getting right side up again from that position is not for beginners, so we also practiced getting out of the kayak while upside down. After learning how to turn (you have to use your arms, knees, and head for balance), we did the "ferry" maneuver to get from one side of the river to the other. Then we learned how to go from the edge of the river into the middle and point downstream. We both dunked ourselves many times doing this! Our instructors for that day were Miguel (from Chile) and Hector (from here in Sort).

On saturday morning we went rafting, we drove about 15 km upstream and entered the river there. There were six of us in the raft plus Xavi our guide/helmsman, and everybody else spoke Catalan. Xavi spoke a bit of english and would give all the commands (like "forward", "stop", etc) in both Catalan and English. We went through at least 20 rapids and even over a dam (about 5 m fall at perhaps a 45 degree slope). A couple of times Xavi had everybody jump out of the boat, or deliberately get us to fall in, so we got good and wet. That was fun and not as physically demanding as kayaking.

On Saturday evening we met up with some locals and went to Llavorsí (about 20 km north), where there was a fiesta going on. Each town around here has its own day each year where they party it up. Last week was Llavorsí, next week will be Sort (but we'll be gone by then). We got back at about 5am. It was a lot of fun trying to communicate in four different languages (Catalan, Spanish, French, and English).

Our plan for sunday was to go up in a hot air balloon, but it was all booked up for that day, so we rescheduled that for monday. Sunday evening when it cooled down a bit we went for an hour of "hipica" (horseback riding) along the river.

On saturday evening the pilot for the hot air ballooning came by the hotel (no phone) and told us that the weather report was not good for monday and we would have to cancel. The other people who had scheduled for monday also cancelled so there was no possibility for us. That was unfortunate.

Today (monday), we did "hydrospeed" which is sort of like rafting but everybody goes individually and you grab on to a styrofoam float and swim with flippers. It was just Amy and me with Miguel (our kayak instructor). He went in a kayak and helped us take the right route downstream. Going down the rapids face first is exhilirating! Got very wet.

I'm out of time for now so I'm going to wrap this up. We are headed to San Sebastian by bus and train tomorrow, it's a night train so we will arrive shortly before 8am. More then!

I arrived in Barcelona last saturday morning, and met up with Amy at the Mirador de Colom (Columbus Monument) at our arranged time. It was cool that we could succesfully arrange a time and place to meet halfway around the world, in a city and country neither of us had ever been to.

We were in Barcelona for about five days (saturday through wednesday). While we were there we saw: the Barcelona Cathedral, the Parliament of Catalunya buildings, the Mirador de Colom, the Museum of Chocolate, Montjuic and the Olympic stadium (from Barcelona 1992), Park Guell, the Sagrada Familia, the Palau de Musicá, and various other things which I'm probably forgetting. We also did a three hour bicycle tour on sunday (in English) which was great because we got to see a lot of different things in a short amount of time.

The food here is fantastic, we've been able to find lots of good things to eat. Very close to where we stayed is La Bloqueria, a fresh food market with lots of individual vendors of fruit, vegetables, meat, pastries, and even fully prepared meals. One place (which we will go back to) didn't have a menu but the chef would just make a plate of whatever they had available. We didn't know what to order so just asked for a chicken dish and a "plate of the day". The chicken was delicious, and the plate of the day was baby octopus in with beans and a basalmic vinegar sauce. Amazing! At another place we had a huge plate of seafood for two, including lobster, giant shrimp, clams, razor clams, mussels, sea snails, etc. La Quinze Nits (Fifteen Nights) is a popular restaurant with a long queue to get in every day. It was worth the wait, the food there is excellent and very reasonably priced. We've eaten at various other tapas places, found some gyros, etc. Very good.

I didn't realize that Catalunya (the northeast corner of Spain) had such a strong sense of its own identity. It is a mostly atonomous region in terms of government, and the local language (Catalan) is actually spoken by more people than more well-known languages such as Norweigan or Finnish. Catalan seems to be a cross between Spanish and French, and it's interesting trying to figure out what things like tourism brochures are saying. Common words like "closed" are often totally different (spanish: cerrado, french: fermé, catalan: tancat). It's a lot of fun for a language geek like me.

We left Barcelona on thursday, got on a bus at 7:30am bound for a town called Sort. We had emailed a hotel in Sort the day before, but had not heard back. So we went anyway even though we didn't have a place arranged to stay. After a reasonably comfortable five hour bus ride (except for the ten or so excited kids in the back of the bus on their way to camp), we arrived in Sort. Sort is a tiny little mountain town in the Pyrenees, which in winter is a ski resort town and in summer is a mecca of river sports. You can walk from one end of town to the other in about 10 minutes. We found the hotel which we had emailed but they could only offer us one night. They helped us find another place which was a bit cheaper and is still very nice. It's the same price as we were paying in Barcelona (about €45 per night) and we have our own bathroom, a great view of the town, and breakfast included.

Later today we are going kayaking on the river, and then tomorrow morning we have booked a rafting trip, both through a place called Rubber River. Sunday we might do something like hot air ballooning, haven't decided yet.

Internet access is generally available, but the place in Sort where we are right now wasn't open yesterday. It has tiny little 640x480 monitors, about a dozen computers shoved together in a little room in the back of a (food) café. A far cry from the nice flat panel LCD displays at the places in Barcelona. We haven't been able to find anywhere we can use USB connections, so pictures will have to wait.

We are having lots of fun and I'm happy to report that I don't seem to have suffered any effects of jetlag. Learning Spanish is fun too, and my French even came in handy yesterday while checking into the hotel. Hasta lluego!