The Planes and Spain

The somewhat crazy itinerary that I am currently following (Swizterland to Malta to Spain to Poland) has arisen because I am joining the dots on a map of Europe between all the family and friends who are unfortunate enough to be cursed with a visit from me.

This 24 hour stop in Barcelona is not to visit family, but simply because spending a day here was the easiest way to get from Malta to Poland. So as to not waste an opportunity, we (I´ve reunited with the parents and Claire once more) have packed as much into our one day as possible. I don´t want to bore you with tales of warm weather, sangria, tapas and the usual (see the Cadaques post for that) - surprising all my highlights from today are technological.

The Metro

Many of the ticket validating gates on the metro are left handed. I´m not sure if they have a large population of lefties, or if it was just a vengeful left hander who designed the machines.

The View at Park Guell

Normally you have to work hard to earn a great view of a city from the surrounding hills - but they solved the problem of hiking up a hill at Park Guell by installing escalators along the middle of the public streets. Brilliant idea.

Giant Vending Machine

At Catalunya metro station is a vending machine that takes up a whole wall and contains no fewer than 180 items. Chocolate milk to cigarettes, sandwiches to sanitary products - all in one massive machine. Japan, home of vending madness has a lot to live up to when I visit - Barcelona has set the bar high.

No Rain In Spain

Despite the fact that a turn in the weather has been predicted since my parents arrived here ten days ago, every day has consistently been clear blue skys, sunny and mid-twenties. And so it was when we took a couple of hours drive across the border to visit Spain - well, more specifically, the small holiday villiage of Cadaques.

Although it was only just across the border, it was a very Spanish town, full of white stucco houses with blue shutters, tiled walls and resraunts and cafes that didn't serve lunch until 2pm. The place was very quite as official tourist season ended a month ago, and what dregs of summery tourism that are left are closing at the end of the month (ie. today).

We (ie the parents, Claire and I) had a lovely day strolling around the villiage, small pockets of beach and the lovely beach roads. We had tapas for lunch, with a jug of sangria- so apart from dancing salsa with an attractive Spanish man, I've basically done everything I wanted to do in Spain in one meal.

After lunch there was more walking, admiring the scenery, and ice cream. On the drive home I was honoured with the privilage of sitting in the front (possilby because of the threats to vomit that I made coming long the windy mountain roads on thw way there), thus I was able to entertain dad with a game I made up called 'That Truck Is From...' . The objective of the game is quite simple - every time you pass a truck on the freeway you say (in your best gameshow voice) 'That Truck Is From... The Netherlands!' There were a lot of trucks from lots of different places heading out of Spain; from Portugal to Turkey, Sweden to Italy, all going about their trucky business as we went about our business and headed home from a fun international day trip.