After my coworkers left I was desperately tired and torn between wanting to go home, wanting to see more of the city, and wanting to go to bed. I went to bed. In fact, on Saturday morning, I awoke at 9 am so that the laundry could pick up some clothes, then put out the “do not disturb” sign and went back to sleep. At 2 pm, housekeeping called me to ask me when they could come clean my room. I decided to get up.

I took the metro out to the other side of town and just went walking in what I thought was a nice direction; I eventually came across the Parc de la Ciutadella, the “Central Park” of Barcelona. The park was filled with people young and old. People sat and ate on benches, gathered in circles in the grass, and in some cases, couples just laid the grass and made out in full public view. I am not a prude by any means, but I’m just not used to such public displays and found it intriguing. Lots of people were just laying out in the sun, enjoying the gorgeous weather as though it was the beach. One girl was sitting out in her bra and panties with her clothes in a heap beside her. I suppose she’d forgotten her bikini¹.

Eventually I got a call from the one coworker who lived in Barcelona; he invited me out to dinner along with his wife. I wandered my way back to the hotel just in time to freshen up and head out on the metro to the Gràcia district, where the young people hang out. We went out to a light dinner and talked about life and kids and the fact that I could totally move to Barcelona at any moment. We then went walking and talking around the neighborhood, and by this time I was unsurprised to see people lining up at 11:30pm to get a table for dinner at some places. I also discovered that the city would be pretty much shut down on Sunday, and regretted delaying a thorough trip through El Corte Ingles, the enormous department store next to my hotel. El Cortel Ingles is a great place to go if you need a suit, a whole smoked pig’s leg, an electric guitar, and a bathtub. Really. Same store.

I came back to a clean hotel room and fresh laundry, and fell directly into bed, where I lay unmoved until 10am.

Sunday, I found that the entire city had not in fact shut down, but most stores were closed–particularly the sort of stores you’d want to visit as a resident. All the tourist attractions were wide open; I took the funicular to Montjuic, and walked around for a while before getting on a tour bus. The tour bus was the sort in which you could get on and off repeatedly, so I took a last look at Las Ramblas, the Gothic Quarter, and around some of the Gaudi buildings. By dinner time I was pooped again, and I returned to my hotel room, thoroughly Barcelona’d out.

I ordered a $30 cheeseburger from room service, packed my things, and went to bed.

¹ If you ask for a “bikini” in a restaurant in Barcelona, you’ll get a grilled ham & cheese sandwich.

From Tuesday through Thursday in Barcelona, there was a nonstop progression of spending the day in meetings followed by some sort of sightseeing and eating combination, then going out drinking, going to bed too late and having to get up and do it again. I don’t remember there being any free time in there, and frankly I can’t remember any particular thing happening on any particular day, except that on Thursday, we cut out from work a little early and went to Parc Güell. I’m glad we didn’t stick around work because the managers’ meeting turned out to go really long, and we would have been waiting around forever for the rest of the team. The closest metro stop dropped us at the bottom of a huge hill which has a couple escalators to help for some of the climb. We climbed up and made our way around the park, reading the Catalan signs as best we could, and only getting lost once. By the time we were done walking and taking pictures, it was starting to get dark and we headed back for the hotel arriving just in time to go to the Mexican place next door to the hotel. The food was decent and affordable, but somehow the group managed to accumulate an absolutely insane bill; probably 75% of it was alcohol.

The following day some of my coworkers left for home, and I was still feeling woozy at 11am, but we headed out for more sightseeing, checking out the other Gaudi buildings in town and doing a little shopping. It didn’t take a whole lot of convincing by my coworkers to get me to eat McDonald’s for lunch. Not so much because we wanted the food as for the novelty of the experience; the menu has different food and is printed in Catalan. I don’t think there was any Spanish on the menu, though the employees did speak it.

By the time dinner rolled around, we were all pretty tired, especially those of us who had been out the night before. We ate at a hot dog place near the hotel and called it a night. My remaining coworkers were leaving the following morning so at last I knew I’d be able to sleep in.

Some of you may recall that I personally seem to have very bad plane karma. I’m always getting stuck next to the largest, smelliest, or loudest passengers on the plane. Not this time. For the first leg from San Diego, I was sitting next to a creepy-looking but otherwise unoffensive little man who didn’t say a word for the entire flight. The second leg, the one going overseas, I was in the middle seat between two largish men when I overheard the couple behind me asking the flight attendants for new seats. Theirs were in the last row on the plane, and they didn’t like it for some reason. After they left, I quickly excused myself to hork the aisle seat they left behind and sprawled out comfortably for the next nine hours.

Upon arriving, we were greeting by our Spanish coworker and checked into our downtown hotel, showered, obtained phone cards, and changed money, then headed out for tapas in the shadow of the Sagrada Familia. The tower going up in the cathedral itself was closed for the day, so I’ll have to return for another look. We walked through the Barri Gotic and stopped at the amazingly gothic Cathedral of Santa Eulalia, before having to stop at another streetside cafe, this time for sangria. Finally, we walked the rest of the way down La Rambla, past the monument to Christopher Columbus, and down to the marina, where we had some really good paella.

I’m finding this city to be a lot like San Diego: temperate, multicultural, busy, and you can generally tell which direction you’re facing because there is the sea to one side and the mountains to the other. Barcelona has an amazing history displayed in its architecture and I only wish I knew how to take better photos of it.

I dropped off the face of the blog as soon as Jennifer home because:

• I was really really tired and needed a break.
• I was really really busy at work because I missed so much of it while Jennifer was gone.
• I was really really busy at work getting ready for my trip to Barcelona.

I leave for Spain tomorrow, so I probably won’t be doing a whole lot of posting for the next week, but if the internet connection is good I should be posting some pictures, especially toward the end of the week.

Since my last post, things went from bad to worse. Anna’s behavior was fairly unmanageable for most of the weekend, and to top it off, the nanny was ill on Monday. I took yet another day off work, which I can already not afford to miss, and the prospects for peace in the house were not good.

Fortunately, today was much like a normal day, and I had no aspirations of trying to get the kids to eat healthy food, or do activities more constructive than watching TV, and there was relative peace. Only one more day to go. If every day went like today, the two-week solo stint would be doable. However, the kids would be ignorant couch potatoes. Win some, lose some I guess.

In my daily rant to Jennifer, she suggested I figure out some make-good activities for after she gets back. Go ahead and retrieve your train of thought from the gutter. I’ll wait.

• Since I’m behind on my work and need to prepare for my trip to Barcelona, I will have to put in some long days at work. I have a hard time switching into domestic mode and then switching back to work mode at home, so it’s better if I just go for a few long days.
• I need some frag time with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which I bought at Fry’s a month ago and have been playing from time to time.
• I’m still looking for the perfect MP3 player, and I would like to see if I can get something before my trip. I’ve been looking at the devices from Cowon, because they support OGG format (which I use for radio recordings), and you don’t need Windows or Mac to use them. The iPod hardware is great, but I just can’t deal with the software requirements. Since there is no perfect MP3 player at this time, I may have to settle for another gadget, the Neuros OSD Media Center, which is probably as brilliant a hacking platform as any.
• Exercise. Finally.
• Sleep. A lot.

Only one more day to go.