Barcelona

My parents had come visiting to the tower and were I think, delighted with the town, the wine in the town, the hikes near the town and the magic of our tower - except for its oh-so-chilly nature. Given that its hundreds of years old, I guess we should give it a break, but its power to retain coldness, despite warm weather outside is truly amazing. There are small space heaters, but they don't do much. It made Dad grumpy. But hell, it makes me grumpy too. We had a great few, quiet days in the area - eating amazing food Mac put together. Then we skedaddled to Barcelona. I was interested in Barcelona for so many reasons. I was there for about a nanosecond in the mid 1990s, but keep hearing about the crazy Gaudi buildings, the amazing anarchist scene that has dozens of social centres, and being in a big vibrant European city was a draw.

From our place it costs about 20 bucks, and 5 hours or 50 bucks and three hours to get to Barcelona. Not too bad. We took the TGV on the way there, and the slow train the way home. The hotel Mum had booked was right beside the crazy tourist Ramblas area - but also close to cool areas like Rabal, and Gracia. On our first night, we were sitting at a touristy restaurant when we saw the famed indignados march past. They were marching to protest the charges given to some of the Occupy Catalunya Square people this past summer. Given that Occupy Wall Street was heating up, it wasn't surprising to see a few signs in solidarity. There were probably 1000 people, mostly young, white and with only a few signs. The following day Mac, Sid and I went and met up with a Canadian activist living there who showed us a community information centre and gave us a bit of a sense of the movements in town. Then Mum and Dad took Sidney and Mac and I got to celebrate the 10th anniversary of our wedding - a month or so late. Despite the fact that I had a touch of food poisoning that had made food incredibly uninteresting to me for two days, I did sample a few tapas as we walked around the Rabal area, drinking wine in different places and talking. So lovely and so appreciated.
The next day, we all got onto one of those double decker bus thingies and toured the city. But before you snort, seriously, we were a gaggle of 5, one 83 year old, one six year old, and three in between. It gave us a sense of the city's layout anyway. Then Mum, Dad and I went to the Picasso Museum, while Sid and Mac saw sharks at the Aquarium. We met up and saw a fantastic flamenco show at Carmen y Tablo. Heart stoppingly dramatic. You seriously don't want to mess with an angry flamenco dancer. Wow.