In brief, check out the pictures if you haven't seen them:
We loved our trip. In Barcelona we stayed with friends - the ones you see in the pictures. Vicenc cooked us paella - mmm. He is by far one of the best human beings I ever met. He is kind, sincere, humble, loving, gentle ... and if all goes well, he should be a daddy by tomorrow! I hear his wife, Shannon just went in to labor...
In Zaragoza, Hector very generously opened his home to us and made himself completely available to us. He gave us a guided trip around the city. We probably would have found it boring if it hadn't been for him. And Krisia - she came and joined us in the touring. Funny story: we decided to have Chinese for lunch one day. BAD IDEA. Everything was fried, we were so sick by the end. One of dessert options was pineapple, so, naively, we picked that to have something "fresh". It was STRAIGHT from a can. One slice on this pitiful plate. Krisia took a picture it was so pitiful. At least the lunch was cheap...
Then we went to Toledo. I cannot rave about Toledo enough. The city is beautiful and the people are wonderful. And if you use Fodor's instead of the Lonely Planet, we know where the bingo hall is :-) Okay, so Fodor's is a bit tamer than Lonely Planet ... a bit more "middle class traveler". It actually tells you where to find a bingo hall. In Spain? You're in Spain and you have a hankering for BINGO? Whatever. We thought it was hysterical and then ... it was there. The bingo hall! So, that explains the bingo picture in Toledo. (not that you've seen it yet - sorry)
Madrid - enh, we started out by walking into a museum exhibit that turned out to basically be pornography. No, that's too gentle. It WAS porn. Period. That seriously pissed me off. Sorry, I know that's not a nice word, but I was. Anyway, there were better cities.
Like Bilbao. The Guggenheim ROCKS as a museum. Now there's a museum that knows it's all about the presentation. And the old city was fun, the food was great, Krisia was there, and so was a Mango outlet. I couldn't resist, but Mark and Krisia will both attest that I was in and out in 30 minutes at most.
Or San Sebastien - another beautiful city. It was cold, gray and oh-so-perfect. We walked along the boardwalk from one side of the city to the other. It was beautiful - very picturesque. I think it's how I imagine European cities when novels say they went to "summer" somewhere. Which makes sense because that is apparently what people have been doing there for 200 years or so.
San Sebastien has both the coolest and worstest bathrooms. Coolest: translucent (but not transparent) sliding doors conceal the sink area leading to both the men's and women's toilet. If you stand at the mirror and do anything you give the people outside (us, as the case may be) a show. Mark did a whole puppet show for us :-) It didn't have soap though. On the other side of town, we went for tea & waffles (dessert waffles). Worstest toilet: this tiny space COULD have been used effectively. Instead they placed the toilet paper roll on the wall next to the toilet that was so close to it that in order to get the TP you banged your arm against the big metal cylinder containing the TP like 4 times. Huh? Then when I washed my hands, with soap, but sorry this was still unforgivable, the faucet was wrong for the sink, so I banged my hands against the sink. Grr. And the women's toilet was out of TP, whereas the men's had extra... I stole the extra from the men's. Anyway, frustrating. We laughed.
By the way, don't try to watch "Out of Africa" in a language you don't understand. It makes no sense whatsoever!!!
It sounds like you had a wonderful time and a much needed diversion. I would love to hear how your Thankgsiving Dinner went.
See you soon. (I just love writing that -- and meaning it!)
Hey, Mara!
I can't see any of the Bilbao pictures.
I absolutely loved the Barcelona pictures, though, and have stolen a small image of you with a cup of coffee, and I'm adding it to the menu entry that leads to your blog, because it is too fantastic to live without.
Bilbao pictures are now up (it helps when you spell 'bilbao' correctly and not 'bilboa'...oops!)
By the way, if your name is Mara - or Mara Noelle - and you feel the inclination to tell me that I shouldn't be "possessive" about my name, rather I should feel "blessed" to have such a wonderful name ...
GET OFF MY BLOG.
ahhhh. I feel better already. geesh.
This is me. I'm apparently attached to the world of names, as a dear friend pointed out. I'm okay with this - for now. If you're not, I repeat: GET OFF MY BLOG.
Hey, Sis!
There aren't so many Nathan Dale's, either, but there are a couple dozen on the web, and there was even a NYPD Blue character who was falsely accused of stabbing someone named Nathan Dale.
I envy that there are so few other Mara Noelle's.
On the other hand, none of them have traipsed into my blog and posted something creepy and offensive.
I swear, that was just so weird. I can't really rationally explain it, but I was totally getting cult vibes off that woman. If you read the in-between the lines, just out of the corner of your eyes, she said: "Join us. Resistance is futile. There's no place like home - our home, right here is a small town in Nevada."
Was that just me, or did anyone else get that feeling, too?
Afraid I missed that entry. Is it still there?
And here I thought I was being so original in naming you. . .
Dear Nae,
You put on of Mara's picture on your blog? I can't find it. Help?
Nannie - check out my "I'm A Greedy Freak" post. That's where "the other woman" posted. And yeah, it was creepy. I got the feeling she was a born-again Christian or a weird Christian sect ... "blessed with such a name" ... please. Not that I'm ungrateful Mummy-dearest. I love my name, but when I feel blessed it's for things like a great family or something profound like that.
I did find a Mara Noelle at UC Davis that seemed fairly cool. I must admit though, I would have never thought there'd be other Mara Noelles out there. Obviously I thought my name was pretty original too.