Day 1 & 2 in Barcelona

After a good nights sleep Al and I headed out for a walking tour of the city. We started at the Music Center and then visited the Cathedral of Barcelona. Both are examples of colorful Catalan architecture. Then we walked down to the port and saw some very fancy and very large yachts. Where do these people make the kind of money that can afford these gigantic boats? By this time we were getting hungry so we walked down to the sand. As we were gazing at the blue Med Sea, I noticed an older man looking out to sea wearing a tiny thong. As I continued to look, the man turned toward me. Again I was surprised that this man would wear such a tiny tiny swimsuit. Suddenly I realized that he wasn´t wearing a thong or anything else. My American sensibilities told me to avert my eyes but my curiosity kept drawing me back. Al agreed that the guy was naked and that he was proud of it. After a quick picture we continued toward our lunch destination. As we sat down at this funky little cafe on the sand, I looked back at the boardwalk and noticed an older man riding his bike along the path. And guess what? He was also buck naked! OW OW OW! After our lunch, Al and I went exploring along the boardwalk and came upon another group of totally naked people frolicking in the sand. Interestingly enough, when in France the beautiful young women bare their tanned and perky breasts. Here in Spain, fat old men bare it all. Toto, I don´t think we´re in Kansas anymore. And who says travel abroad isn´t educational. From here we stumbled across a fully clothed monument to Christopher Columbus pointing to America. Small world eh? Later that eveing we ate at a cute restaurant, took another long walk and then crashed at the hotel. This morning we walked to La Sagrada Familia, a cathedral that Antoni Gaudi started building in 1890. It is still under construction and will be finished in 20 years...maybe. I won´t try to describe it because it defies description. Suffice it to say it is amazing and huge and amazing! We spent 2 hours enjoying an audio guided tour of the place and then headed way down the road to the Picasso Museum. Wow! That guy is a crazy good painter. He started when he was 15 and painted like the old masters...portrait style, then progressed to the wild stuff we are now familiar with. It was really interesting. We are in an interenet cafe, sipping on yummy red wine, listening to good jazz and trying to figure out how to download our pictures. Hopefully we´ll add them on at the end. If not, we´ll update tomorrow on the ship.

Twas the Night Before Halloween

Thursday night we had our usual gang of diners, minus Corban and Lauren, over for crab cake sandwiches, french fries, lemon/pineapple jello salad and fresh vegees. I had seen a fun idea in one of the many magazines I read so I decided to try and make a Halloween centerpiece. You start with a bunch of moon pies for the owl's head/face. I melted chocolate almond bark for the "glue", seperated 2 Oreo cookies and used the white sides for the eyes. Add a little chocolate glue to the back of a black M&M and you have eyeballs. And one piece of candy corn makes the perfect owl nose. Stick a dowel in the side of the moon pie, tie a halloween ribbon around the dowel, stick the dowel in a black and orange container, cover with black and white shredded paper and you've got a pretty cool centerpiece. I did some plain pies coated with colored candy just to add interest. As an extra bonus, it's completely edible!

The next night was Halloween and Al and I manned the fort while AJ, Maryanne & Porter had dinner at JJ & Jana's. This year we decided to count the number of kids that came trick or treating and between 6:40 and 9:00 when I turned off the porch light, we had 147 little pricesses, vampires, hobos and Harry Potters. What fun!