¡Barcelona!
Okay, so I´m going to try to spill out as much as I can before I have to meet Katie in less than an hour. Katie tells everyone hi, by the way. She promises to contribute to the blog when internet access is easier (at which point we can hopefully also use my laptop to post some pics).
So, yay! We´re safely here, in one of the most beautiful, cosmopolitan cities in the world, loving every minute of it. And so far, so good. Yes, my big bag was not at the baggage claim when we arrived, which caused me a bit of panic considering the wealth of costumes it contained, not to mention every single favorite piece of clothing I own. Luckily, it arrived at our hotel later the first night–a huge relief. Discovering that our American dollars are worth only about half the value of Euros, we´re both having our first experience of being monetarily raped abroad. We figure, Americans pretty much deserve it after electing that idiot president and letting him wreck the world for 8 years, it´s our turn to bend over and take the financial hit, for once. But these are small matters in a city that houses endless spectacles of architectural and stylistic brilliance, that tickles the senses all day long, and that is taking great care of us with marvelous breezy sunshine.
We have lots to tell you about what is passing for fashion in Europe, or at least Barcelona, at the moment. I´ll wait for our illicitly attained photos to reveal the full glory, but suffice to say that we have never seen so many mohawks, fauxhawks, mullets, cropped bangs, and combinations thereof in our entire lives. And Euromullets are something to behold. Otherwise attractive people sport them without apology, leaving us stunned in their greasy, wavy, curly, dyed wakes. Oh how I wish I could capture in words the Germany monstrosity I spied over our first copa de cerveza: cropped red hair over the majority of the head, one foot-long shock of tail/mullet dragging down the back, but behind the right ear, and some kind of rattail/bang in front. Mmm mmm mmm.
Spanish women remain as beautiful as I remember them, with their olive skin and their impossibly trim frames, given the diet of fried food, fat, sugar, alcohol and cigarettes upon which Spaniards live. And there are a few young Barcelona men who´ve flat made my jaw drop, which is saying something. What´s not to love about cities full of beautiful people?
So how have we been passing our couple of free days before the “work” begins? Oh, pretty much walking miles and miles with our heads cranked up to gawk at the pretty apartment buildings in the Eixemple district; drinking cerveza; walking the Rambla with ten million other tourists; stuffing as much tortilla de patata in my gob as possible every morning; trying to offset the massive jet lag and days of insomnia with afternoon siestas; snapping photos; thinking about Gaudi and how his mind created these masterpieces of insanity all over the city. Talking to strangers and cab drivers in our rusty Spanish (funny how quickly it begins to reappear from the dark recesses of the language brain centers), marveling that it is possible for us to be here at all.
A couple of hours ago we left the hotel we paid for and moved our stuff to the much nicer one Atlantis is putting us up at tonight. We met our first four Atlantis team members, who all seemed great. We´re excited to have the first meeting tonight in preparation for embarkation tomorrow. Can´t wait to tell you all about it.
That´s got to be all for now. Off to buy liquor to try to smuggle onto the ship, which is a very necessary financial short cut, given this disturbing Euro situation. I promise I will try my best to post photos as soon as I can use my laptop. We already have some good ones for you.
Lovies!
