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Iberian Spring: Day 14 Barcelona Paris Helsinki
Soundtrack: every song about spending time in airports, but especially “Departure”, R.E.M. So begins the next adventure: getting home. Right now, L and I should have been sitting in Qatar business class, somewhere over the Mediterranean, perusing the champagne and whisky menus, before lying back in our seats and having a nap 36,000 feet up in the air. Maybe I’d be blogging to you over the complimentary wi-fi, maybe I’d be thinking about blogging to you but I’ll have another drink and some canapes first. What fun to pander what might have been. Right now, L has just left Milan on her way to Singapore, after a brief tarmac stop.…
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Iberian Spring: Day 13 Barcelona
Soundtrack: “Barcelona”, Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe Final day in Barcelona, last day in the Iberian peninsula. Why is it called the Iberian peninsula? I have no idea, I didn’t get around to googling this, I got bogged down in how Portugal and Spain ended up as two separate countries, and how Catalonia considers itself to be a place all of its own. English history is so much simpler than trying to understand European history. England: we had a bunch of tribes, then the Romans came, then other folks came, some king wasn’t ready, then the French conquered, then some flowers fought each other, then Scotland joined with James the…
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Iberian Spring Day 12: Barcelona (Gracia)
Soundtrack: “Red red wine” Neil Diamond A full day in Barcelona. We’d booked a food tour, after looking at several options, that promised to take us to some more local spots. I was a little worried at the 5 hour duration — being honest, no one wants to spend 5 hours trying to keep me entertained, at any amount of money. We met our poor guide P at a placa in Gracia. She gave us a brief run down of how we’d be spending the time, visiting a number of places in the Gracia neighbourhood. As the tour progressed she explained a bit more about Gracia: we’re in Catalonia, a…
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Iberian Spring: Day 11 Madrid to Barcelona
Soundtrack: “Lola”, Spanish cover version A fairly easy travel day, if any day on not quite enough sleep is easy. I didn’t finish writing the last blog entry until around 2am, and we’d forgotten the hostel does breakfasts in assigned shifts, we’d forgotten to change ours so 8.15 to 9am it was. We’d exchanged pleasantries with one of the other guests, who was from Norway. As it was our last day and his last day we had a bit more of a chat, and introduced ourselves. At which point he says his name is Sven. Sven from Norway. Sometimes the cliches just exist. Nice chap. The other amusement breakfast brought…
