Arrival in Barcelona

When we arrived yesterday we went through the easiest customs since The Bahamas. Then we dragged our suitcases out to terminal B and grabbed the Aerobus to Placa Catalunya (last stop). After that came the usual bewildering trek to wherever we’re staying, in this case on La Rambla. It wasn’t so bad, just about six blocks pulling 3 weeks worth of luggage. Our room is up 3 flights of stairs (recall the luggage). Ricard, our host, was very nice and recommended a restaurant…  unfortunately it was mostly shellfish. I couldn’t take the risk and get sick from cross contamination. We grabbed a bite nearby and shared a scrawny grilled cod.

We hit the streets again after a stop at a chocolate booth in the local market. Joe was hankering for a beer, so when I saw an Irish pub with a Guinness sign we went in. What an experience! It was so loud and there were so many drunk guys, we almost left. But Izzy had never been inside a pub before and she was fascinated (and Irish). As we were hunting for a table, this drunk guy, wearing a giant dinosaur costume, staggered back and Izzy and she almost stepped on his tail.

She said, “Wow, I’m in Barcelona/Spain, in an Irish pub and I just almost stepped on a dinosaur’s tail.” This has now become our private joke. Then we ordered fish and chips to share. Apparently when Joe held up one finger and said one fish and chips, the server took him literally. We got a plate with French fries and one mushy fried fish. Oh well, we were starving and the wine was good…

Jet lag woke us up at 4:00 am. It gave us time to get ready at a slow pace I guess. We put on our finest church clothes and set out for a 35 minute walk to church. I’d decided the best way to experience the Gaudi Cathedral (La Familia Sagrada) was to visit under the purpose it was built for… a place of worship. A place to connect with God and the essence of his creation—nature. I hadn’t factored in the beauty of the choir. Wow! To go to mass you have to arrive 15-30 minutes in advance through the north-east side (on Marino).

You go through airport-level security and are guided to your seats by an army of guides. Once seated we sat respectfully listening to the music until I broke all protocol and snuck out my phone, put it on video, and lay it in my lap recording the music. Now in retrospect I should have flipped the direction to selfie-mode so that it would have been facing up towards the lofty columns that give you the feeling of being in a heavenly forest.

It was Pentecostal Sunday, so the service was more elaborate than usual. If you go to mass, you are the first to have access to the cathedral. As we were leaving (after going under the church to the museum) large tour groups were being led in. Lucky us, we went early.

We walked for several hours trying to find the Guell Park. We finally gave up and sat in the shade with a beer and a glass of wine. It’s nice having Izzy with us, because I’m a painfully slow drinker of wine. I don’t like to reach that liver-overload where you can feel the alcohol. Believe it or not I drink wine for the taste J Anyway, Izzy shares my wine with me. This is her first experience with actually drinking it. She had only tasted it. Now she’s learning how to drink and not get drunk. Not an American skill for sure.

We napped back in our room for a couple of hours and hit La Rambla. We were energized and ready for another couple of hours of walking. This time we headed to the sandy beach. We didn’t find it. We did find a bridge going to a giant shopping mall. It was cool to be on the bridge when they stopped us and spun it to allow a couple of sailboats to enter the marina. We walked the outskirts of the little spit of land and detoured to the sound of a live band. It was a no-charge concert next to one of thousands of McDonalds here. It took us a minute to realize it was a Christian band! That was awesome to be in a crowd of people singing and dancing with little children on their shoulders. So fun. Anyway, I was too hungry to stay. I didn’t want to shift to hangry!

We stopped and photographed a giga-yacht. It even had its own helicopter. We went to a nice restaurant (with a giant disco ball) and had three meals, one wine, one beer, and a glass of champagne that only came to 45 Euros ($55). For a restaurant on the most popular street in Spain, this was a big surprise. I guess coming from overpriced California has is benefits.

Monday Joe and Izzy went for a run in the morning while I wrote this blog and then we wandered the back streets. We stopped at a traditional tapas restaurant and piled up the toothpicks (you snag a little snack from a tray on the counter or passed around by a waitress. Each one has a toothpick in it. Each toothpick has a value.

At the end of your meal you simply count your toothpicks and pay the bill). Then we headed back to the streets to the local farmers markets and then an antique knick-knack market in front of a massive cathedral. One of the tables had a little bowl of coins from various countries… 3 coins for 1 euro. Imagine our surprise when we found American pennies in there! I could buy 3 pennies for a euro… what a deal.

Sadly, every church we came to was either closed or charged money for entrance. Definitely not like Italy. Anyway, Izzy got to choose dinner Monday night. We ate a lovely little restaurant on a side street and had Paella. It was excellent and relaxing. Did I mention our airbnb is next to a gelataria? They have this amazing coffee flavored gelato.

Well today, Tuesday was our last day in Spain and Izzy has already decided to move here… hehe. We dragged our suitcases back through the streets to the bus stop. Caught a plane to Rome and now I’m sitting here in cramped little seats writing my blog again. Tonight we will be in Roma with Gianluca and Egle.

The Eleven Hour Flight

We got on the road on time, but an accident on HWY 50 put us at a snail’s pace, which meant the rest of the drive to Oakland Airport was like a high speed chase scene. We barely got to the gate on time. Thank goodness it’s a small airport. After checking in and security we only stood at the gate for 5-10 minutes… just long enough to shoot off a few texts to rub it in that we were going on vacation. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Norwegian Airlines, but they fly these enormous 787’s out of Oakland at rock bottom prices. It’s so much cheaper than regular airlines that we are flying first class and it’s still less expensive… and we don’t have any stops, none!

Have you ever flown first class? We did it once a long time ago when Joe’s mom gave us some air-miles. We used them to upgrade. That was amazing, so we were pretty stoked about flying all the way to Barcelona in the fancy-pants section. What a difference. No wonder people do this. Firstly we got to go straight up to the check-in counter (I’ve seen people do this) and we went through a separate line (actually no line) to get to the security checkpoint. In other words we probably would’ve missed our flight.

Then you get to board first and they bring you juice before the plane even takes off. And the seats! Wow, talk about roomy. They tilt all the way back almost flat and have legs rests that go up. Right now I’m sitting here with my legs stretched out straight and I can’t touch the seat in front of me with my toes (I can already hear the jokes about how that’s not amazing because I have short legs!).

The flight attendant brought me a glass of wine before dinner. This deserves its own paragraph. It wasn’t good wine, but still. Dinner was good, but I’ve never seen such a small salad in my entire life. Honestly, it had less lettuce than you’d find on a hamburger.

Each seat has a little flip-up TVs hidden in the armrest. You should’ve seen us trying to figure out how to get them up without looking like country bumpkins. I was trying to pry it out because it had a sign that said LIFT. Izzy lifted up on that and I almost lost a finger! The second time we pulled it out we just lifted the handle thingy and it leaped out and scared us both, lol. We couldn’t stop giggling. Then we tried to sleep, but I kept sliding out of the seat. Later when I went to use the restroom I saw that there’s a flap at the bottom of the leg rest—a place to put your feet! That would’ve been good to know four hours ago.

Barcelona Here We Come!

Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved to play on swing-sets and dance more than she liked to study. Her grades weren’t very good, but she didn’t mind a bit.

Along came a crazy lady who whispered in her ear, “If you get straight A’s in your senior year of high school I will take you to Italy.” (Yeah, I’m the crazy lady)

Little Izzy began to dream of Italy. She began to study harder and even decided to take her most difficult classes before her senior year to improve her probability of getting straight A’s.

The crazy lady began to worry.  She would try and distract Izzy from her goal, but nothing worked. She even tried to change the promise to Mexico (cheaper), but this teenager put her foot down, and said no, “I’m not getting straight A’s just to go to Mexico!”

Well, she did it… and now we’re taking her to Italy. First we’ll go to Barcelona on the way, then Rome, up to Florence, and back to Rome. Our friends Egle & Gianluca are letting us stay with them in Rome. They got to know Izzy when they were at our house in 2016 for a couple of months, so they are excited about seeing her again. Joe is her running coach, so look for short videos of her running past landmarks like the Roman Colosseum.

Moral of the story? Don’t make promises you can’t keep… I promised her little brother (who would rather swim than study) that I’d take him to Mexico!

Trinity Alps, A Different Adventure

As you all know, I rarely write about anything other than travel. But not all adventure is travel-based. My Auntie Judy decided to move to an independent, senior living type of complex. At 82 she was finding it more and more difficult to maintain her property in the mountains, so she put her home up for sale. Then came the big shock... She passed away before she could move into the fancy place down in Redding. I guess it's good because she got to pass away at home with her kitty by her side (who now lives with us).

Well, she left her home to me and as tempting as it is to keep it, it's just too far away and really not feasible for us. That leads me to the current adventure. We've finished moving her stuff out of the house and it's show-ready.

Here's the problem, it's a unique. Really unique! Have you ever heard of geodesic domes? Well she had two of them. Side-by-side, identical domes attached by a shared laundry room. We have a tenant on one side, which makes a great source of income. He's been there for 8 years, so unless you want him to leave he's content to stay.

For those of you who've read this far, you may be curious why anyone in their right mind would build a geodesic dome. I was, so I did some research and learned about the function and history of this little super-structure. So, here you go Geodesic Dome 101:

Geodesic: Shortest possible line in a dome.

Dome: half a sphere.

Polyhedron: multi-sided, not a smooth dome.

Geodesic dome: a dome constructed of short struts following geodesic lines and forming an open framework of triangles or polygons.

To give credit where credit is due, the principles of its construction were described by Buckminster Fuller. This pair of homes, or duplex, is made in the classic design first popularized by Fuller in the U.S.. He coined the term “Geodesic Dome” in the late forties. Our domes were built in 1979.

Because of the triangular design this structure is incredibly strong. In fact it’s frequently built to provide emergency shelter when just about everything else has been destroyed.

Why would anyone want a geodesic dome for a house? Several reasons actually:

1. It’s one of the strongest structures built by man, especially for its size and weight. It is built with triangles—an extremely strong polyhedron.

2. It’s less expensive to heat and cool because it has less surface area for transference.

3. It’s easier to decorate than a spherical dome because it has flat surfaces, not rounded.

4. There is no need for support beams whatsoever. Therefore if you want a bigger or smaller room you can have the walls moved without fear of destroying the integrity of your home.

5. If you are and artist or have a green thumb, the lighting possibilities are endless.

6. In this case of two domes, one can be a home and the other side an artist studio or a greenhouse.

7. Or you can rent the other side out for additional income, which allows you to travel and be away for weeks at a time (an important feature for a home in the country).

8. For you survivalists, this is 3.09 acres fenced in around the structures. It has a giant RV port, two carports and a double-deep, triple-wide garage with a two-car garage door. Extensive rugged sheds are near the domes, plus a chicken coop and animal stalls in the woods (but within the fencing). Plus the domes are almost zombie-proof!

9. It has a laser detection system to alert you when someone comes through the gate (on foot, in a car, or even if they climb the gate).

10. Between the geodesic domes is a laundry room with interior entry doors, allowing you to go from dome-to-dome without having to trudge through the snow or heat. This room has two more exterior doors, therefore it’s an excellent mud-room.

11. Last but not least… Location, Location, Location. Located in the tiny community of Lewiston, CA, it’s a 30 minute drive to Redding and twenty minutes from Weaverville. It has a good small town elementary school, and is nestled in the Trinity Alps for endless outdoor activities.

11-12-17: Trying New Things

Joe and Larry went diving this week. Isla Mujeres doesn’t get rave reviews for its diving, but it does have a couple of features. One is a bizarre under-water museum of statues. If you’re interested Google it, because it is pretty weird. They also have a couple of shipwrecks. The guys went to the wreck, and it’s a real wreck, not set there for divers. That means it’s a tough dive in a strong current at 85ft. I didn’t go because going diving from a boat that is as big as a ski boat isn’t my idea of a good time. Club Med has spoiled me.

Karina had decided she’d like to learn how to snorkel. Since she’s a swimmer, she thought it would be easy. Turns out it’s not. First of all, she bought a child’s mask and snorkel on accident in Guatemala. So it basically didn’t fit her face and was rigid plastic… I know because I had to give her mine. She basically hated snorkeling, but she did it. For the rest of the day she had a headache. I guess it’s not for everyone, especially if you’re a nose breather.

Karina amazed me on this trip. She is so brave and curious. She’ll try anything. Here she is on her first vacation, her first time to an island, first time in the sand, and the ocean. First time to float on her back, see yacht, to eat a banana split with beer, and much more, lol.

Speaking of curious, we are always wandering into hotels. It’s kind of a free excursion. We were walking around north beach by Mia Resort and we came across a new outdoor bar/restaurant (brand new) called Cha Cha Cha. After we listened to the band for one beer, we cut across the street to an appealing hotel entrance. It was still under construction and the owner was standing at the passageway. For some reason, maybe our praise for the beauty of the place, he gave us an impromptu tour. We clambered over little hills of sandy dirt to peer into the unfinished pool. We followed him through the imported thick wood doors from India into the presidential suite. He proudly pointed out the yard full of bubble wrapped gym equipment that had just arrived that day. He turned on the lights in the lobby to show us the artwork.

The next night our hotel told me and Joe that they would like to upgrade us to Playa Arena’s presidential suite! We figured they needed our room and we were right. So we stayed the last two nights on the top floor with a gorgeous terrace and a view of the ocean. 

The little pool was right on our patio and no one came up to it, so it was like a private pool. Unfortunately, when a heavy rainstorm came through it flooded our terrace and seeped into the room.  It was poorly designed. FYI, those little rubber discs covering the shower drains are there to keep the bugs from crawling up the pipes into the room… they also keep the sewage stench from wafting into your vacation.