From Sagrada Familia to Palacio del Flamenco

We began our second day in Barcelona with more Gaudi, visiting La Pedrera - a very interesting building built between 1905 and 1910 as a combined apartment and office block - and one of the most recognizable landmarks of Barcelona, La Sagrada Familia church.
We had to wait for a little while to get into La Pedrera, but it was most definitely worth the queue. It has a very distinctive gray stone facade with intricate wrought-iron balconies around the outside that give it a wavy effect. Roberto and I enjoyed exploring La Pedrera´s rooftop, which features weird-looking sculptures that, in Roberto´s words, look "like something out of Star Wars". Perhaps my favorite part of La Pedrera was the apartment on the top floor of the building - called El Pis de la Pedrera - which is open for the public to wander. It is fully furnished in the style of the early 20th century, complete with an enormous Victrola.
Only a few blocks´walk from La Pedrera, Gaudi´s masterpiece Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia was begun in the late 19th century and still isn´t completed, believe it or not. According to my Lonely Planet guide, it´s expected to be done anywhere between 2020 and 2040. (The Australian mother behind us in line remarked the project could be a construction worker´s lifelong career "from the time he gets out of school until he retires", which I thought was cute.)
Roberto was a little disappointed that all of our photos of the unique church will be marred with scaffolding, but it´s OK, we were still able to take a lift to the top of one of the church´s exotic-looking spires for a fantastic bird´s-eye view of all of Barcelona! It was well worth the 45-minute long wait to get on the lift, a tiny elevator that fit no more than 4 or 5 people at once. Then we took the winding tiny staircase back down through the spire to exit through the back of the church´s sanctuary, where workmen were zooming around on bobcats. Half of the floor was torn up and they were putting pipes in. I still managed to get a shot of the beautiful stained glass windows. We were told they are having services in the church at 9 AM and 7 PM each day, although I´m not sure how!
Then it was off for a late lunch to a tapas place that came highly recommended from both Roberto´s cousin Maria Mercedes and Lonely Planet: Cerveseria Catalunya. I´m a huge tapas fan - I like lots of variety in my food - so this place was just perfect. For lunch we snacked on the famous tomato bread of Barcelona, yummy shrimp-and-mayonnaise snacks, veal tidbits with poblano peppers on toast, bacalao (a cut of fish in sauce on toast). We even went back for dinner and a pitcher of sangria, followed by a lively flamenco show at Palacio del Flamenco.

Barcelona - Day 1

Back in 2004 on a whirlwind 11-day tour of five European countries, I flew into Girona airport, spent about 2 hours in Barcelona, then promptly jumped on a bus to Madrid. I didn´t know what I was missing!
This is a very walkable city with a lot of character. As soon as we got in this morning, we jumped on the Metro (very easy to figure out and can take you anywhere in the city) to get to Parc Guell, a whimsical park the architect Antoni Gaudi was hired to create in 1900. Initially, the park was designed to be a residential area for Barcelona´s wealthy residents, but after the project was abandoned in 1914, it became a public park for everyone to enjoy. And enjoy it we did! It´s a steep climb to reach the top of the park, but the sweeping views of the entire city of Barcelona can´t be beat, and we loved Gaudi´s signature glittering mosaic buildings, statues, and details throughout the park. We spent almost two hours searching for the famous lizard dragon fountain before we realized it was just inside another entrance to the park! Took lots of pictures!
Afterward, we hopped back on the Metro and got off around La Rambla. This is one of the more touristy areas of the city, but we are told no visit to Barcelona is complete without stopping here. We had a late lunch at a restaurant called the Attic, which was really delicious... octopus and beef carpaccio, a fried egg dish with jamon serraño, and two towers of fresh mozzarella and tomato... mmm....
Now we´re trying to stay awake so we can get over our jet lag and have a fresh, full day tomorrow. Lots to do and see here yet! We´re not off to France until Tuesday!

Ain´t no volcanic ash thick enough...

Well, we finally reached Barcelona around ten AM local time... a second bout of volcanic ash from Iceland started drifting south over continental Europe on Thursday, closing the Barcelona airport for most of Saturday! We were really concerned when we got to Philadelphia and we were told the airport here was closed, but it reopened just in time for us to get out (only an hour-and-a-half delay, not too bad!) The flight took nine hours as opposed to the usual seven so the pilots could navigate around the ash cloud, but we don´t mind... let the two-week celebration begin!

Labor Day in Playa!

OK, so I am a bit behind on my blogging. Spent Labor Day weekend in Playa del Carmen, Mexico... and came back with a few new baubles. I was so proud of my new wooden chandelier earrings until Roberto put a diamond ring on my finger our last night!!! That kind of blew my "find" out of the water. I staged the sparkler on the palm frond grasshopper our waiter made for me at breakfast one morning (another one of my prized trinkets from the trip, you can't get one of those in Greensboro!)

So... Playa. It is a beautiful little resort city, but if you're looking for rustic charm, you won't find it here. If you want fine restaurants (even one located inside an ancient cave), upscale boutiques, vendors trying to entice you to buy their wares all along the main streets, mega resorts, and expansive aquamarine water stretching all the way to Cozumel (where we rented a bright blue convertible VW Bug and cruised around the island), that's what you'll get in Playa del Carmen. I really enjoyed it though... we stayed at a small, intimate hotel, I swam with a dolphin and a wild sea turtle, and we caught four-foot long barracudas on our fishing trip. AND the flight is less than 3 hours long, direct from Charlotte. That's my kind of travel time.
It was a nice little getaway. We promised the hotel staff we'd be back, so I guess we'll just have to keep that promise, won't we? :)

Incredible Iceland

Before I visited Iceland, I read up on it extensively. Descriptions in Frommer's, Lonely Planet, Conde Nast Traveler, and many other travel books and sites described Iceland as "hauntingly beautiful", "like no other country in the world", and praised its cosmopolitan capitol city, Reykjavik, as being chic but still walkable and full of friendly residents. I went to Iceland with high expectations, and this little country exceeded all of them.
We arrived at Keflavik Airport around 6:30 AM last Monday morning, July 27th. Adjusting to the time change (it felt like it was 2:30 AM to us) was probably the most difficult part of the trip, but the owner of the apartment we rented made things easier for us by allowing us to check in early. By the way, if you ever visit Iceland, renting an apartment is the way to go. You save lots of money on food because you can cook your own meals (it is very easy to spend $50-$60 per person for dinner at a nice restaurant in Reykjavik), and the apartment we rented was owned by the same people who own a small guesthouse, the Baldursbra Guesthouse in the center of the city. The apartment was only about $150 per night, and Evelyne, the owner, actually brought us food to stock the fridge (cheese, fruit, bread, etc.) and cleaned the apartment every day. Despite the increased value of the American dollar in Iceland nowadays - $1 is equal to about 125 Icelandic kronur as I'm writing this - it still felt expensive to me. And to think the dollar was worth only half that about a year ago in Iceland!
The city of Reykjavik reminds me a lot of Madison, Wisconsin, only right on the ocean with a big beautiful port. The city is built around a serene lake, which is home to hundreds of ducks and grey geese, and on a nice day there is about the same amount of people there feeding the birds bread and crumbs. There is a paved running/biking trail around the lake, surrounded by quirky, brightly-colored metal, wood, and cement houses. Construction in Iceland is like nothing I've ever seen before, ranging from utilitarian-looking dark gray cement block houses to metal buildings, painted all different colors. Lots of character!
Reykjavik is a very lively town. I don't think I've ever felt more energized on vacation because of the long summer days here, the sun rose at about 4:30 in the morning and didn't set until almost 11:00 at night. We had no real concept of time the whole trip... we would eat dinner at 9:00 PM because it looked like it was 6:00 outside. I didn't eat anything really crazy like putrefied shark or puffin, but I did try mink whale. It tasted exactly like steak, with a little bit of a fishy aftertaste.
The landscape in the outlying areas is like something directly out of "Lord of the Rings". We rented a car to visit Pingvellir, Gullfoss, the Blue Lagoon, the Snaefellsnes Peninsula, and Geysir, and the books were right, the beautiful wild land outside of Reykjavik is truly hauntingly beautiful. During the drives, I would look to the right and see hundreds of acres of rocky plains, dotted with grazing sheep and Icelandic horses. Just beyond the plains were towering mountains, some topped with mile-long glaciers, and black volcanoes (dormant, at least while we were there!) To the left was the sea, always the sea, and we usually were skirting the precarious cliffs above it. The landscape vaguely reminded me of American national parks out west, but with a more ancient feel. You could actually picture the Vikings braving the rocky shoreline and sailing into the misty coves hundreds of years ago, and medieval Icelanders holding their parliamentary meetings among the dramatic rock formations, fissures, and waterfalls at Pingvellir. That is probably the best word to describe the landscape in Iceland: dramatic! I will never forget the spray Gullfoss put off (we had to wear our raingear just to walk around the top of the falls), the wild gurgling of the geysers right before they erupted into the air, the cries of the seabirds nesting in the cliffs of the Snaefellsnes Peninsula, or the luxurious, lazy feeling of swimming in the hot, salty Blue Lagoon with a silica mud treatment on my face.
Like everywhere else, Iceland is having a cooler summer than usual. The temperature was in the high 50's to low 60's (fahrenheit) on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday - I had on my fleece, a puffy down vest, and sometimes my raincoat and still felt chilled - but got back up into the 70's by Thursday and Friday. I think my blood has thinned since moving to the South six-and-a-half years ago, as much as I loved Iceland, I think summer was definitely the best time for me to have visited! Now I understand other tourists' need to buy an Icelandic sweater while they're in the country (although I didn't). You can find amazing woolen goods at any gift shop in Reykjavik, along with other fun gifts that you'll never find anywhere else.
I could go on and on about this amazing country. There were other tourists there, but it is for the most part a pretty undiscovered place. I'm not sure why that is, with all Iceland has to offer: it's an easy 5-hour flight from New York; you can do anything from hiking, boating, snowmobiling on glaciers, horseback riding, and people-watching, to eating at a wide variety of restaurants. It was a wonderful experience... truly a once-in-a-lifetime event!

Off to Iceland!

The day has finally arrived! We're loading up the car and getting ready to head off to the airport, bound for Reykjavik, Iceland. This is a place I have always wanted to visit, but never thought I could afford. Since Iceland's government went bankrupt a few months ago, the exchange rate has evened out considerably and made it more affordable. It is unfortunate for this beautiful, wild (or so I'm told!) island nation, but I have read that things have gotten a lot better there recently as far as employment goes. The summer tourist season helps matters too, I'm sure. This will be a very interesting trip: eighteen hours of daylight (made sure to pack a sleeping mask!), wild puffins, and a landscape that is really out-of-this-world! Literally! Years ago NASA used Iceland as a training ground for astronauts because of the country's "lunar-like" plains.
Anyway, I'm not sure how much I'll get to post while I'm there, but I will be sure to write all about it when I get back. Skal! ("Cheers", in Icelandic. I'm lucky everyone there speaks English, supposedly. I don't recognize a single Icelandic phrase!)

Long Island Weekend

There is nothing like a quick weekend trip to mix up the everyday routine! Sunday afternoon I got back from a little jaunt to Long Island, New York, where I grew up (after leaving Greensboro at 6:30 Saturday morning to catch an early flight out of Raleigh). It was great to see my group of childhood friends again - Kathleen is getting married, and we surprised her with a shower - and the weather held out, which was a surprise for all of us! Correction: it held out just long enough for us to take a beautiful ride through the Peconic Bay on Jeanne's new boat, and then the downpour came. That was fine with us all. We still got to see a gorgeous sunset and more swan families on the Peconic River and the bay than I ever remember being there.

My apologies for the fuzzy photo... I left the camera at home and relied on my phone to take pictures. During the day it's still great!