Verano espanyol...

Unfortunately, mainly due to technical difficulties, I have no new pictures to post from this past weekend. My camera seems to be working fine now, but the autofocus is still having some problems.

Anyways, my spanish summer (verano espanyol) continues,... this weekend was spent around Barcelona. Friday night one of the iaeste coordinators threw a great party at his flat for all of the trainees. Lots of good traditional food, and Brazilian caiprinihas (similar to mojitos, but with lime instead of mint).

Saturday morning I went up the coast with a friend from work named Esperanza, and a bunch of her friends. Most people go to the beach early in the morning in the summer, and only stay until 1 or 2 in the afternoon. At that point the sun has reached it's strongest point, it's incredibly hot, and locals will leave the beach to go home and rest where it's cooler, and often come back after 5pm. Saturday night I met up with a girl who is a friend of my old housemate at Queen's, Ainsley Bull. Her name is Kristen and she's working as an AuPair in Madrid for 1 year. The idea is that she'd come and visit me here in BCN, and then I would have a tourguide for when I decide to travel to Madrid. Kristen has just graduated from Laurier in business and was meeting a fellow university friend here in BCN. When the 2 girls showed up at the restaurant we'd chosen for dinner (La Quince Nites), the friend that she was with was a girl I had gone to highschool with at Mayfield, Heather Stewart (currently an aupair in Paris)! Small world. The three of us went dancing that night, and took the metro home when it started up again Sunday morning.

Sunday I slept. In the afternoon I went and saw the permanent collection of the Picasso Museum with Peter. We went because on the first Sunday of every month most of the museums here in the city are open to the public for free. While there were a few pieces which resembled the abstract style that Picasso is now known for, there weren't very many. The majority of the work is from Picasso's earlier years when he lived in Barcelona and Madrid, and he was still in school and developing the style he would become famous for. To really have any appreciation for his work I know that I should take a fine arts course and do some reading on it, but it was still interesting to see.

Sunday night (last night) I made dinner for my 2 latest visitors. This week my houseguests are none other than Senor Tom Kurys and Senorita Jennifer Hedayat! I am so so happy to see these guys. They are two of my best friends from engineering chemistry at Queen's and they will be staying with me in my flat for most of this week. Tom will fly back to Canada on Thursday as he begins law school at York Universtiy in September. Jenn will stay as long as she wants as she's just beginning her 4.5 month backpacking trip around europe. Jenn arrived in London on the 26th of July, and they've been travelling the south of Spain, and Madrid up until now. I've got their BCN itineraries all planned out, and they're gonna very busy. Wednesday we're going to a Romanian circus that a work colleague recommended to me, so I'll post pics of that later in the week. Next weekend (the 11th through till the 16th) I'm off to Chamonix Mont-Blanc! So I will have more than enough pictures after that to make up for the lack of them here. I can't wait!

carino, sarah