We've Arrived in Spain

Hello Friends and Family!

So, by now many of you may have been wondering what happened to us, since it's been four days of no blogging.  The truth is, we've been plagued with poor weather and dampness that's left us exhausted and a little dejected every evening.  And, our host for the B&B ignored us, so each day brought at least one email to remind him to bring clean towels, another bottle of gas for the heater, etc.  At first he was quite attentive, but the last few days we got nothing.  So, in addition to extraordinary dampness, we've had no heat, which made things rather mildewed and yucky.  Everything in that place smelled moldy.

By now, Rachel and I have arrived in Barcelona and it's blissfully dry here.  A little chilly, but nice and dry.  Portugal's final unkind gesture was rain on our suitcases as they were being held somewhere in the airport.  Fortunately, I had packed my raincoat on top of all my clothing, and Rachel put all her stuff out on the chairs in the room, and it's all dry - already! 

And, we have actual heat that comes out of a real heater attached to the wall here in our room.  We have a real bathroom with a tub that does not leak all over the floor, and drains nicely.  I spent five minutes just standing under the hot water, and at least another five just brushing my teeth.  Everything looks better when you are clean and have dry clothing.

Our host in Barcelona's B&B is Michael, who advertised a gay friendly place to stay, so we figure it'll be great here.  So far we love it.  The first thing we did is above - get clean.  Then a nap was in order, since we'd not slept much at all last night, had to get up early to make the trip, and needed some rest before tackling Barcelona.  After that nap, we went down to the port for the basic overpriced tourist dinner on the wharf, where we encountered the friendliest waiter in all of Spain.  Ugh, I had forgotten when I indicated I was from "Tejas" that I would be subjected to the usual anti-Bush rant.  We had a meeting of the minds about Obama, and decided he needed more than two years to un-do all the damage that had come before him.  De acuerdo.

So, here we sit preparing for our first day in Spain, and there's a ton of stuff to see.  Not that I want to ignore the days you haven't heard about in Portugal, my next blog will have some of those highlights.

I hope you are all well in the new year!

Cheers,
W.