With the thesis defense over, it was time to party. This day, having seen serious, professional Leslie as well as fun, hostess Leslie, capped off over a year of hard work.

We had the deck put in last year, but the landscaping is brand new. In this photo they aren’t even quite finished yet. The beds do a lot to incorporate the deck into the house. In addition to this we have purchased a nice umbrella to shade the patio furniture during the hot summer months. (Read on …)

Tait turned 31 on this day. He is, as he says, officially in his 30s now; still gets cake. (Read on …)

We packed, we left, we know where the cab stand is. We know how to ask the driver to take us to the airport, por favor. We left for Germany, for just one night at a 4 star hotel (hotwire!). At our nice German meal we were sitting next to a Canadian couple who happened to be on their way to Prague. Doctors, of course. Never tech guys or adventure sporting folks, it’s always doctors that we’re going to run into.

As we had home we remembered again that we learned to quit checking our email, quit writing our papers, quit all those things that make us not on vacation. Good to be home again.

Our final full day in Barcelona took us to Montjuic where we discovered an influential artist, Joan Miró. Neither of us were impressed by his later, freer works. It was that stick figures stuff with the splash of paint here and there. I think my nephews do similar work in their pre-school classes, probably better because the figures in their drawings tend to have descriptive labels like ‘mommy’ and ‘grandpa’. (Read on …)

If you’ve ever wondered where The Cheesecake Factory got the idea for the design of their restaurants, this is where you go. This entire building was designed and built in the early 1900s by the local architect Antoni Gaudí. (Read on …)

They’ve got a nice aquarium in the harbor. You can make a reservation to swim with the sharks.
(Read on …)

It was settled, then conquered, then rose up, then conquered and rose up again. Barcelona is the perpetual second city to Rome or Paris or Madrid. The historical folks are just now establishing the digs around the city. There were many cultures here over the course of their 2000 year history. It’s like a snapshot of southern Europe and North Africa.

If you’ve ever been to this set of steps in Barcelona then you’ve probably taken the exact same picture I’ve got here.  It’s tough to be original with a thousand year old building.

Eggs crown the Dali Museum in Figueres, as do gold figures and the occasional diver. The inside is as strange as the outside. Our bus tour ended at this museum housing a collection of works owned by and created by the artist.

While Leslie was working on her thesis I was tasked with booking a bus tour. I trapsed up and down C. de Gracia looking for the right [(i)]nformation center. I came across the apartments and snapped this pic from across the intersection. (Read on …)