This post could have so many different titles

Such as¨"Gelat and Shopping, what more could I ask for?"
" I´m pretty sure I´m now a part of the Spanish Mafia"
" Vacation´s over, time to move into the real world"
Pretty much any title would work. I haven´t written in awhile so I have a lot of ground to cover. Joan usually helps me remember everything, but he´s not feeling well today so he´s already in bed. I´ll go back to as far as I can remember.....Sunday before new years I guess will work.

Joan and I drove to Barcelona to meet his friend Xevi. Xevi´s father is still out of town so we stayed in his flat again last weekend. It´s so nice to be right in the city. Sunday night Joan and I went to the Hard Rock Cafe. Everyone gets onto me about this but after so much Spanish cuisine it´s nice to have something different. We get there, an hour and a half wait. I try and get Joan to slip the host some €uros but he insists he would be something like Chandler on Friends and just make an ass of himself so we wait. Three Mai-Tai´s later we get our seat and I have the most amazing dinner. It´s nice to have American food now and then, I took it for granted for sure. After that we got a couple drinks and relaxed around the city. Xevi was out seeing American Gangster with some friends and since Joan and I had already seen it, we had to wait around for him to get back to his flat (we forgot to get keys from him). Around midnight we are bored, didnt want any food, didnt want any drinks, shops were closed, no clubs we felt like going too-so we made our way back to Xevi´s neighborhood. We sat and waited for at least 40 minutes until Xevi got back and immediatly passed out. It was a good night. Needless to say, my week go immensely better.

Monday we went shopping at El Corte Ingles a gigantic department store to get some last minute items for New Years. I had to get black tights and a red thong. It is good luck to wear red on new years and since my dress was a metallic silver-black combo that was my only option. To make things even better, we went for some Gelat at this great ice cream place. I had something called a "Sweet Gofre". It is a small belgian waffle, but a bit sweeter, with chocolate and carmel syrup and chocolate ice cream on top with sweet whipped cream and thinly sliced almonds. It was without a doubt the best dessert I´ve had in a long time.

Later that afternoon, Joan and Xevi figured it would be a wise choice to take a siesta before the nights festivities. I didn´t know we would be out until 7:30 the next morning.....

We left Xevi´s around 8:45 p.m. It was me, Joan, Xevi and German. The most hilarious guys I have ever met. We had to take the metro because finding a cab is impossible on New Years. My feet are already hurting. Granted, I was wearing the highest heeled shoes ever but they were so gorgeous and they matched my dress perfectly. Anyway, we took the metro across town to the Barcelona Casino. It isn´t much fun standing in a crowded metro dressed up with a bunch of other people dressed up ready to go out as well. It is even less fun with creepy guys staring at you. We left the metro and there was a guy there, maybe 19 or younger even watching everyone....I had a bad vibe from him immediatly. Not more that 2 minutes later as we were crossing the street do we hear a loud scream and there is that same creepy boy running from four Italian girls. He stole one´s purse. The poor thing was crying hysterically. The girls gloves were in her purse and fell out as the bastard took off and so German went and got them from another man who picked them up. Can you imagine? What a horrible way to start the new year. I´m so glad I didn´t take a purse. Joan was the perfect gentleman and said, "I´m sorry you had to see that honey" while German said, "Don´t worry babe, you got three body guards here"

We arrived at the casino and met with David and Allison and his family. David is Joan´s other friend that I met in Florida. David´s girlfriend Allison, is from Philly but studied in Florida and met David. It was so nice to see her again, it had been two years since I had seen either of them.

We go into the casino and they ask for our passports. Joan left them home. Home in Lloret, an hour away. Shit. Luckily, we got in with a few strings pulled in our favor. We are led into the VIP section of the restaraunt, and there are only about 8 tables inside. The room is decorated with black gold and white. We take our seats and dinner begins. 10 courses and 3 bottles of Champagne and Wine later, it is 30 minutes until New Years! Allison and I have talked the entire time, we are going through a very similar situation so we got along famously. The waiters passed around gift boxes for each of us, everyone in the room got a watch. I am not one for watches really but mine was a beauty. Black crocodile band with diamonds and very funky numbers on the face, very cool. We also had gold bags under our seat filled with a party hat, confetti, noise makers, masks and streamers. Immediatly everyone started celebrating even though we had 10 minutes to go. The waiters passed around bags of 12 grapes for us to eat at midnight. These grapes had seeds so Allison and I took them out, it was a mess and the guys made fun of us but we thought for sure we could eat them faster that way. 12 seconds after midnight, I had five grapes left, Xevi had given up half way through, David couldn´t go fast enough either, Allison had most of hers still in her mouth and had spit them into her napkin and Joan was the only one who had eaten all 12. I still don´t think he chewed.

It was the best New Years I´ve had in a long while. Everyone was so happy and I seriously haven´t laughed so much at a dinner before. A band started up and we danced and talked until three or so. We went to the actual casino and watched David´s father throw down a $100 chip at random and win. I could never do that.

After we went to this club, Up and Down. It was 45 €uros a person but well worth it. I love Spanish music and danced all night. My heels were off by this time for sure. We all parted ways and it was only Xevi, Joan and I heading back to the flat. My feet were in such pain. I didn´t dare take my shoes off on the streets so I suffered through while we walked and walked and walked until we finally found a metro. We still had 10 stops or something before we reached Xevi´s flat. That is so far! I would have had to walk that entire way had we not found that metro. My feet only stopped hurting today, and it´s officially Friday. We got back at 7:30 and completely collapsed. I don´t think we woke up until 1 or so on Tuesday and all we got accomplished was a trip to Burger King and some sight seeing. It was truly a great time.

So much more has happened between then and now but that will have to wait for another post. I´ll post pictures tomorrow as well. You just have to see the heels on the shoes I wore.

Tomorrow is a busy day though, two interviews and we´re finally looking at the flat we will be living in!

I hope all of you had a splendid New Years, Happy 2008!

Best Wishes & Be Nice

Surrealism made a madman or did a madman make surrealism?

Joan´s aunt, Joanna, works at the Dali Museum so she scored us some free tickets and we took an hour drive to tour the Dali Museum. It was incredible to see all of the art he created, the sculptures and how he changed the way of thinking about art for so many people.

I could tell you about the drive to Figures and the beautiful scenery but truthfully I slept most of the way there.

When we arrived to Figures, (pronounced Fig-air-us for you American friends of mine) it took Joan and I 10 minutes to find a parking space because if I haven´t mentioned it before, people in Spain don´t have parking lots like we do here. Everyone just parks wherever they want, on both sides of the street in any direction and you´re very lucky (as Joan tends to be) if someone leaves at the precise moment you are arriving you can get a spot and that´s what exactly happened just as I told him "You are never going to find a spot, who is going to leave?"

We made our way to the Museum which Isn´t hard to miss...it is a gigantic building covered by large eggs, it´s kind of charming I guess. The museum had over 20 rooms we had to weave our way through. I still don´t think we saw everything although we did spend an hour and a half in there. Our mind, by the end of it, was sort of....well the best way to describe it is a clusterfuck.
To stand in front of Salvador Dali´s art is a wonderful experience ;if you stand there for too long you start to wonder about what he meant by it and if you stare at it even a moment longer- you start to pick it apart and your brain melts.

We went to lunch after at this wonderful place called Miru and had calamari, pasta and a wonderful hot fudge sundae. I think I have failed to mention that in winter it is very hard to find ice cream or gelat as it´s known as here. So I was very excited to have a chocolate sundae even when it was a bit chilly out.

The next day we went to Portlligat to see Dali´s house. It was so beautiful out there. Granted, we spent 25 minutes driving up a mountain at about 10-20 mph because it was so curvy and so narrow. We stopped along the way to enjoy the view, the green mountains and the brilliant blue of the Mediterranean accented by the stark white homes that lined the shore no wonder Dali chose to spend his days there. We took a very interesting tour of this very interesting and eccentric design of his home. A polar bear is the first to greet you, along with a quirky owl that still strangely seems alive. His rooms are of no normal design, you won´t find anything like it anywhere else in the world. This home he shared with his wife Gala and it was strictly for them. The house boasts a garden, a yellow room where he kept his canaries and a small cage that was once home to his cricket. The pool is odd as well, with such decor as a couch designed to look like hot pink lips, a stuffed lion and bear and other strange things.

Again, I would tell you about the drive back from Portlligat but I slept again. I get my best sleep in a car.

Today we had lunch by the beach at this Italian restaraunt DaPaolo. We took the day to go shopping in the next time, Blanes where I finally got my New Years dress and shoes! I have to say, I love shopping in Spain!

Tomorrow we are going to Barcelona and we will stay in Xevi´s fathers flat until Tuesday morning. We are bringing in 2008 by dinner at the exclusive restaraunt Le Gourmand, which is located inside the Barcelona Casino. We are having dinner with Xevi, David and his girlfriend Allison (she is from the states and I met them both while in Florida) and German. After we will go out for some drinks and end up at some club in Barcelona until very early in the morning. It is tradition here in Spain to have chocolate with Churros the next morning...sounds good to me.

That is all for now, I hope all of you have a wonderful new years eve. I wish everyone an abundance of happiness, a better year than the last and the courage to make the decisions that they know are right for them-no matter the consequences. I miss all of you very much and my thoughts will be with you on this night. I will post again after New Years.

*Besos*