5.29.2007 Ocata Beach and Cat Drama

We had a lazy day today. Kyle woke up at 7 am, and saw Tom outside with a bag in his hand where we had left the kittens and the chicken and the towel. This meant bad news; we were afraid he was putting dead kittens in the bag. :'( . Turns out a stripey one had died. It was kind of expected, since it was barely moving the night before. Another black one died a few hours later. One was a fighter though, and Tom gave it some milk. We felt sad. Kyle had dreams about the kittens and was sad, and I had dreams about Delilah because I am selfish and only care about my own cat. >:( At the end of the day, we took the kitten off of Tom's hands, since he doesn't like cats, and is leaving for the Czech Republic for a few days anyways. We cleaned her, because she was crusted in dirt and someone else's blood. We fed her some milk and melted cheese, and some baby formula Tom gave us. She went from almost dying to purring sometimes. She is often angry, and has a loud, bitter meow. She has sad eyes, but grows peaceful and calm when she is held. Hopefully she can get healthy before we leave.

Her name is Ophelia.

The rest of the day, we went to Ocata Beach, read, laid out, got some color. I am reading DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON. It's about really poor people, really awful situations. Kyle is reading A MILLIONAIRE'S MIND, which is merely a summary of a bunch of statistics, and is not very good. It was interesting for a few pages, and got old quickly (just like this blog).

5.28.2007 Bike tour and cat sadness

We went on a bike tour of the city. We got to the city really early and walked around for a bit, took some pictures, since my camera was stolen. The bike tour was a lot of fun. We saw a lot of the same stuff as from the walking tour, but it was nice to hear about it from a different perspective. It was also charming to ride bikes through the city on such a nice day. We stopped by the Sagrada Familia Temple for the first time, which has been under construction for around 100 years and is not yet near completion even today. Our Australian tour guide said its because Spanish people have a peculiar work ethic. We ended up on the beach, had some beers and sandwiches, and went home.

We went home, and heard kittens yowling outside nonstop. Tom, the guy we are staying with, said there were 6 kittens, 3 each from 2 sisters, who were less than a year old. Apparently they were not ready to have kids and are shitty mothers. They left 3 of their kittens to die, and 3 are already dead or missing. We tried to feed the remaining 3 some milk, but they panicked and refused, except for one of them. We gave them a towel and left a plate of chicken to hopefully entice their mother to return.

5.26.2007 Walking Tour and Late Night Partying

We woke up at 7, and were out the door soon enough to catch the bus, but we didn't realize that the bus does not pick up until 10 on saturdays! Luckily, we were able to hitchike down to the train. We went on a walking tour of the Gothic Quarter in Barcelona. It was fun and educational. We ate at a cafe, and went to a Gran Casino de Barcelona a few stops away. Poker did not open until 3, so we chilled on the beach, listened to a pan-pipe street performer and read our books in the sand (with no towel). I got topless and Kyle laid out in his boxers. Kyle went to the casino, and I went shopping around Placa de Catalunya. The trendy European stores (Zara, Mango) are so not me, but whatever. I went back to the casino, watched him play for a bit, and then we went to dinner at an expensive and snotty named after Frank Sinatra restaurant and did not get full (in the words of Teddy KGB "I feel so unsatisfied"). We ate again at some other outdoor cafe in a big courtyard, then went to an Irish Pub where the bartenders are imported along with the beer. We stayed there too long, and missed the last train back. So we had to go back to the casino and kill time until 6 am. We drank some espressos to stay up, but Kyle got tired of playing, and we went outside to the parties on the beach. I think Barcelona just won the soccer league, so the city was in celebration. We bar-hopped, had good times, and tried to get home in the morning, but had to hitchhike again because there is no bus on sundays. We finally made it at 8:30 in the morning and had some breakfast/dinner. It is now 6:40 pm and we haven't gotten out of bed yet.

5.25.2007 Day at the Beach Calella

We were exhausted from walking around Barcelona all day yesterday, so we took the train up north along the coast to Calella. We had some beers and ate on the beach, and read our books (Hemingway and "America Alone"). We stopped at another city on our way back and had some food and a 6 Euro bottle of wine. Nice. We went home, went grocery shopping, and barbecued some fish on our wood-burning BBQ, had some wine, and watched some movies.

5.24.2007 Barcelona Picasso and City Park

We woke up pretty early again and went to the Museo Picasso. It didn't have a lot of his later and better works. It also had some weird porno art he did that we definitely have never seen or heard of. In addition to the fascinating image of some dude eating out a chick while their cat watches, there was also one of a dude pooping, masturbating, while carrying a turkey on a platter. We ate at a cafe afterward, and then took a walk around the city park. We sat in the grass and read and somehow got my camera stolen from right under our noses. Bastards. We went to the Cathedral and took pictures earlier, but now they are all gone. Sadness!!! Then we walked around the park some more, and saw a cool fountain structure thing and took tons of pictures with the video camera.

5.23.2007 First Full Day in Spain

We arrived around 6:30pm yesterday because we got lost, didn't know which stop to get off at. We sat around and were lucky enough to catch a cab. Our place is a charming retreat in the hills. There are huge windows on almost all the walls. Only drawback is the shower which is tiny as hell. The guy who owns the place, Tom took us grocery shopping. We cooked some experimental pasta for dinner and had some Tempranillo wine.

Today was the first full day in Spain!!! We woke up super early at 5:30am because we were jet lagged. Kyle played some poker and I made scrambled eggs. Once again, experimental. I used some olives we got at the store yesterday. We left the house to go on a hike, but came back like 5 times because we kept changing the plan. It started raining, so we decided to go down to Vilassar De Mar, and hang out at a cafe or go to the beach. We walked down to the bus stop, and stopped by an old run-down castle on the way. It was pretty, locked, and overgrown with vegetation. We took the train and ate unknown food at a cafe by the beach. They speak a different Spanish here, which has French influence, so it is hard for Kyle to understand. It doesn't matter to me because I didn't know Spanish to begin with. We came back exhausted and passed out around 3pm until 8:30pm. When we woke up we finally got our lazy asses up to go eat dinner in town. We went to a pasta/pizza place. now we are watching a crappy quality version of Shrek 3 online.