Hiking in the foothills of Mount Tibidabo.

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Only in Spain do I feel like I’m not lisping enough. You know who has been really hurt by YouTube? Street performers. Everything they do, someone is doing it better (and not asking for tips) online. Oh, you can juggle four baby donkeys? I just saw an Asian guy on YouTube juggling seven. We stayed with Maria’s cousin Macarena which was awesome because she lives on the beach north of Barcelona, was extremely hospitable and who had an adorable son named Tiago. Tiago hilariously not only peed on the tv, but pooped in his bath. Nothing leaves you feeling cleaner than bathing in your own poo filled water. He loves TV more than anyone I’ve ever met; it puts him into a catatonic state where he can’t speak. He’s 2 btw, not a grown ass man. He refused to speak to us even when he wasn’t watching tv. He judged us on coolness and we came up wanting. It’s not the first time. We saw a Flamenco version of the opera Carmen, it was excellent. Plays are always so dramatic, stabbings and prison break outs, suicides and dance fighting. They need to put more slow drama into plays, like decade-long fights with Cancer. It’s pretty hard to ruin pizza, but somehow the Spanish chain telepizza.es does. Someone needs to telethem that their pizza is disgusting. Ours had mustard on it. The train from Barcelona to San Sebastian was beautiful, better than Tuscany for my money. The name of Mount Tibidabo comes from the Latin for “All this I will give you if you fall down and worship me” from when the Devil was trying to tempt Jesus. If you ever go to Barcelona, the Renfe and the Metro are not the same thing. Sometimes you think they are and it takes you three hours to get home. We were catching our train to San Sebastian/Donostia* and we weren’t sure if the train that said Bilbao was going to continue on to our stop so we asked at the information counter. The conversation went something like this.

Me: Explanation of the situation ending with… So the Bilbao train is our train?

Information man: Yes… and no.

Me: Does the Bilbao train pass through our town?

Information man: Absolutely not.

Me: But that is our train?

Information man: Yes.

Me: So if I get on the Bilbao train it will stop in San Sebastian?

Information man: Maybe.

This went on for a while before the man, who was enjoying himself immensely explained that the Bilbao train separated between car 3 and 4 and those in the front of the train continued on to San Sebastian and those in the back split off towards Bilbao. Are there people who actually floss three times a day? Are you even supposed to? We puked Kool-Aid the whole time in San Sebastian.** Along with Venice it was the highlight of the trip. The people may have some violent tendencies regarding the region’s autonomy but it’s beautiful, the weather is nice, there are tons of people in wheel chairs, everything you could ask for. I’m not sure if there was a conference or some sort of Murderball reunion but the town was bustling with the wheelchair bound (wheelies). We have already considered renting an apartment there for the summer and should fate deal us a wheelchair-filled future that will cement the idea. It was also filled with large groups of elderly women who seemed to be trolling for dudes. If these randy octogenarians had a few too many they’d take one of the wheelies home and hate themselves the next day. I’d like to tell you that after three weeks of backpacking we decided to hit it really hard our last few days (in Madrid) but mostly we just pampered the hell out ourselves, bought a few gifts for the people watching our cats and engaged in some heavy petting. Congrats to Scott Elmore on playing softball with Mark McGuire (which is awesome) and getting his wife knocked up proving burning crayon fumes don’t make you sterile.



Movie: For my money the best of Spanish film starts with Almodovar, I’d recommend All About My Mother or Volver to start.



Music: I’ve been listening to Alt J mostly.



Book: In order to restore order to the universe I read through a fantasy series, Sanderson’s Mistborn books. They were very entertaining.



TV: Terra Nova is what happens when producers get hold of an otherwise great idea. It was stunningly bad. You’d think Steven Spielberg would have enough clout to nix Fox’s insistence that the first seven episodes were one-offs. Horrible show.



Schmitty duh,

~T



“Those who do not read are no better off than those who cannot.” –Proverb



"The English language was carefully, carefully cobbled together by three blind dudes and a German dictionary." ~ Dave Kellett



"Years ago, when I was backpacking across western Europe. I was just outside Barcelona, hiking in the foothills of mount Tibidabo. I was at the end of this path, and I came to a clearing, and there was a lake, very secluded, and there were tall trees all around. It was dead silent. Gorgeous. And across the lake I saw, a beautiful woman, bathing herself. She was crying..." ~ Joey Tribiani



*Donostia is the name of the city in the Basque language.



**Our sweet new phrase that means had fun.

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