Marika picked the Lisbon Aquarium and the surrounding Parques de Nacoes as her activity of choice for us to do today. Lisbon hosted the World Exposition in '98 and the hub of the Exposition was the Parques de Nacoes. At the time it was the most countries ever to participate in a World Fair - Will saw the flags of the visitng countries flying and pointed out flags from the tiny Oceana countries of Kiribati, Tuvalu and Palau. Lots of really interesting architecture although they fit together like pieces scavenged from different puzzles. Marika and Will dodged exploding fountain volcanoes, got wet getting as close as they dared to a wall of water, crawled through loooooong claustrophobic tunnels and strolled with us through garden paths sporting flora from various regions of the world. The Aquarium was ... read more

Our love affair with Lisbon continues. Our weekends of long walks prepared us well for our 7 hour stroll up and down hills today in the welcome hot sun. On the way to the Alfama we rode up an ancient lift - Elevador Santa Justa which used to run by steam and lifts people from one level of the city waaay up to another with stunning views. We watched street performers and sated Will's gelato craving. We hung out on squares and plazas. The Alfama is an old working class district that survived Lisbon's BIG earthquake - some streets are incredibly narrow and there are people everywhere dodging trams. We explored many old churches and found our own back road routes where we saw poor Roma families living in public squares across the street from thewalled-in ... read more

This morning's bright sun beckoned - go to the beach, the beach... So, after Kim's huevos magnifico we headed to the Barceloneta Beach where Marika, Will and Bruce set foot on a Mediterannean beach for the first time in our lives. Then we headed to Montjuic - the site of the 1992 Summer Olympics (one of the 5 Olympic sites we will be near this trip...). We toured the Pablo Espanyol which was built for the 1920 world exposition, and to create it architects and planners visited 1,600 Spanish towns to recreate buildings from each of Spain's regions. In art galleries in the Pablo we saw some wonderful regional art including some by Miro who has been a fave of mine since my early twenties. Kim and I delighted in Will and Marika spending an hour ... read more

We were fortunate that Will's godfather David Pepper chauffered us to the airport as we enjoyed his stories of his recent trip to Poland. Needless to say the night flight delight for the kids trumped any notion of la-la land so aside from the occassional fitful doze, all of us were awake pretty much through the night. I managed to stay alert in the face of Air Canada's best sleep-inducing measures - interminable Hugh Grant films - it is to weep. Why I love Barcelona - 1 in a series Seamless, cheap, safe ande frequent public transport. In our bid to only use public tranport in cities this trip, nothing can beat our experience here thus far. Out of the terminal onto big comfy modern airport shuttles to the Renfe train terminal which whisked us past ... read more

Dilemmas imply choice - Will & Marika are trying to figure out what they are more excited about: their "Dalmatian" summer of 101 days off or that tomorrow while they sleep we fly over whales and waves. The notion of shuttling from adventure to adventure via at least 6 flights, 6 trains, 6 boats, 6 drives, 6 cable cars, 6 funiculars (look it up yourself!), 6 subways and 6 trams for me fuels a riot of anticipated perspective. BIG NEWS - We land Monday morning in Barcelona on the cusp of the biggest celebration in this city of over 4 million since the defeat of Franco - Barcelona today ole'd Manchester United for the coveted Champions Cup at Wembley Stadium thanks to the brilliance of Lionel Messi and amigos. The mood among Barcelonians (?) for the ... read more