Our Long Sejour en France

 Today is Naomi's last full day and our second to last. It's been raining all day. So we're mainly staying close to home. Naomi says we've hit all the places one of her customers recommended (La Sagrada Familia; the Picasso Museum; the Joan Miro Museum; Montjuïc. The only place we haven't gone, but are going tonight is the restaurant Agua for dinner. Actually, there's one other place we didn't get into: The Park Güell. We got this close to it: Foolishly, we thought we were going to walk right into the park. It's a park, right? No, it's a fabulous highly desirable tourist locale, and we needed tickets to get it. They were sold out by the time we got there. But it was an interesting neighborhood, and I enjoyed walking around. We regrouped at a coffee shop and decided to go to the Joan Miro Museum instead - of course, getting tickets ahead of time. The exhibits touched on his training in and eventual rebellion away from "representational art."...

 We've been in Barcelona for 4 days and have 2 more to go before we move on to Paris. We've done a ton of things in Barcelona, which I'll touch on later. But I have to tell you about what we saw this morning. Chris and I went to mass today, had breakfast, and then made our way toward The Picasso Museum, where we had tickets for 1:00 p.m. We had some time to kill, and the Metro landed us near a pretty impressive park, so we wandered through. Chris thought he heard bagpipes, and there were definitely drums, so we made our way toward them. As we approached, we saw these wonderful, huuuuge giant puppets of various figures in history and legend and literature (even Pippi Longstocking!). They weren't all heroic. There was one I was convinced was Muammar Gaddafi. We saw signs for Al Capone and Mata Hari, too.  Here's a link  to an explanation of what the event was all about. The link refers to this event being similar to the La Mercè processions, festivals held in honor of...

 We left Morocco on April 23 and are now in Barcelona. Our daughter Naomi has joined us here, and we're having a lot of fun with her. We have a great apartment! It's in an old building built circa 1909-1911. The architect was Jaume Torras i Grau, and the style is called Catalan Modernisme, which corresponds to the Art Nouveau era in France. Check out these tile floors. These are the real thing!                          Today we went to La Sagrada Familia. My brother came to Barcelona a few years ago, and when I saw his pictures of La Sagrada Familia I knew I had to see it. It didn't disappoint. I have to confess I found the outside more interesting than the sanctuary. That's saying a lot, because the sanctuary was pretty cool! Here are a few choice pictures: We have a few more days in Barcelona. I'll post again in a few days.

 I know this is a barrage of posts, but we leave for Barcelona tomorrow and I want to get our experiences in Tangiers written up before then. I've lived in countries where traffic is chaotic. It's nothing new to me. I flirted with a driver in Mexico City while our cab driver was trying to cut him off. I panicked when my mother was stuck in the middle of a railroad crossing with the arms coming down in Bangkok.  Traffic in Tangiers is actually reasonable orderly. But there is a certain amount of jockeying for position, especially in the small traffic circles. I saw cars using other cars as shields as they made their way into the circle. There are also a ton of pedestrians, who are generally given the right of way. But there is a certain amount of playing chicken. Pedestrians tentatively step out into the street or they step out brazenly and put their hand out to halt the car coming toward them. I found myself looking out for a group of people who might be looking to cross the s...

 Our Airbnb host recommended that we visit the Casabarata Souk rather than the Grand Souk, as it would be less touristy. I had mentioned that Chris had an interest in oriental rugs and the host thought it would be a good place to look. In my opinion it was mostly junk. But it certainly was less touristy and I think met the requirements for being "the unbeaten path." While we were wandering through, it started to rain. We ducked into a pottery shop (one place that was NOT selling junk) and the vendor kindly let us sit out the rain storm there. It ended up raining all day, but we eventually extracted ourselves from his shop. I've been impressed at how kind, friendly, and helpful people are here. When we were looking for a food shop the first night, I spoke in French with a woman who guided us to the shop. She did ask for some money for her troubles - and we were glad to oblige! Of course people are friendly because we're spending money in their country, but I lived in a...

 On Friday we flew from Madrid to Tangiers, in Morocco. After an uneventful flight, we had an uneventful arrival at our Airbnb. By uneventful, I mean that we waited an hour and half to two hours in the building for the host's Tangier representative to arrive. We eventually got in - and the apartment (and the building) smelled strongly of mildew. I should probably note that I seem to be able to detect mustiness and mildew beyond what most mortal humans can detect. And it bothers me. So it's been a trying few days. But today it's a bit warmer, we have the balcony door open, and it's not so bad. I should also say that the apartment is lovely and big. Below is the view from our balcony. So we're pretty comfortable and all is well. Our first night, we set out to look for food. As we made our way to a market, we encountered two young Palestinian men who had also just arrived and needed some food and a place to stay. Chris began to chat with them, and they walked along wit...

 Today we flew to Tangiers, Morocco as a side trip to our time in Spain. We'll continue to Barcelona after a few days here. But this is about our time in Madrid! Honestly, the best thing about Madrid was our awesome apartment. It was sunny, spacious, clean, comfortable - and best of all - odor-free. I live in dread of the musty AirBnb. My nose seems to detect mustiness far more acutely than the average human being.  Chris and I both have involved morning routines, so we didn't stir from the apartment until around noon - just after breakfast! We seem to do this when we travel: we end up having late meals and late nights. We followed our pattern in Madrid, but I'm 20 years older than when we did this in Paris in 2000. I'm not sure I can keep up with this schedule!  Wednesday we set off for the renowned Prado Museum of 17th century Spanish art: Goya looms large, but also Velasquez, El Greco. We spent a couple of hours there. Imagine lots of Renaissance religious art and po...

 We're here. We're in Madrid. What a crazy day Monday, April 15 was. We met in the morning with our architect and contractor for the renovation of our apartment in Chicago. While we were talking, my phone buzzed with a notification that our flight from Chicago to Toronto was delayed. I tried to get an earlier flight over the phone, but we needed to get to the airport and make the change there. Shout out to Nancy Atsumi for her excellent driving that got us to O'Hare. As it was, it was too late to get onto the earlier flight. The agent assured us we would have enough time for our connection to Madrid and we went to the gate. There, I learned that the flight was delayed even longer. Chris went to the airline desk and started investigating alternatives. After a lot of work and frustration, we ended up flying from O'Hare to Munich, Germany - my birthplace. So I've seen the inside of the airport in Munich! We connected there to a flight to Madrid.  We're in a very ni...