Hasta Luego España

From our room in the hotel with the hallway lights that make it seem like a brothel for hipsters, I realize that two weeks in Spain can seem like not quite enough. But it was enough to make the following final observations.

After all these years walking around Barcelona looking down (because you need to be careful not to step in anything) we briefly looked up on this trip and discovered that every 5-star hotel in town has a rooftop bar where you can see the whole city in a panoramic view. You can either stay at the hotels for $500+ per night, or you can just walk into the lobby with authority, step into the elevator, take it to the top, order a $5.00 glass of wine and pretend that you’re staying in a $500 room. After deciding on the latter approach, we visited more than one of these playgrounds for the wealthy.

I know that having fish clean the dead skin on your feet is a thing. But after seeing this ad for a spa in downtown Barcelona, there is no way I’m letting those animals anywhere near any part of my body.

I don’t know what “handicapped inaccessible” sounds like in Spanish, but I know what it looks like.

If you want to bring your dog a $150 souvenir artisanal collar from Barcelona, just let me know and I’ll give you directions to this place.

How narrow can you make a building and still call it a building?

When watercolors beckon, you stop what you’re doing and create some watercolors. Well, not you so much. Martha.

Menorca 3

 As an alert reader pointed out (who knew anyone actually reads this?) last week a new dinosaur species was discovered in Spain. After much serious consultation among leading paleontologists, the decision was made to name this new species after the local soccer team, really. And I also made a discovery today. Our rental car, while the engine is big enough to drive uphill (a big improvement over our last Spanish rental) it is only about ½ inch narrower than most streets in Menorca. And since the streets are also full of parked cars, senior citizens with walkers, dogs and kids, this has led to some very slow, very sober driving. 

This is the most major highway in Menorca, which connects everything to everything else. 

During our outing today to an assortment of coastal towns (shown at right) I also discovered that what
this island doesn’t have in confusing, crowded highway interchanges, it more than makes up for in one-lane cow paths that gradually narrow into nothing in the middle of nowhere (see below). 

Nonetheless, we managed to make it out and back without any law-enforcement or medical intervention. These are some pictures from today. The sign says Beware of Dog, but the poodle says “Please come in and pet me.”

And finally, despite the fact that it’s only May and we have a number of additional adventures planned, the judges have decided to award Most Adorable Picture of the Year to this, which actually happened today and would have made the entire trip worthwhile had we needed it to.