after not enough time in Barcelona (mostly my fault because I dawdled around and didn't get up and out as early as I maybe should have - this is where I miss the discipline of being in an organized tour like when Kathy and I were here with the Rick Steves group - it's really nice to have someone deal with getting tickets and transportation etc. telling you where and when to show up - but anyway this time I was on my own and did not get to the Picasso Museum which was 1 of the important things I'd missed when here in 2003)
the hotel called me a cab for the airport which somehow seemed MUCH more expensive than the one I'd taken into town on arrival - it was about 35 euros - if i still only had little grey to shlep i would have been majorly tempted to walk to the plaza catalunya to take the bus to the airport
the spanair 'VIP' lounge was of course not even close to the splendors of the asian carriers' or even turkish airlines' nice spacious lounge at istanbul - there were 2 computers but 1 was broken so i barely had time to check email before a fairly nice guy started hovering and i handed over to him - the 'food' was potato chips, olives and cookies - weird...
in contrast to the sad lounge service, the flight to palma (only 35 minutes flying time) offered great service - an actual edible tasty snack of a ham sandwich and nuts plus a small bottle of cava
got to palma and there were christopher and miranda - it was so good to see them (last time was may of last year) and hear the news of their sons and ardfern in argyll and other important pieces of gossip - their house is WONDERFUL - reminded me of something a babylonian empress would have as a country home - the garden is filled with all kinds of fruit and evergreen trees and the house itself feels so comfy - decorated by the original french owners who had really good taste - the weather so far has been great and yesterday we went out on christopher's extremely sexy new boat and then had lunch in a beautiful mallorcan cove - heaven!
i will definitely put up some pix soon but this connection is so slow i'm about ready to throw this PC (i did that just to aggravate christopher - it's actually an apple :-) ) thru the nearest gorgeously draped and shuttered window
