Saturday 28th February

Just plain remedial

While some people might be slow on the uptake I think you can safely say we're just slow on the update. We've been busy, honest, but perhaps not particularly dedicated about telling the world about it.

My mum is coming to visit us in May/June so we're currently planning for that. We've also been planning for my — unmentionable number — birthday. We've even decided to be ultra proactive and started planning for Hayley's parents' visit at Christmas time. This year will most definitely be one of travel.

Prior to departing for Barcelona we treated ourselves to a Gameboy Advance SP. This has proved to be a very popular toy and Hayley is currently sitting beside me 'cursing' Crash Bandicoot as I write.

Last weekend we bought some new bed linen. Not totally breath-taking in and of itself, but quite amusing when we realised we had purchased more bed linen in the past year in London than in the seven years we lived in Willis St. Reality check: Yes we have been in London for almost a year. This still takes some getting used to. The sheets we bought are a rich aubergine colour, we also purchased a 'furry' bed rug to go on top of our bed. It's a sumptuous dark chocolate colour and makes our bed feel quite luxurious. Hayley also bought a hot water bottle to go inside the 'Buzzy Bee' hot water bottle cover her mum sent her last year. These details are here to let all of you currently enjoying summer — perhaps not in Wellington — know that it has been very cold here lately. It has snowed three times in the last week in London. Not heavy snow, but snow none the less. More snow is forecast for tomorrow. We're thinking about hibernating for a while

Posted by Nick

Sunday 8th February

Bending the laws of time

We've just uploaded the commentary for our trip to Barcelona, along with some pictures. Many thanks to Hayley who spent the last three hours turning our notes into a coherent body of text.

Posted by Nick

Saturday 7th February

Home again, home again

Our last day in Barcelona. We had had a somewhat disturbed night with extremely noisy neighbours coming and going at all hours and Nick was still feeling slightly crook. However we got up early to make the most of the morning. We packed and were grateful to leave our room which seemed to have turned into a super heated oven. We checked out, Nick again exercising his Spanish, and left the bags with reception to pick up later.

We had decided to go and take a closer look at La Sagrada Familia — the church designed by Gaudi and begun more than 100 years ago. The church is basically a massive building site. It consists, at the moment, of two tall angular towers but another is planned and this tower when it is built will be over one and a half times the height of the existing towers. It is an extremely impressive sight towering over you. From the park opposite you get a direct side on view of the two towers and can see much of the detail Gaudi designed. While we were in the park we stumbled on what were obviously saturday morning leagues of petanque players. Additionally there were men playing what we think was bolos, a form of bowling, involving six tall wooden pins and three smaller wooden pins which are thrown at the large pins. We were quite fascinated. We wandered around the exterior of the building and decided not to go in as we did not have time to give it the attention it deserved. We were interested in a number of the external features though. There are areas of the building that are clearly newer than the neighbouring sections even though they are identical in design. We were not sure if the newer sections would be aged artificially through the application of plaster or whether they would be left to do so naturally. Also one side of the building was much more angular than the other. The side which depicts the crucifixion of Christ seems squarer and less flowing than the other side. This squarer side is also newer than the other. We also saw the school building that has been built along side the church this was fascinating because we had seen a scale model of this at the Gaudi House Museum the day before and seeing it turned into something real was interesting. From here we decided to walk back into town along Avinguda Diagonal and down Passeig de Gracia.

Passeig de Gracia is home to a number of modernist buildings including Casa Battlo which has been described as 'Gaudi at his hallucinogenic best'. It has an overall blue theme with a blue roof, some blue tiling and flowing curves. Apparently the locals know it as the house of bones or house of the dragon — it is a very impressive sight and not something you usually expect to see in a large city. Next door to it is Casa Amatller, by Puig i Cadafalch, this (according to Lonely Planet) combines Gothic window frames with a stepped gable roof borrowed from urban architecture of the Netherlands. The two houses side by side make quite a contrast and Gaudi's links with the natural world are very clearly evident. There are a number of other beautiful buildings in the area so we walked along enjoying the view.

There was just time for one more quick look at the shops and a couple of purchases before we headed back to the hotel to pick up the bags and head back to Plaça Catalunya for the bus. It turns out there is an AeroBus stop not far from the hotel but we didn't discover this until we stopped there on the way to the Airport! We again got to the airport in plenty of time and had time to look at the very nice shops and grab a bite to eat before going through immigration. There was a slight moment of panic when the immigration officer couldn't find the stamp in my passport to say that I had been let into the country, but she located it in the end and we were allowed to come home. The plane this time was slightly delayed and we arrived back into Gatwick 20 minutes late. We caught our train home tired but happy. We thoroughly recommend a visit to Barcelona if you have the chance.

Posted by Hayley & Nick

Friday 6th February

Of lizards and tiles

Poor Nick woke up feeling extremely ill today. He had started feeling grotty and feverish in the night and had caught my bug in rather dramatic fashion by morning. So we took it rather slowly today. We had decided to go to Parc Güell (often known as Gaudi Park) for the morning and decided to stick with this plan but not to try and cram anything else in. The Parc is about 4 kilometers from Plaça Catalunya and as we were about 2 kilometers from the Plaça in the other direction we decided the Metro would again be a good option. So we set off at a snail's pace for our nearest Metro station, about a 10 minute walk from the hotel. When we got to the other end of the trip we discovered that the Parc was well signposted and about 1250m from the station. So another slow walk ensued.

When we reached the top of the street leading to the Parc we decided it had been worth the bother. Parc Güell began in 1900 when Count Güell bought the area which is now the Parc. Güell hired Gaudi, a modernist architect, to create a mini village of houses for the wealthy that would sit within landscaped grounds. Unfortunately it turned out to be a commercial failure and was abandoned in 1914, with only two gatehouses, a plaza, a marketplace and much of the landscaping completed. In 1922 Barcelona city purchased the property and created a free public park. It is one of the tourist highlights of Barcelona and we were not disappointed. It is full of quirky nooks and crannies as well as the more famous works which make it so notable.

The gatehouses at the entrance have been described as Hansel and Gretel like and I could just imagine them being made of gingerbread rather than concrete. They stand guard on the steps that lead to the plaza. It is on these steps that the most famous resident of the Parc lives. He or perhaps she (I'm not sure it is obvious) is a mosaic lizard fountain who drips water from his/her mouth. Mosaic is extremely prominent in the Parc and in Gaudi's work and I was somewhat skeptical about how beautiful and impressive mosaic could be — I was wrong. The mosaics here and in many other places around Barcelona are amazing and I have an new found appreciation for this style of art. The stairs on which the lizard sits lead up to Sala Hipostila, made up of 84 stone columns topped with an intricate mosaic roof. This area was intended as a market place. There was a violinist playing here (I imagine he probably plays everyday) and selling his CDs and the acoustics were amazing. To the side is what I can only describe as an open sided tunnel walkway that is the perfect backdrop for photos.

We took a lot of photos at the Parc it was hard to know when to stop! From here the steps continue up into the plaza which is ringed by the Banc de Trencadis, a mosaic bench which undulates around the edges and provides a perfect position for soaking up the sun. Nick was by now in need of a rest and a snack so we wandered into the garden above the plaza and found an undisturbed spot. Undisturbed that is until the gardener began watering the surrounding plants! We sat and enjoyed the sun, the surroundings and the food, while I dared to wear a t—shirt.

We sat and studied one the terraces that had been built and saw how much it did look like an elaborate tree—root structure and how well it blended with the environment seeming almost a part of it. This is a motif that runs through the Parc, I saw it described as the unnatural looking more natural than the natural in one guidebook. As we climbed higher we got a view out over Barcelona, which on a clear day must be magnificent, sadly it was very hazy but we could see La Sagrada Familia, another of Gaudi's creations, and other Barcelona landmarks. Following our break we decided to visit Casa Museu Gaudi.

The museum is in the grounds of the Parc and is housed in the house Gaudi lived in for the last twenty years of his life. It contains an eclectic collection of furniture, art works, personal objects and knick knacks from Gaudi and his collaborators. Much of the furniture was designed by Gaudi and again it was easy to see the influence of the natural world and smooth flowing lines. The museum also houses a bronze copy of Gaudi's death mask — as I said eclectic. We actually bought a number of souvenirs here, something we don't do very often (of course I buy postcards everywhere but at least these are cheap and light!). Nick bought lizard cufflinks and I bought a lizard thimble (the first thimble I have bought in years but it was just sooo cute) as well as an unusually large number of postcards (I usually limit myself to 2). Following this we wandered around the house's garden. It has a number of statues and miniatures based on Gaudi's work as well as trellises he designed for various projects. We again took vast quantities of photos. We walked to the top of the Parc because I kept saying 'we'll just go one level higher and then we'll stop'. Fortunately plenty of rest stops were designed in and we could take it as slowly as Nick wanted.

It was all very restful and very beautiful and the ideal destination when one is not feeling one hundred percent. Although it was still early we headed back to the hotel as Nick was in serious need of a sleep. I again watched ice—skating, women's short programme in the afternoon, ice dancing, skeleton racing and ski jumping while Nick had a bath and rested. We had room service for dinner — Nick having a plain ham toasted sandwich and I had a salad with no onion, egg, olives or dressing which caused great hilarity with the person on the other end of the phone! And so to sleep.

Posted by Hayley & Nick

Thursday 5th February

Exploring 'blue' Barcelona

We awoke refreshed. Nick decided to go for a stroll around the neighbourhood to find himself breakfast. He found a little patisserie where he bought 'una ciabatta' using his rapidly improving Spanish. He also managed to find fresh fruit for my breakfast. We decided that we wanted to go to the Museu Picasso, this had been one of things that made me want to go Barcelona, this morning. We had found it on the map and decided it would be easiest to get there by the Metro system.

This was a good plan. In theory. However the first station we found had an empty ticket booth and a malfunctioning ticket machine so we had to head to the next station along the road. Happily this station had a personed ticket booth and we bought two T—10 tickets which gave us ten trips on the Metro for the very reasonable price of six Euros each. (We are amazed at how cheap the European public transport systems are and wonder how London can possibly justify the cost of tickets on the Underground). The Metro turned out to be extremely simple to use as long as you could count or tell colours apart so we hopped on the red line (linia 1) and swapped to the yellow line (linia 4) at Urquinaona and arrived safely at our destination Jaume I. (I know that probably sounds like gibberish to you but I was impressed with our ability to negiotiate it and thought you should share in our glories).

This station borders Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter) which unsurprisingly is full of gothic buildings, and Ciutat Vella where the Museum is located. With my normal excellent sense of direction I led us into the Barri Gotic and away from Museu Picasso. Fortunately the streets are interesting and it didn't take us too long to figure out we had gone the wrong direction. The streets in this area are narrow and many have the day's washing hanging from their balconies — we did get a little concerned when at one point we couldn't hear the sound of any other people. However, this little detour did take us via Esglesia Santa Maria del Mar, described in the Lonely Planet guide book as 'one of Barcelona's finest Catalan Gothic churches' and if the number of school trips visiting is any guide this is certainly true. At this point I decided checking a map might be in order and I managed to find a direct route to the museum.

The museum is housed in five medieval palaces that have been joined together. The collection covers works from Picasso's teenage years through to ceramic works from near his death. It is a little light on cubist works but it is fascinating to see his style develop and the progression towards cubism. Every now and again, even in his youth a flash of the future is evident. There is also a series of around 50 works based on Valazquez's Las Meninas. This series works through and plays with each of the ideas in the painting before creating a take on the whole. It was one of the most fascinating of the rooms in the Museum.

Having had our cultural fill and feeling rather hungry we decided to take the weather's cue and head for the beach. We decided to play at being good tourists and went to one of the seafood restaurants in the shadow of Palau de Mar, home to the Museum of Catalan history and a beautiful building it its own right. The restaurants along here afford you a view out over the Marina and reminded me a lot of the Viaduct basin and Marina in Auckland. Funnily enough, we both decided on FISH, even though most of it is crated in from elsewhere. I had grilled salmon, which helpfully came just as described with no added extras. It was perfectly cooked and tasted of the sea. Nick had cod with tomato and aioli which was also superb. We followed it with dessert, I had lemon sorbet and Nick a chocolate icecream and nut creation. We decided to walk off lunch with a stroll along the boardwalk.

Barceloneta, the sea front, received a lot of attention prior to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and is often presented as a successful regeneration project and it is not hard to see why. What was once a rather neglected and dangerous area of the city is now a vibrant part of the city which gets plenty of use. It is hard to imagine how busy it must be in summer given the number of people there in mid—winter. Again this area is full of sculpture as well as the natural beauty of the sea. One in particular, Peix sculpture by Frank Gehry, caught our attention and we walked through to Port Olympic to have a closer look. As we walked back to the Metro station the wind started to get up and a number of windsurfers made the most of the conditions. We Metroed back into town, had another look around the Plaça Catalunya area, including going into Corte de Inglais or The English Cut for a look around. Then back to the hotel for a get your own tea with local fresh produce and bread and English tinned salmon and rice crackers. Another bath and the Men's free programme in the European Ice Skating Championships and then sleep.

Posted by Hayley & Nick

Wednesday 4th February

The early bird is a worm

We awoke at 3.50 am to the joyful sounds of the cuckoo*. It is insane to get up that early, but it was the best way to get the maximum amount of time in Barcelona for the smallest monetary outlay. We had decided to get a night bus to Clapham Junction for our train to Gatwick. We had diligently checked Journey Planner (the online trip planner for public transport in London) and it assured us that there were buses at 4.11 and 4.41 from near the train station. Sadly this was not quite accurate so a taxi ride later we arrived at Clapham. Fortunately the rest of the trip was uneventful. We at least had some light entertainment at the train station as we were convinced we were going to stop in Wibblesfield on the way to the airport, on closer inspection we discovered it was in fact Wivelsfield — we thought the former name was much more fun.

Gatwick turned out to be easy to navigate and we checked in very early, in fact we were the seventh and eighth people to check in. We were a little worried about Easyjet, having seen the television show Airport, but were pleasantly surprised. (And no you won't be seeing us on your screens any time soon — neither of us having the energy to kick, scream or drink too much!!) The flight time was scheduled for 1 hour 43 minutes and 27 seconds, faster than the 2 hours we had been told, and in fact we were able to undertake disembarkation (the crew's word) 25 minutes early. Barcelona's immigration and customs was surprising easily and required no Spanish to negotiate. We caught the Aerobus to Plaça Espanya and walked to our hotel.

The first thing to strike us about Barcelona was the profusion of art everywhere. Many of the buildings are highly decorated and there are sculptures at almost every corner. The art runs the spectrum from classical through to avant garde and seems to hit everything in between. Of course, having stopped at Plaça Espanya the first statue we saw was Miro's giant Dona i Ocell (Woman and Bird), which is conveniently located in Parc Joan Miro. We have a soft spot for Miro, having been given a framed print of one of his works as a wedding present from my grandma.

Our hotel was about a 20 minute walk from where we stopped and we subsequently learned there were other quicker options for getting to the hotel but at least we got to sample the flavour of the surrounding streets. Nick successfully managed to check us in using his phrase book Spanish and most impressively asked for a non—smoking room. The room was lovely and very importantly had a large bath. Also there was a television with spanish, german, french and english channels. The English channels were a little limited, being CNN, BBC World and EuroSport (actually I was pleased because this meant no competition for the sports channel).

Having settled in and had a snack from our BYO lunch boxes we decided to wander into the center of Barcelona to Plaça Catlunya. This of course proved more challenging than you might imagine as we only had a very general idea of the direction we were heading. Fortunately the afore mentioned architecture and sculpture kept us entertained on our wanderings and we did get there in the end. Plaça Catalunya forms the center piece for a whole shopping district and so continuing a fine tradition, we went shopping. We were surprised to see the kinds of things that were much cheaper than England (CDs, wine (one bottle was 66 cents), food, some clothes) and those that were dearer (electrical goods). We were relatively restrained only making one purchase from a HUGE Sephora we found. (Yes I know we have them in England but this one was ginormous).

We managed to pick up a tourist map and guide to museums in Barcelona while we were out — so they provided a sound basis on which to plan our trip. We also found a really cool kids shop called Imaginarium. It sold all sorts of fun play things including wooden toys, stamps, dolls, musical instruments and play packets of pasta and rice and ingredients for hamburgers. They also had beautiful children's books, in Spanish of course, with but with really vibrant illustrations. We tried justifying making a purchase but just couldn't seem to do it. After a few hours we were beginning to feel the effects of our early morning start and so decided to head back to the hotel. I decided to have a bath and Nick had a nap (although he claimed he didn't but in the end he realised he had in fact slept for 39 1⁄2 minutes — this number required a complicated negotiation!). We decided we were too bushed to venture out for dinner and so decided on room service. We soon realised we were on Spanish time when we discovered that the room service menu didn't start until 8.30pm. Nick held out though and managed to order, in Spanish again, a Tortilla (omelette) with ham and cheese that came with tomato bread and pate with toast. I had conveniently bought my own food supply. When dinner arrived it was really delicious, there were three generous slices of pate — red pepper, chicken liver and possibly pork liver — enough for Nick to get breakfast as well. Following a little light TV watching and some planning for tomorrow we fell asleep throughly exhausted from our day's exertions.

* The sound the Newton makes for it's alarm.

Posted by Hayley & Nick