Barcelona Day Four: Food and a Castle (Cardona)

DAY FOUR

Well, I’ve got two things to write about today, food and food. Wait. I mean food and a castle. corwin and Kate slept in while I got up to write up what happened on days 2 & 3. I had a nice hot bath to start the day and relieve the kinks and sore muscles from all the climbing and walking, then went down to the lobby to write and use the free wifi.

I must say I highly recommend the Travelodge Poblenou as a great budget hotel in Barcelona. It was built recently so everything is new. It’s a bit bare bones but for comparison a four-night stay package there cost about the same as what a single night in a medium-high quality place would. They have a breakfast buffet for 7,50 euro, free wifi in the lobby, free luggage storage, a 24 hour bar (! yes!). The room was impeccably clean, the pillows firm and the mattresses good. The Poblenou neighborhood turned out to be a gem, not touristy, very nice, safe, and full of charm, too. Five stars, would stay again.

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Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.

Barcelona Trip select pic spam – best photos

I’m writing this from the Parador de Cardona, which is a castle, and Kate cannot get over the fact that we are IN A CASTLE. Yes, it’s fun, and the whole reason we took this leg of the trip. :-) (Because Kate wanted to stay in a castle. Not because we knew how cute she’d be about being in a castle.)

The wifi here seems a little better and less saggy than in the city, so I’ll try uploading a few of the best photos from the trip so far. Under the fold:

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Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.

Jonathan’s Story: part 1 of 2

Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.

(Since Daron and I are in Barcelona until next week, this seemed like a good time to give you the glimpse of Jonathan I’ve been working on. This takes place in 1986. -ctan)

Part 1:

I jerked awake. I had fallen asleep while studying at the library. Damn this place for having these comfy chairs and a giant HVAC system that made a soothing hum in the background at all time, and college life in general for messing up my sleep schedule. I yawned, trying to remember where I was supposed to be. I had two books in my lap and my notebook had fallen on the floor.

I picked up my things and put them into my backpack. Right. Sunday night. There was a band at the Underground I wanted to see. I checked my watch. I had plenty of time to drop my stuff off before they would get started. I tried to straighten out the crick in my neck but the second I picked up my backpack it got worse… Definitely dropping the stuff off.

I made my way out of the Rockefeller Library while vowing not to ever study there again. That had been my second attempt in two years. Both times had ended the same way. The Rock, as the library was called, and I did not get along. They tell a story on the campus about the building’s nickname. It’s the John D. Rockefeller Library, because of who gave the money for it, and apparently when it was first built, Rockefeller objected to people referring to it as “The Rock,” so students instead began calling it “The John.” He couldn’t have known that the dividers of the toilet stalls would eventually be covered with Trotskyite and Chomskian screeds. Some of the best philosophy debates I ever read were written in ballpoint pen on the walls of the third floor men’s room.

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