"Who knows where the road may lead us, only a fool would say"

Is it embarrassing that for the longest time, I thought La Sagrada Familia (The Sacred Family) was just the title of a cool song? It was only very recently that I found out the song (by Alan Parsons Project) is about a church designed by Gaudi and is one of the most famous buildings in the entire world because of its unique interpretation of gothic architecture.

I think it looks amazing, but like most of his buildings, it resembles something out of a twisted dream. Construction started in 1882, and it is still unfinished today. There is transparent protective wrapping around the bottom of the church that from afar looks like a spider web, lending to its nightmarish quality. The cranes towering above the church are a constant fixture and they say it will finally be complete in 2026, 100 years after the death of it's architect.

When construction is finished, it will be the tallest church in the world.

Gaudi himself is buried in a crypt at the basement of La Sagrada Familia. He died after being hit by a streetcar less than a mile away from the church he was building.


"First we'll have some of these, then we'll have a bit of those, then..."

*sigh* While the girls stock up on supplies, I go shopping, looking for a bigger pair of pants...


The bone-building, Casa Batlló, during the day


Close-up of the top of the building


I'm not lion when I tell you I'm having a great time!


Watching the boats come in for the start of the Barcelona World Race

In a few days time, a fleet of two-man yachts will leave from here and race around the globe to arrive back in Barcelona in three months time. The ships are only 18m long and they will have to survive three oceans, 12 climate zones and 23,000 nautical miles. Very extreme!

It's a bit funny contrasting those race statistics to our own trip. Based on how slow we go, we're never going to be able to boast: "xx kms! xx countries! in less than xx days!!!"


A bit of modern architecture amongst the old


Some girl-stuff happening in our apartment. I walked in, took a picture and left.

Neda is having such a great time hanging out with her old friends! Iva and Tajana are the first friends that have visited us while on this trip! We have been traveling with only ourselves for so long and although we are good company together, Neda does miss being all girly and doing girly-things.

The dynamics are working out very well, because the girls' pace allows Neda to do all the things she wants to do without feeling like she has to drag me out when I'm feeling lazy (which is most of the time). For me, I've never lived with a bunch of women before and it was eye-opening how much talking, giggling, talking, finger-nail painting and talking goes on...

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/196.html



We are on the move again!

Lugging all of our soft bags on and off the bike is a bit of a pain, but at least in Barcelona, Iva and Tajana didn't have to wait for us since they parked so far away. We ended up leaving at the same time, and headed south on the coastal road. It was a very scenic ride, here's a short video:


Barcelona to Valencia

Although the sun is shining bright, it's still a little chilly. Neda and I are bundled up in all of our layers, meanwhile the Pula Girls are sweltering because of the greenhouse effect inside their car tailing behind us. They tell us that we look very synchronized in front of them, with our staggered positioning. Cool!


Enjoying the twists and turns along the coast

The girls wanted to stop in Tarragona, which is about an hour south of Barcelona. When we arrived, I realized why: there's a Roman amphitheatre right in town! Tajana paid the admission price to go inside, since she is a historian by profession. Neda and I looked over the railing because we were too cheap to pay. Iva said she'd keep us company.


The Tarragona Amphitheatre could house 15,000 people!


After walking around for a while, Tajana yells up to us: "Neda! Iva! Ours is better!"
I'm starting to sense a pattern...

Because we left a bit later, we arrived in Valencia after dark. This is going to be a problem for us because while the girls like to pack in as much sightseeing as they can during the day and arrive at night, Neda and I prefer to ride while the sun is still shining. It's a bit safer for us, and at this time of year, it's also a lot warmer. We were freezing when we arrived!


Valencia oranges outside our apartment

Valencia is known for its sweet oranges, but the orange trees that the city planted as decorations must have been genetically engineered to taste bad. There were a few half-eaten oranges lying on the ground under the trees - a warning to other tourists not to pick them. Neda seems to think there aren't enough nutrients in the soil for them to grow properly on the streets.

They did look juicy enough though...

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Iva brought decorations from home so every apartment we're staying at can feel Christmas-y!

Neda found us a great apartment in Valencia, it was even cheaper than Barcelona and it was way nicer. We're discovering that Barcelona is a bit of an expensive outlier - that the rest of Spain is actually priced quite fairly. Also this was the off-season, so I think we were getting very good deals.


New Years Eve Dinner in our very swanky apartment

It is soooo nice to be celebrating the holidays with friends! The meals are more elaborate and we help lighten the girls' stash of Croatian alcohol. I tell Iva that we're actually helping because now she will have to carry less on the way back to Pula. She replies no, she is slowly replacing the Croatian booze with Spanish ones to bring back home!

The green "flowers" above are made from artichokes, compliments of Tajana. Delicious!


So you wonder why I am not in a lot of these pictures...

We thought we'd go into town for the New Years Eve countdown, so being responsible adults, we planned to catch a streetcar. In our drunken haze, we didn't notice that we were waiting at the wrong side of the bus stop and that these streetcars were going *away* from the city.


Nice face, Neda. And yes, we brought glasses with us to the bus stop, because we're classy that way...

So by the time we realized we were on the wrong side of the bus stop, we were too late to make it to the city, but at that point we didn't care too much. We took our bottle(s) of wine and champagne and merrily made our way to the beach (did I mention our apartment was right on the beach?). This was a waaaay better idea.


As midnight approached, there was much drunken Croatian singing and dancing on the beach!

With the clocks on our iPhones counting down the last seconds of the year, we popped the cork on the champagne and made a toast to 2015! Wow, 2015. I know people normally say that time speeds up as you grow older, but so much has happened in the last two and half years that it actually seems a lot longer than that!

Time seemed to have rushed by faster when we were back in Toronto. As each carbon-copy-day stacked up on the tray of the Xerox machine, I found that I ended up skimming through every sheet because they were filled with the same details of the same commute, the same job, the same routine, and before I knew it, pages of half-read years piled up behind me.

Time moves normally now. Every day is different for us now and we're eager to greet each new day, devour its pages like a good book.

I may not know how many years I have left in my life, but I'm going to try to put as much life as I can in those years.


In the distance, fireworks were going off in different parts of the city. Happy New Year, Valencia!!!

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

We are going to kick off the first day of 2015 with a ride! I really thought Neda would be hung over, but she pulled it together and managed to get onto the bike okay. We figured with January 1st being a holiday, it would be a great day to cruise around the city with no traffic. The girls went off by themselves to do their own sightseeing and we made plans to rendezvous later on in the day.


There's a familiar sight! I had to get Neda to stop at this roundabout for a quick picture.

We've actually been to Valencia before by motorcycle. On our European tour seven years ago, we passed through the city like a hurricane but one of the few pictures I took was of this statue, because the hotel we stayed at before was right here!

I'm so glad we're keeping a record of all our travels because there's absolutely no way I would remember all these details.


Valencia train station


And guess what? Neda found another Arena in Valencia...
She said we had to ride around it to get a better look

Later that day, we met up with Iva and Tajana and I told them we saw another arena in downtown Valencia. Iva replied, "Yes, we saw it too. Ours is better."

Haha! Right. Of course.


Our rendezvous point with the girls was the City of Arts and Sciences. This is what it looks like as we rode towards it

The City of Arts and Sciences is a huge, sprawling tourist attraction composed of a bunch of buildings that look like they were purpose-built for a Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica movie. When the girls suggested we meet there, I had no idea this even existed. How the heck did we miss this the first time around?

Oh yeah, because we were riding to a different country almost every other day...


Unfortunately the buildings were closed for New Years Day, but that didn't stop us from frolicking around

These buildings house different exhibits, loosely related to science. Most of them remind me of a giant Darth Vader and his Samurai friends buried up to their eyeballs, with only the tops of their helmets poking above the ground.


L'Àgora, pictured behind the bridge, is a covered entertainment and sports complex


Tajana takes a breather from her hectic sight-seeing schedule to check up on e-mails


More sci-fi statues. This one reminds me of the aliens in A.I.

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

So are the rest of us Gene

Now, is it too late to wish you guys a happy new year?, now that you're that far behind

Continued safe & joyous travels to you guys

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My memory is becoming that good, I should be able to organise my own surprise party soon