Keeping My Promise

If you remember, I promised you I would post pics and what I had done with some friends two weeks ago in this post. Now I'm keeping my promise! I had to promise it, otherwise I knew I wouldn't post it in two months! [grin] I wrote a diary while I was there, so I'll post some bits and pieces of it. We had a lot of fun! The girls are coming here tomorrow to spend a couple of days, actually...

"Satisfaction. That's what I feel as I listen to music, sitting in the car on my way to Christine's house. I'm going to spend five days with her, her family and Julietta. Christine is a cheerful, teasing fifteen-year-old and Julietta is a chatty, happy young lady who is always smiling. I like them a lot, and now, as I'm watching the scenery going by us quickly, I feel so blessed and happy. Five days with wonderful people... what more can I want?
"Christine's parents always had fun activities and ideas, such as visiting historical places and bathig in the swimming pool at night. I'm sure I won't be bored because, on top of everything, their house has a fantastic library. There are hundreds of books in each room and I still haven't had a chance to read them all. They also have a wonderful, green garden, so the combination of company and people is perfect."

The first night was a blast... we had so much fun!

"Christine slumped six fat pillows on my arms and I had to climb down the stairs carefully, watching every step. Then, Christine, Julietta and I snekaed inside the kitchen and stole ice creams and juice (not really :P), and after going back to the living room, where we slept, we sat down with the cat on our beds and talked, crunching on the ice creams while we teased each other.
"Christine had also brought down books and magazines (we had fun criticising the models in them...), and my camera was sitting on a table, waiting for the right moment to come to action.
"They had an interesting conversation about how annoying open doors were when you were doing something inside the room."

This is one of our many funny teasings:

"We sometimes had whispered conversations, but it soon got late and we decided to turn off the lights and go to sleep, although it was so warm they found it hard to sleep. 'Oh, I'm so HOT!' I complained, moving around my bed to find a better position. Julietta leaned over and whispered, 'STOP bragging, girl!', and we burst out laughing."

OK, this one the second day...

"Late in the afternoon Christine's mother decided to take us to a nearby mall to spend the evening in. We walked around talking, looking at clothes and shoes. I found a lovel navy blue, long skirt, but I didn't have any money on me, and we also visited a jewlery shop.
"The shop was packed with beautiful glass shelves full of jewlery, all of different colours. There were necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, even toe-rings!, each of them having tons of different styles to choose from. All the others bought something but me; I didn't fins anything that I really liked. Maybe I am too picky, after all..."

Later in the night...

"While I rambled outside the garden munching on my peach, Christine's mother came out and showed me how they'd trained Gerd, their huge watch-dog, to do a couple of tricks. It was interesting, although the dog was far more interested in my peach and actually got her front paws on my shoulder to try and steal it.
"So I went down the stone steps into the swimming pool, barely up to my skirt, and the dog stayed at the edge, waiting for me to come back and try luck again. In the end I had to run inside and ask for help because Gerd was all the time on me. I got some scratches out of the experience..."

Another interesting conversation...

"As I went back to the living-room, where Christine and Julietta were eating an ice-cream, I smiled. 'Oh goodie. Can I have one of mine?'
"Christine looked at me and started giggling uncontrolably, making the bed move. I shook my head in faked despair, and murmured, 'I think I'll five you up...'
"Christine sat up with a surprised face. 'For adoption?' Her eyes were big, her mouth open and her voice innocent. I tilted my head, and looked at the ceiling, considering it. 'Why, thank you for the idea, I'll think about it'
"At this point, Julietta turned around and said, 'Yours are in the freezer, two bottom drawers', at which I answered, 'Thank you, Julietta,' and as an afterthought, I added, 'Good to know someone takes me seriously...'
"After some minutes us three girls were lying down on our beds, eating ice-cream and reading books."

On Wednesday we went to Barcelona.

"We also packed three small water bottles along with the lunch sandwiches. We marked them so we wouldn't get confused with which was which one's: Christine's had a red band, mine had a green band, and Julietta's had a blue band on hers."

This is the first picture I took in Barcelona.

"I like Barcelona. As a matter of fact, I like big cities, at that. There are so many sensations in a city. So many colours, so many sounds, so many smells, so many different people. From the colourful flowers and trees growing to the adorned shop windows and different styles of clothes people wore; from the shouts of a man trying to sell his goods to the noise people did when they walked and the joyful and delighted squeals of a child on his dad's shoulders; from the delicious aroma coming from an open restaurant to the perfumed ladies that walked past by us and the clean scent coming from tidy shops; from foreners that come from the North, fair and blue eyed, to the dark Spanish people tanned by the sun.
"Cities are so full of everything. Even the floor has patters!"

An example of it...

Happy Christine!

This reads: "In Barcelona, 1 of every 3 dead people dead in traffic accidents was walking by foot. Attention: we are all pedestrians."

Talking about colours... I couldn't resist taking a picture of this advertisement... "Life in Pink!"

This seat is made of broken tiles. I really like them!

Souvenir shops... they are so picturesque!

One thing I really love about Barcelona is its architecture. Casa Batlló, part of the Façana de la Discordia (Batlló House, part of the Discord Facade. It is called like that because three very different houses constitute de facade)

Casa Amatller's ceiling. Very impressive!

We visited the Perfume Museum. It was awesome!

"A tall man led us to a big room full of shelves. After paying the entrance, us three girls were left alone.
"I found the place very interesting. There were all kinds of examples of perfume vases, from ancient ages all through the years till the present. There were also pictures and information about people who worked with perfumes, such as Cocó Chanel.
"The different vases were beautiful. There were chrystal containers from Greece, ceramic vases from ancient Egypt, golden ones from Turkey, and so on. The shapes, sizes and colours were so varied!"

Samples of Chanel perfume... ahhh!

The golden sample from Turkey. It was beautiful! I also have pictures of the Greek chrystal vases, but since I couldn't use flash, and they were inside glass cabinets, they are blurry. This one has reflections of the glass, as well.

Tiny samples. There hundreds of them! It was incredible, really.

Some more of Barcelona's varied architecture...

...more... =)

Barcelona's city hall. Notice the clock in the centre of the building? I love it!

A lamp... :P

My favourite picture of the whole lot! One side of the famous Barcelona Cathedral... it was in construction when we went, but I was still able to snap this picture.

This is a pond which we visited. It was full of cents! People believe it gives good luck to throw cents in the water. There must be a fortune in there!

Something that happened to us in Barcelona...

"I noticed how people inside cafés and restaurants laughed, waved and smiled at us when we passed the place where they were, and I was somewhat confused by that. I wondered how come they were so friendly, so I asked the other two girls if they had noticed it. They just laughed, and when we went by another public place I understood why.
"As we passed the glass windows, Christine and Julietta smiled wildly and waved like crazy at the people inside the room. Some of them reacted looking the other way, or frowning, but some good sports would smile back and laugh at us. I didn't know what to do, if feel embarrassed and walk a little far beihind, or join the fun and tease the guys inside the shops"

Thursday was spent lazily. We didn't do anything at all. We just read and talked. Nothing special.
Ah... but Friday! That is something different...

"I have no idea why in the world did the alarm clock in the cell go off so early. I guess because I had told it to. But it was way too early for me, because I'd gone to sleep very late the last few nights.
"We were going to a water fight that day!! I was so excited."

"It was a game of guys against girls. They would stay together, and we would scatter and attack at the same time, breaking their line. But if one of us was caught by herself... well...
"We all had bottles and water balloons. We had gotten together at a public park which had many fountains, but because it was a public place we played with our clothes on. That was fun! What I'll remember for the rest of my life...
"Yes, I was caught off guard and on my own. I ran, and although I can proudly say I ran a lot and gave the boys a good chase, they finally caught me. One of them grabbed my arm and made me crouch on the cement floor, while the others made a thick circle around me from which I wouldn't be able to escape. And it happened. All of them emptied their two litres and six litres of water bottles on me, teasing me and laughing. How humiliating!, (not really, I was laughing all the time!). When they finished they all ran away, and left me on my poor own.
"When I got up I was dripping, soaked, wet, full of water, and more than you can imagine! My clothes were soaked. My, that made me laugh so much!"

So these are my adventures from two weeks ago. I had an awesome week there, and was sad to say goodbye. I hope you enjoyed reading the post, and hope that I didn't bore you a lot! [smile]