the journey continues + new music

The journey continues... I'm in Barcelona now.. It was a crazy long journey getting here.. I had found a good priced ticket from Bangkok to Barcelona and at the time thought it was a good idea to go for it.. after that journey though, I think I may pay a little more next time.. I stayed up all night on the full moon of July 3 and left my beautiful Balinese villa at 3 in the morning.. It had been a long stressful day, not knowing until 10pm if my jewelry would be finished or not.. Holding on to the faith that it would, it was, and I ran home to finish up my last minute things.. Returning my scooter, organizing what I was going to leave in Bali and what I would take with me, packing etc.. Deta, my friend and driver arrived at 3am and we drove to the airport.. Day 1 of no sleep.. I flew to Singapore and spent a couple of hours in the airport and then got to Bangkok in the late afternoon that day.. For some reason, I decided to take the train and try to find my guesthouse by foot.. I did.. but it was feat and I was super tired and super sweaty.. I hunkered down in my dingy room and pondered my next move.. Food and a massage.. Not all bad.. One night in Bangkok has it's benefits, for sure.. As i was getting my 'foot massage' it started to pour rain and as I walked out the door I wobbled my relaxed feet back in the warm tropical downpour.. ahhhh.. Refreshing actually.. Went to bed early not really knowing what time or day it was and set my alarm for 5:30am, got up, showered and took a taxi to the airport. From there I flew 8 hours to Moscow, spent 4 hours in the airport and took another 4 hours flight to Barcelona.. phew.. Talk about long haul.. so many days.. no sleep and little food.. but i love it..

I got to my sweet little hostal in Barcelona and had the best room in the place overlooking a beautiful plaza. I arrived at midnight and decided I had to have a glass of spanish wine (who needs sleep when there is good wine?).. So I went downstairs to the hopping restaurant and sat alone and drank a glass of wine. The table next to me was full of people and they invited me to join.. So i did.. turns out they were musicians.. We connected and shared our music with one another.. I love that, wherever you go in the world, there is always music.. And it is such a magical way to come together.. They inspired me to get my music out there.. Some of you may not know, but I sing and perform and write music.. So.... I just put one song up on Soundcloud, check it out here and let me know what you think (and if you like it share it with others)... I recorded this with my friend in Bali in April..


Today is my second day in Barcelona.. I am with some friends and we are going to the beach.. After 7 months in Asia, Barcelona is a perfect transition for me being back in the west.. A little Mediterranean sunshine, yummy food and beautiful people and good friends. 

Barcelona on the livability factor??

One of the things we love about traveling is seeing how people in other countries do things differently or how things function differently. We love to check out livability of a city. Of course that is our own opinion and certain things are important to us.

Barcelona, is pretty livable, to us. First of all it is on the Mediterranean, second, I love the open and kind Spanish culture. Then there are things like, public transportation, which we loved and used everyday. They have a fantastic underground. It pedestrian friendly, and many more things. Here are a few.

The courtyards, they are everywhere, you walk a little bit and suddenly you are in a big open space where people are sitting outdoors at cafe tables, socializing, children are running around, bicyclists riding through. This is so appealing to us and somehow we did not take a photo of one..

Now this may seem funny, and well, it is, but one of the things we noticed (and liked) in Barcelona were the garbage bins. They were so cool! First of all they were plentiful, neat, clean, non-stinky (in 90 + humid weather), they were double sided (which I love). You could add garbage from the street side from a big lid or from the sidewalk side, which had a foot peddle to open up the bin or a small (hand size) opening to put your rubbish in. Usually there were 3 bins, sometimes 5, like in the photo. 3 recycling bins, one for paper and plastic, one for glass, and one for compost and 2 for regular garbage. I just love this, it is practical, and it is environmentally friendly. And apparently it works, because there was not garbage anywhere! (We have since made it to France and this is not the case here.)





The other thing we loved, was the bicycle sharing system, although it had a major flaw. We couldn’t use them. You need to be a resident and have an annual subscription to the program. Other than that, the city wide bicycle program is very cool. You can use the bikes all over the city, they are parked in several different places, they are equipped with a front rack, and lights. Plus they are red, which I like!




Overall, we both thought, we needed more time to get a feel for the energy of the city, but it ranks quite high on our list of livable places.

Barcelona..

We are leaving Barcelona today. It has definitely been an adventure. Here is a little bit about our day yesterday.

Hmmm…. It seems this trip to Barcelona has been about lessons, about how travel is amazing and amazingly frustrating, about how expectations are just that… Expectations.

We had ideas about today. They were great. We were going to rent a scooter, but it didn’t work out. We were going to go to the train station and buy tickets and it didn’t work out. All this not working out took all day of running around, with a few cafe/sangria stops along the way. We decided after several disappoints and not getting anywhere to go back to our flat to try to get the tickets online. Which after another hour or so, we think worked. So, then it was 8:30, we went on a walk through the beautiful Park Guell and we were going to have a fine meal up on the hill and guess what? You got it, it didn’t work out.

Sometimes that is how things are. Sometimes making plans just isn’t a good idea. This trip has been like this so far. From the beginning to the near end.

As tomorrow we are off to France. We hope!!

With all that said, we’ve seen a lot of beauty and experienced some wonderful things.

Lucky Girl!

we made it to Barcelona and it's amazing. Although, I have to say we did not arrive without a few small inconveniences...

I should have known, when we got on the plane and my seat was in the middle of, the middle of the plane. You know, the seat where no one wants to sit. My husband very graciously switched with me. He's so sweet...

The plane took off and I decided to recline. Nope, it wouldn't recline. I asked a flight attendant about it and soon all the flight attendants were helping. No one could figure out how to make this stupid seat go back and since my husband already switched with me for my comfort, I wasn't about to make another peep. Our flight was over 9 hours.

So, needless to say, I did not sleep the whole flight, which isn't entirely the end of the world, but it kind of sucks. It also did not help that the family, with 3 kids behind us did not shut up the entire way. I guess they didn't sleep either, but at least, they did have reclining seats.

We got off the plane in Amsterdam and as we were going through security, I realized, I left my jacket on the plane. Ugh.. We had already gone through security so I could not go back and still make our next flight. We asked a friendly and helpful KLM woman, but no jacket to be found on our plane.. So.. I lost my jacket.. We went to our very crowded gate and waited. We ended up sitting on the air condition duct because there were no seats available and when we stood, my shirt got caught in the duct and it tore a huge hole in it. I thought, oh man, hopefully all this stuff only happens in 3's... because 3 things already happened...

We finally made it to beautiful Barcelona.. Yay!! We arrived at noon on time. Then we went to baggage claim and it took over an hour to get all our items off the belt, it was sooooooo slow... Steven's guitar was in the oversized things and it did not arrive so we had to wait in a very slow moving line at the lost baggage area. We waited and waited and waited. Finally, they told us his guitar arrived and they will send it up right away. So, we left our precious spot in line to go to the other side of the airport to pick up his guitar, which did not come. We walked back and waited in line again.. We ended up in this cycle 3 times before his guitar arrived, 4 hours after we had landed.

At this point we were both quite frustrated, we hadn't slept, we hadn't eaten and we had 7 pieces of luggage between the 2 of us including 2 guitars, camera equipment, our carry ons and one suitcase for our clothes. I suggested taking a taxi to our destination, but Steven did not want to do this, he wanted to take the train. I pretty much had a conniption fit, but followed him to the bus (carrying 5 things). He carrying 2 50lb bags. Then, we got off the bus and had to walk 20 minutes to the train, by the time we got there, I was about to kill someone. We got on the train with all our shit and realized we had to transfer. I said to him. There is no way, I am schlepping this stuff any further, we are taking a taxi. So, we took the train a little further. We got off and had to carry it another 10 minutes. We found a taxi, got in and ahhhh.... relaxation.

We made it to the place we are staying, which is so cool. We are renting a room in someones flat. We found it using this website. www.airbnb.com. It's a new trend in traveling and it is so cool. The NYT just did an article about this type of thing here.

Since we had taken forever to get there, the lady at the place we are staying had gone off, which I would have done too. We had our taxi driver call her. She came back in about 20 minutes. and voila... We made it!!

I was still about to kill someone, but at least we made it safely. And our flat over looks the whole city. It's beautiful and amazing! And I am such a lucky girl to be here..