Barcelona, Spain.

This past Thursday was a holiday for Corpus Christi so a girlfriend and I trekked to El Escorial, home of a crazily huge monastery that is also home to a lot of artwork. Like a lot of what I've seen of Spain, it was an overwhelming plethora of sheer architectural genius.

Just arrived
In the courtyard

The view from within the building looking out into the gardens

Paying attention to my audio guide - definitely don't want to miss anything educational about the monastery :)

Later that week, we went out to the east coast of Spain to visit Barcelona. We took a bus ride at midnight on Friday so that we could get there on Saturday morning. Barcelona is in a territory of Spain called Cataluña that actually has its own language called Catalan. I didn't understand a lick of it, but it's pretty easy to read - a little bit of a cross between Spanish and French. Catalans are fiercely proud of their language and are notorious for responding in Catalan even if you speak to them in Spanish. Although as a tourist, I never really got that from them - because you know, clearly, I just look SO Spanish! We were lucky because the two girls I went with's host mom's brother (haha, got all that?) happened to live in Barcelona so he let us crash on the couch, saving us a night's worth of a hostel. Cool beans. He was also nice enough to drive us around and show us some important Barcelona sights.

La Sagrada Familia - a huge, unfinished temple that is still a work in progress and slated to be completed around 2022

Chanel! Lots of high end shopping in Barcelona - haha, like the way I'm dressed next to the models? :)

With a lion in one of the many ports of Barcelona. FIERCE.
Two "living statues" of fairies - donate a little change and you get a free photo op!
The Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña, where we saw the Fuentes de Montjuic, a crazy water show that puts the Bellagio's to shame
At El Parque Güell - lots of architecture designed by Antoni Gaudí, the mastermind behind la Sagrada Familia - the park is kind of like a trippy, adult Alice in Wonderland
How much do Catalans love us? Enough to draw a huge mural about us
A replica of Homer Simpson at the Museum of Chocolate in Barcelona
I didn't know until this weekend that tops are optional at the beach. Like I say about the pools in Vegas - just because you could, doesn't mean you should =/

Well, that's it for now folks! I think I'm starting to get the hang of this whole blogging debauchery. Only 37 more days left in Europe!

Oh. And I guess since I'm from Southern California I'm supposed to give a shout out to the Lakers. For those of you who religiously practice in the Holy Church of the Los Angeles Lakers, you would be warmly welcomed here in Spain, where the country is whole-heartedly unified in the name of Pau Gasol, their Barcelona-hailing, basketball-playing NBA champ.

Don't tell me I didn't try to find a good picture of this guy. It's not my fault the press just seems to hate him and exclusively catches him in his least photogenic moments.