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Spain/France

 

SPAIN/FRANCE TRIP - Aug. 28 - Sept. 22, 2008

THURSDAY, 8/28/08: 2:43PM: Service: "The car will be there any minute." I'm down at 2:46PM and sit. Should I go back upstairs? Car FINALLY comes at 3:12, pleading extreme traffic in Manhattan. Ken got me seat 19G, clearly over the wing! (AND he got the seat AHEAD of me!) To airport 4:05PM, also slow. Through security 4:18. Pee 4:10. Get frequent flyer miles at DESK at 4:24. 19G may be closer to FRONT of wing than 24G is to the BACK. Board ON wing 5:06PM. Ken not DREAMING of changing. 7:41 flight announced. 5:43: 45-minute delay to replace an engine part that wasn't working. Depart about 6:30. 6:55: 25-minute inspection now, move back 7:14. 7:47: After ENDLESS taxiing, we're returning to gate: something's wrong with AIR conditioning, and it's getting hotter and hotter. 8:12: We'll switch aircraft and leave in an hour and a half. 8:36: "Please keep the aisles clear so the food can be taken off." They say we'll go in a bus to a NEW plane, but I have to get a translation from Ken, since I can't understand the pilot over the sound of the engines. We get OFF plane at 8:50. Bus stops, with TWO jerks, at 9:01, then goes again. On line for SOMETHING at 9:17: two lines at two desks. I'm beyond feeling anything but a slight hunger and thirst. Turns out we're getting a voucher for $7 for food before going on the plane and having dinner on the plane later. Ken says that's nonsense and goes over to get some candy and chips without waiting for his voucher. I figure to get something for dinner, then I won't have to stay awake to have the plane's dinner: more chance to sleep on the flight, particularly since it's getting so late. Only two places are open and for both the lines are enormous! I try going down another corridor to find something else open, but there isn't, so finally decide that the Burger King line is the shorter, and anyway I don't care for Sbarro at ALL. On Burger King line at 9:30, which is made slow by the fact that the cashier doesn't speak Spanish, so whenever someone who doesn't speak English is charged something, the single other person, in charge of putting the food together and filling out the orders, has to come and in some cases translate VERY laboriously to explain why the customer has to pay so much, what they're paying for, and WHY they have to do it, as everyone stands silently by watching this charade and the time goes on and on. Order a triple cheeseburger, but all they have are regular cheeseburgers, so I get TWO of those and a large Dr Pepper, for something like $11, about $4 of which I pay with a credit card and my voucher at 10:10, not the last on the line, so I have a chance to eat one burger and manage to finish the too-large drink, and decide to take the second Whopper onto the plane. Then I have to shit, which I do at 10:22PM, fantasizing that the plane will leave without me. Get to gate 5 to find that the computer has assigned SOME passengers new seats, and I get 18D, which I certainly don't want, saying I'll stand at the desk until I get a window seat, and why did they do this to me? "I didn't do a thing, the computer changed the seating." "Then the computer can change the seating again." "There are no more seats, do you want to go tomorrow?" Well, shit, of COURSE I don't want to go tomorrow, so I have to take the middle seat at 10:28, totally disgusted. Take an Ambien with a glass of water given me by a smiling blond stewardess who hates my guts for being so unpleasant, and I sit down and unpack my eyeshades and put in my earplugs and hope the girls screaming with laughter across the aisle either drop dead or lose their voices. We finally back out at 10:55, there's another long wait, and we're off at 11:25, when I take out my earplugs to equalize the pressure. Put them back in and try to get to sleep, but it just doesn't seem to come, even by putting the seat back when the seatbelt sign goes off in about twenty minutes.

FRIDAY, 8/29/08: At 12:42 the stewardess passes with a bottle of water and I have a glass. Go through all of Actualism with no effect, count backward from 100 about four times, and may doze. At 2:27 I have a neck problem. 3:41 look at watch. Less than four hours to go. Pee at 5:02. Two hours to go. Breakfast at 5:56AM. Start down at 6:35, no lights above the seats as I fill in immigration form. Change watch to 12:53PM, 27 degrees or 81 degrees Fahrenheit. Smoggy below, then clear enough to see the southern suburbs. Land at 1:03PM. Off plane at 1:14, through immigration quick by 1:20, get luggage first at 1:25, then pee, and get 60€ from a machine with HSBC card. Pay 4:05€ at 1:47 for bus to Plaza Catalunya through industrial suburbs by 2:17. Walk to Hotel Gravina, Ken not knowing exactly where we're going, at 2:30. Check in and get a complimentary glass of cava and some nuts while Ken asks about, guess what?, laundry. Unpack (for ten days, as it turns out, thankful that the room is comfortable and has adequate storage) to 3:15. Look at Barcelona guide to 4:08 while Ken goes out for lunch at his favorite "green" restaurant and then I have my still-tasty Whopper, and he's back at 4:45 just as I was about to start typing this. He decides he wants to see Casa Mila, or Pedrara (the stone pile), taking a few pictures on the way down Avenida Gracia. Get on the fairly long line waiting for tickets for 9.5€ from 5:48 to 6PM, but it's open until 8. To #22 in the fantastic apartment following the great exhibits of this and other buildings under the caTEENery roof (like Epi-SCOP-al, for Episcopal, the next day) to 7:05, wandering the roof and taking good shots, but there are no drinks up there as Ken had said he was going to have, and so I go down at 7:05, but he's nowhere to be seen! Look in shops and on corners, and wait to 7:17, and decide he MUST have gone back to the hotel! He's drinking water in the lounge as I get back at 7:40, having had to ask directions on the way back, not able to find the University Gardens through which we GOT to Avenida Gracia. He finally coaxes me to try paella for dinner, mainly because I want the sangria, and we have two pitchers that give me a headache, and the paella isn't very good: both the shrimp and the mussels are mealy from being overcooked, and though HE praises the rice, I think it's just yellow and sticky. But the Sangria is DELICIOUS, and he strikes up an inane conversation with a couple from Puerto Rico. We eat 8-9:15PM, get upstairs at 9:30. Total bill 43€. Pee, TOTALLY soused, and fall into bed at 9:41. Up later to take some water for my hangover.


SATURDAY, 8/30/08: Wake at 2AM, 5AM, type dreams in file 8 and comments in file 6: 5:21AM: Got up at 3:30AM to pee and was startled to see Ken getting into bed across the way, and had to remind myself that I was in Barcelona, not at home. I had such cramps in BOTH legs that I staggered after I got up. Then woke at 5:15 and lay in pain from my feet and from a headache from two pitchers of sangria last night for dinner, and decided to take some of the pain medicine I brought with me. Find a Tylenol for arthritis pain that Spartacus gave me and take that, and then shit a few tiny turds and pee and continue this at 5:29AM. Went to bed at 9:45PM and went instantly to sleep, so I've already had about eight hours' sleep, so I figure I'll catch up with my trip notes now, leaving the bathroom door ajar, per Ken's request, so he'll know that I'm typing and not using the john for business. But then find I don't HAVE my first page of notes, and figure just to go back and try to feel better in bed, now that I've typed the dream to get THAT out of my head. Yesterday was a great day: Eixempla is a fantastic neighborhood that I saw none of before (except brief glances from the tour bus last time), and the details of Gaudi's architecture under the roof of the Casa Mila was spectacular, as it should have been for 9.5€ and just over an hour. Got a bit pissed when I waited outside to try to find Ken, and then wandered down Gracia to what I thought was ONE plaza, but only came to Rambla Complemeya (or whatever) and had to ask an English-speaking helpful daughter of an equally helpful mother how to get to Pelai, and then when I found where I was, found an easy way of getting to the hotel, where I exhaustedly sat with Ken over his glass of water and decided to give in to his coaxing to have paella with him, rather than forcing him to pay the whole 30€ for that and sangria, which I really WANTED, rather than what would have been a relatively tasteless bottle of 10€ wine, not nearly the refreshing quality or quantity of what turned out to be TWO pitchers of sangria, which Ken naively thought was ONLY wine and fruit, but which the waiter verified for me was fortified not only with brandy and cognac, but also GIN, which made two pitchers (added to Ken's lethal dose of absinthe for lunch) very potent, albeit delicious. He also struck up what seemed to me a pointless conversation with a couple from Puerto Rico who joined us in the empty restaurant, talking about the difference between Spanish and Catalan, his lunch at a particular restaurant, the address for which the wife dutifully wrote down, and other inanities that I tried to look interested in, but which only passed the lengthy time for the waiter to come out with our paella that Ken felt was deliciously "smoky," but he agreed that the mealy quality of the shrimp was produced by overcooking it. The mussels were equally mealy, and the dish was primarily rice, which might have been for the better, since I wasn't feeling very hungry after my Whopper for lunch at about 3PM before he got back before I had a chance to catch up on my notes. The weather was unnaturally hot and humid, which made walking even more of a pain, but the beauty of the Impressioniste building facades, and some of the passersby, made the walk relatively painless, even when I was frantically trying to remember the route back to the hotel, thankful that I had my map from Where to help me ask for directions. Busy enough first day after the ludicrous 6-hour delay in the (second) plane's departure yesterday. Now at 5:41AM I'm just ready for more rest in bed. Then fall asleep and wake with a jolt at 10:10AM, Ken finishing in the bathroom, and I dress in a flash and say I'm going down to the breakfast buffet that ends at 10:30, whereas he thought it ended at 10 and we'd go OUT to eat. Decent buffet, full of younger people, and I enjoy two cups of lukewarm chocolate, a glass of peach and a glass of apple juice, and we finish at 11, leaving at 11:20 to go to the Old Section of town under Ken's inept guiding, since he's going north when I INSIST we should be going south, and he finally admits I'm right. We're in Underground Rome, taking LOTS of pictures, to 1:38PM, GREAT place, and then to the Cathedral, through it, taking pictures of side altars, and in the Salle Capitulaire take #51 of Our Lady of Montserrat at 2:02PM. #54 cathedral roundel at 2:09. Sit on cool stone and talk of lunch at 2:35. Through the Jewish area of the Call, pick up papers at the Interpretation Center to add to the stack I got in "Rome," and have duck and cider at Irati Basque lunch from 3:15 to 4:07 for 62€ plus 9€ tip, probably just over $100. To 4 Cats at 4:25PM for San Miguel beer and take #67 at 5:03PM. To hotel 6:15, exhausted, and rest in only shorts, feet really HURTING, then do the Tribune puzzle by 7:47, when he says it's time for dinner. Walk up to Cinc Sentits to find that it's not open until 8:30 and they have no reservations whatsoever, even though the waiter is a TOTAL doll. Then Ken says we should go to his lunch place Origen 99.9%, but when he looks at the menu he decides he doesn't want to have anything, so we wordlessly walk back to the hotel, he buying a bottle of Coca Cola for his dinner, I guess, and I look through the Elle that the chambermaid left, and then start typing at 8:54, catching up with all this at 9:33, and decide to go out for SOMETHING to eat. Go to [stein of beer]-d'Or, and the cute Japanese waiter asked if I wanted an English menu, which I did, and found the "Bikini," essentially a ham and gruyere panini, which I hoped would stuff up my intestines enough so that I wouldn't have to use the Imodium Ken so kindly lent me in case I needed it in the night, hoping, as I usually do, that the "runs" were a one-time occurrence and wouldn't happen again. Ken wouldn't commit to when he was getting up in the morning to go out to breakfast, and I decided I REALLY didn't feel like showering this evening, particularly since I might be tormented with the problems of the shits during the night, so I said I'd shower in the morning, since, though this is 10:30PM, I'll probably get up before he does. He confessed to feeling "dizzy and nauseous" this evening, but felt better for resting, and this was USUAL for him two or three days into a trip, he said. But NOT for me. Anyway, I paid with my Visa card, leaving 1.2€ (thinking I had 1.5€ for a tip, which I didn't), and saving my lone 20€ note. Type this to some unknown time, since I don't want to get up to check my watch, say 10:40PM, and will get to sleep quickly, and NOT sleep for the something-like ten hours I slept last night! Bed at 10:55PM and sleep quickly. [Typed later that morning:] Start Times puns-and-anagrams puzzle at 10:33PM, almost finish when Ken tries to go to sleep, so I stop and go to bed at 10:55PM.

SUNDAY, 8/31/08: To john at 1:55AM to type dream, peeing first, not sensing that I'll be shitting. Type to 2AM, not having to shit. In my demand for accuracy, I return to the john with my notes and expand only slightly on the data previously entered. 4:07AM: Get up to type dream 2. Type to 4:11AM. Drink some water. Had almost finished an exhaustive, thorough, Actualism session before falling asleep to wake to type a third dream at 6AM. Finish typing at 6:13AM. Pee. Don't sleep more, but enjoy just lying there. Ken gets up and leaves bathroom, so I'm in at 7:20 for a wonderfully CONTROLLED (versus St. Petersburg) shower with all-in-one soap and shampoo from a dispenser until 7:45, changing underwear and socks for the first time, not needing Ken's Imodium but taking it along through the day, in case of need. He's in the bathroom now at 7:49AM, having found a "historical" place to have breakfast on the Plaza Catalunya. Take two acetaminophen with codeine at 7:50, hoping to make my feet more comfortable, but since Spartacus's Tylenol Extra Strength did little good yesterday, I don't hold out much hope for today, except the bottoms of my heels feel SLIGHTLY better as I pad around in my slippers before and after the shower while my hair dries and Ken dresses. 7:56AM: The breakfast place doesn't open until 9, but I guess we'll wait for it: I'm hardly hungry, though Ken might be. Feel that old "Oh, I don't even want to GET UP to start the day; what am I doing here; I'd rather be home; something awful is going to happen today, or even worse we'll TRY to have something interesting to do and it'll be very disappointing." Now, usually nothing at ALL like this happens: each day has at least ONE spectacularly unexpected and delightful occurrence, like the underground Roman city with its copious English explanations that I haven't even read yet, and will do if we have to pass time before leaving for breakfast. Read all the brochures from the City Museum, sort out papers, and by 8:30 go back to the puzzle. "His" place isn't open, so we search and find Moka for my too-salty Iberian ham and cheese on thick bread, and we both get the fresh-squeezed orange juice, for which he pays more than for his coffee and roll. I have coffee con leche and two sugars, actually rather tasty. That goes to 10:15AM, then back to hotel, and to MACBA 11:05-12, some rather grim exhibits, except for a campy German movie Freak Orlando subtitled in Spanish, with a whole circus troupe to gape at. Ken isn't feeling well and goes back to bed. I go to "Action" museum at 12:05, getting in FREE as senior, and listen to lots of silly stuff in a primarily empty place, then back to the center to find the rooms that had been empty before absolutely jammed with people. I debate getting something cold from the terrace when I start feeling vaguely nauseous, but the heat and humidity of the terrace is definitely off-putting, so I'm back to look at more of the exhibits, and actually think they may have sprayed some sort of sick-making odor in the air to make the depressing exhibits even more depressing. I'm feeling increasingly unwell, stopping in to see what J.G. Ballard might offer, but the heat is too much and I feel if I take too many steps in the wrong direction I might actually vomit at 1:47, so I get easily back to hotel at 2PM. Ken goes to desk to see about a DOCTOR at 2:15, and he phones at desk to get a service, which says they will NOT accept credit cards, and it will be at least 300€, so he decides we don't need a doctor. He feels better after a few hours in bed, as I do, thankfully. I rest, then finish a puzzle to 4:15, feeling poorly again, and KEN lies back down. 5:20: Back to puzzle. WHIZ through puzzles to 8:10 and dress for dinner at Actual. Dinner 8:30-9:50, Ken's salad ordinary, my yogurt soup tasty but not the best, and the Marivilli 11.77€ half-bottle seemed as sour as yesterday's cider. He dislikes his calamar tinta, but I love my veal and tabouli. A half-bottle of Vichy Catalan is 2.67€, good with pills, and he takes the coffee ice cream with brownie, while I take the molten Chocolate Fondant Actual, quite good. Wait-staff extremely personable, and the bill comes to 83.98€, to which Ken says I should add a 5€ tip, for a total of 88.98€ at a Bib Gourmand, getting back to hotel at 10:03 for Ken to read various tasting-menu prices for the next few days of 130€, 95€, and 85€, which he's sure have gone up since. He paid 6€ for hotel-called taxi to Actual, and 5€ for speedy taxi back to hotel, where I feel fairly good, though an impending feeling of a need to shit isn't encouraging. Finish this to 10:28PM, Ken thinking that tomorrow he may restrict himself to Sagrada Familia and NOT Parque Guell. I end up feeling pretty good, but still hope to get a good night's sleep though I lay through most of the day. Feel pleasantly full, Ken seems in good shape, so maybe we've passed the worst of it. Wouldn't want another day like today! Bed at 11:30PM, still full, not able to shit; Ken saying we should try the breakfast place on the Plaza at 9AM tomorrow.

MONDAY, 9/1/08: 12:55PM: Wake with dream 1. Type to 12:59PM. 7:23AM: Just typed dream 6, peed, and went outside for the sheet that noted dreams 2 through 5 to transcribe into file 8. 8:21AM: Get up to type, but Ken is awake, saying he slept through without a sleeping pill, took a Tylenol, and is feeling better, and since he's up, it's no longer necessary that I go into the bathroom to type, so I sit on my bed and type this: 1) My general trip-itinerary process becomes much more specific: a) If a friend (Ken, Fred, Steve, Dale, Spartacus, Shelley) wants to go somewhere, and I want to go, too, it's an easy choice. b) If an irresistible destination, for instance: i) the five Stans, ii) some destinations on the west coast of Africa, iii) Persepolis, comes up, I might try to do it myself on a VERY limited basis: two or three days just to "check off a new place I want to see," or a tour that encompasses many of them for not TOO much money. 2) My play-producing urge becomes much more specific: I NEED to find out whether I promised myself $5,000 or $10,000 to be spent on producing my plays, and, combined with putting them on my website, put together two or three evenings that I "populate" through Audience Extras (they HAVE to be AT LEAST as good as the four abortions I saw at 59E59 with Spartacus). 3) Today's itinerary seems clear with a number of possibilities: a) Ken wants to do something I want to do, and we do it together, b) Ken holds to his intention of seeing at least Sagrada Familia today, in which case I have a two-part plan: i) search out the five-star hotel on the Gran Via and see if they're connected with a travel agency that can either transport me for the day to the three monasteries around Poblet or to one or more of the three Islands of the Balearics for a day or two. And then spend the rest of the day sitting and typing on the Ramblas to see what that part of Barcelona is like. My MODERN art experience yesterday puts me off more MODERN art, and OLD art leads me primarily to Poblet. And the rest of the trip in Barcelona is only in a holding pattern for Ken's evening restaurants, or his plans that I might agree with, waiting for the day when we leave on our auto trip to the rest of Spain and France. Our "malaise" of yesterday is a perfect example of "something new going wrong," which I can expect more of as I travel to stranger and stranger places as I get older and older and more and more susceptible to unexpected "malaises." I now transfer the bills from the back of note 2 to the back of note 1, to consolidate them for future calculations of expenses. And now at 8:32AM I'm really starting to feel hungry, so breakfast can't be too far in the future. 8:35AM: Go to bathroom to prepare for day. 8:44AM: Ken goes into bathroom, preparing for breakfast, saying we'll come back here afterward so that he can confirm our restaurants for the next two nights. I'll just tag along with him to see how I feel getting into "the first day after the malaise," for which even KEN isn't predicting what the outcome will be. What a luxury to have SO much time here that "wasting" a day or two just doesn't seem important. Reminding me of my suggestion during our long talk on the museum bench before he left for the hotel at noon yesterday: that his malaise (or lassitude, as he calls it) might be due to some PSYCHOLOGICAL disappointment at some level with Barcelona, leaving him feeling powerless and energyless in the face of his disappointment, but he dismisses that flatly. 8:47AM: He accepts my saying we leave out the "Do not disturb" sign until after we get back from breakfast so that we BOTH know how we feel about entering into the rest of the day. A new level of "come what may." I REALLY hope that my usual enormous luck will result in SOMETHING developing about Poblet AND Balearics. 10:31AM: Nothing of the sort. Leave for breakfast just after 9AM, having a ludicrously sugary roll, a lovely flute of fresh-squeezed orange juice, all my pills, and another cup of coffee con leche and sucre, which Ken insists is Catalan, since azucar is Spanish for sugar. Leave at 9:30 to walk to the Ritz/Palace, being reconstructed, which has no tourist office, but a clerk suggests a place across the Gran Via. Go there, but it's only for international travel, so she points me around the corner to a local place, which has ONLY the same stale tours everyone has of Barcelona, Montserrat, and Sitges WITH Montserrat. Try another place, in fact TWO other places, with no luck whatsoever. And my HEEL is hurting MORE than ever, and I look wistfully at a doctor's sign hung out on Avenida Pilau. Back to hotel to get key at 10:30, pee, and type this. Waiter at the Cafe Zurich for breakfast has a DYNAMITE smile for EVERYONE, including the skin-multi-shaded group of five from Ibiza, "the island of sex," at the next table. Debate taking Cipro to rid my heel of its pain. Well, what can I lose? Take a Cipro at 10:40AM, completely ignoring 1) the printed warning not to take it before six hours after taking magnesium, which I took an hour and a half ago, and 2) the fact that I only have seven of the "required" ten capsules, but that's because I took THREE before that totally rid me of whatever caused me to take it, which meant that I FORGOT to finish that prescription dose from a couple years ago, and at least see that I should take this batch SOON, since it expires 3/09, which is hardly a good reason, but I'll grasp at any straws. Decide to do some sudoku to see if my heel feels better now, after 10:45AM. Sudoku to 11:50AM, dressing to go sit out on the Ramblas. At 12:10PM I ask and get an OK for a COPY of my passport to conduct my change of $220 into 139.41€, with a commission of 6.01€, at probably a terrible rate, though this was where I thought I would do best: Banco Popular. Find a perch on which to sit on the hot Ramblas at 12:30, heel VERY sore, particularly after I sit for a bit and THEN walk on it: ending up walking with my foot toed IN, which I'm sure will hurt my leg more than it will save my foot, but otherwise it's simply UNBEARABLE to put my right foot down "straight" and walk "straight" off the toe. Lunch at "American Soda" 1:55-2:25 with awful gazpacho, not bad four chicken legs with French fries, two poor slices of tomato and one of cucumber, with a half-liter of Fosters draft for which they charged almost 5€! The Ramblas changes from animals and birds, to posing people, to sunny patches with tables under umbrellas on each side, to narrower places with souvenir shops, to the Theatro Liceu, and farther south to the Royal Theater, which no longer seems to be a theater, and get to #69 the Barcelona Colon (whether Column or Columbus I'm not sure) at 3:12PM, then take #70 up the other way, for lack of anything else to take, even though I detour through part of La Boqueria at 3:25, rather bored with the whole thing, undoubtedly shadowed by the pain in my foot, and I turn up Tallers and get to Gravina and to hotel at 3:55, claiming the key and entering the empty room with all the lights going on as I put in the key, and I have a satisfactorily solid shit to 4:03PM, reading a few pages of Ken's Grief, by Andrew Holleran, not engrossing, and type this out, wearily, by 4:12PM. Is it FIVE hours to kill tonight before a 9:30PM dinner reservation? Drank a whole quarter-liter of cold water to try to stop the VERY slight nausea that I figure is from the Cipro without enough water to wash it down, though the half-liter of beer SHOULD have helped some, but I've probably been sweating more than that in the humid sun on the Ramblas, not really THAT many people worth looking at: there was more beauty on the way to Casa Mila the first evening than there was on the entire Ramblas this afternoon. Many very dark, many surprisingly PURE WHITE tourists, but mostly tourists, some shirtless showing not very interesting midriffs, a few nice cannonball shoulders, mostly just ordinary people trying to find some fun in disturbing the silent models who are only trying to make a few euros from people's curiosity. Finish this at 4:15 and figure to console myself with sudoku until Ken gets back. Do sudoku to 8; Ken gets back even before I start another sudoku and praises Casa Battlo, and I puzzle and puzzle till 7:55, Ken refusing to lend me a tie even though he insists I'll look out of place in this one-star restaurant. I find a STONE under my Odor-Eater's heel, which MAY have partly caused my problem! It's due, unfortunately, to the hole in the side of my shoe, dumbly. I fold up the pad in my black shoe, hoping to help my heel, and take an acetaminophen. Nothing helps, I still feel sore, though not as bad as in mid-afternoon. Walk slowly toward Drolma in the elegant Hotel Majestic, getting in about 8:37PM, shown to a table at the entrance that the headwaiter hopes won't be affected by smokers. Only at the end do the four Japanese businessmen light up. Ken insisted everyone would be formal: in fact only Ken, the headwaiter, and one elderly man had ties at all, and many had short-sleeved shirts. We started with a creamy appetizer, then (wish I'd asked for a copy of the menu) a platter of four "things": shrimp, a folded something, a pile of fish with a sauce---well, and something else. Many fish courses, along with tuna belly in the best sauce of the evening, pork belly, lots of cheeses we didn't finish, and a mediocre dessert followed by four mignardises of which we left the coconut. The wine for 35€ wasn't bad, the service was nice, and I fell in love with the young-50 gray-headed fellow with his ham-fingered lover. Lots of water, for which they only charged us for TWO bottles at 4€ each, along with a service of 9€ each, and the tastings at 135€ for a grand total of 354.17€, as close as makes no difference to $533 for both of us, and this is only for a one-star! Stuffed; Ken didn't finish his tubrot (GOT to leave that for turbot), from which we BOTH left the very fatty bottom skin. Water was poured freely, surely more than the two bottles they charged us for, and the wine was doled out so skillfully it seemed we always had enough, but were wise enough to refuse the first offering of champagne or cava, as it would have added another 15€ AT LEAST to the bill EACH. Waiter could hardly believe that Ken guessed that the John Leguizamo-look-alike was from Colombia. Ken summed it up as we left at 11:05PM: "It was certainly worth one star, but not anything more." He gave me more than half each of his three final cheeses, and I had five, including a blissful Brie, a forehead-tingling bleu, and a milky Spanish I'd never had anything like before, including a "smoked," though maybe he said "goat," black-rinded cream-cheese-like cheese. Some of the dishes were quite beautiful, but the group of men in shirtsleeves in the next room and the five-year-old's voice coming from an eleven-year-old's body were not. The dessert of a coffeecake in a fruit puree, with coffee flakes on the side and some kind of ice cream, wasn't worth the wait, and Ken didn't finish that, either, though I mopped up most of my sauces with the bread that was cut by hand, the entire loaf, on a table in front of us, which seemed overly silly. I saved the bill, again wished I'd asked for the menu, and we walked slowly to the hotel by 11:30PM and I finish this at 11:51PM, still too full by far to go to sleep.

TUESDAY, 9/2/08: Talk desultorily until 12:45AM and go to bed. 5:26AM: Pee with asparagus smell. Type dream. Ken rousts me at 8:50AM; we leave at 9:03! Breakfast at Zurich to 9:45. At 10:06 we buy tickets for a tour at 11 and in for Liceu at 10:56 to 11:25. Take Metro L3 at 12:10 to Miro Museum. 1972 statue is PRE ET? Good quiet lunch 1:45-2:25: beer, hamduck, salad, and batida. #86 Bernot Despuig: Sts. Michael and Peter. To Duchamp and Man Ray in basement to 6PM, bus down hill to hotel at 6:35. Rest, Times puzzle, leave for Abac 8:10PM. There on Metro to Tibidao to 8:40. Some awful tastes which I insist are sea urchin but they say not, and I still wonder if some of the oysters or clams or seafood didn't help make me sick the next day. Leave 11:10, Ken panicking about missing last metro, back to hotel 12:05AM.

WEDNESDAY, 9/3/08: Pee and take night pills to 12:12, Ken insisting, "We got the last train down, you know." 12:31AM: No idea where I am in anything. Just had a fairly mediocre dinner for 350+€ at Abac, mediocre wines, awful fish in the form of clams and oysters and sea bass and VEAL TENDON (hardly fish, but almost the same awful gluey consistency). Cute couple of which I could see the twink, in his early 20s, and Ken could only see the older partner, who he insisted was the same age as the twink, which was nonsense. Quite a surprise to see them, and other couples, sitting outside under trees in the garden while we waited for the interminable (for Ken) time while they typed out our food and wine list, which I thought was VERY nice of them to do and VERY unkind of Ken to begrudge them the time to do it. He DID insist that we caught the last train back, which may have been so, but what would have been the problem of getting a cab? Got back for Ken to take his pills, after which he insisted he had to stay awake for an HOUR AND A HALF, which I had difficulty believing, but he lay on his bed as I typed this at (yes, I caught THE second) 12:34:56AM, and I kept on typing, not knowing (as he ADMITTED not knowing) how long it would take him to get to sleep. But I kept insisting we had NO schedule planned for tomorrow, so it was a draw. AND he was just as shitty about leaving Abac as I had been a number of times during the day, so I had no monopoly on pissiness. GUESS I took my night pills, and debated taking another acetaminophen---well, guess I WILL! Bed at 12:40AM. Wake at TEN AM, without ANY knowledge of having wakened AT ALL during the night: extraordinary! Dress by 10:17, and out to Starbucks for an iced drink for like $8 while Ken complains about my wanting to sit at a window, rather than staring at the john, and then he likes the views I've given him without thanking me. Just don't feel like doing anything. He goes to Park Guell, I lie down; they haven't made up our room, since somehow the sign on door was at "No." Shit at 1:35 and go to lunch at Viena, loud with kids and terrible food, making my own shandy with a half-glass of beer and a can of Fanta Lemon. That goes to 2:30, watching people, and back to find room fixed, and I find my missing Visa card. Still feel sick. Ken back 3:15. Read paper and do puzzle to 4:30. Shit SOME at 5:20, so constipation isn't my problem. Maybe heat and humidity? Or just agony from foot. Dress at 6:50 and out to Ramblas for Taller (tailor) Tapas, his sardines awful, my foie good, hot peppers good, shrimp: one VERY fishy, other better; tomato-bread mediocre, his "special" potatoes no big deal, as he himself admitted. Good cava for $21, probably as good as the 10€ one. Finish dinner for 63.61€ at 8:40, he thinking that's good. Walk a bit more and back to hotel at 9:20, bed at 10:10PM, hoping to recover.

THURSDAY, 9/4/08: Pee at 1:01AM, dream at 4:30, then lie awake a lot. Ken goes to john and says I can shower whenever I want, so I go in at 8:05 and out at 8:25, and type this to date at 8:43AM, Ken dressing to go out already. 2:53PM: Start typing. Breakfast at Starbucks with pomegranate and peach juice, which STILL left my stomach feeling vaguely nauseated, to 9:30. Ken insists on trying information at the Plaza again about a wine tour that includes the making of cava, but there ARE none, not to Freixnet nor Cordoniu. That takes to 9:50. #98 Santa Maria del Mar at 10:12: yes, it was expansive; yes, they did have a stained-glass window for the 1992 Olympics (with names too small to read), yes, there were lots of tourists there, but I REALLY didn't much care. Ken went around the rounds twice, then we parted: he to Picasso, I to Aquarium. There at 11AM, entry above age 60 for 13€, good film 11-11:30, look at lots of fish, lots of titles, little new, except that cuttlefish are ALWAYS interested in anyone who's interested in THEM. Lunch 12:50-1:20 of special lunch at 6.4€ for a half-liter of beer and a long cheese and ham sandwich, immediately joined by two families when I chose a "quiet" corner in which to sit. REALLY DISGUSTED: with my foot, with my irritability, with Ken, with the heat---and with whomever is trying their key in our door at 2:58PM! Look at more exhibits, shit at 2PM after looking at endearing films of penguins. Leave at 2:05, walking in 32-degrees-Centigrade heat from the Rambla del Mar to the Liceu, where I took a picture of the picture of the interior #128 at 2:30, and to hotel at 2:46 to rip off clothes, then catch up with this to 3PM, then take out my subway/bus ticket so I don't forget to take it, then just lie down! Up to some puzzles and Ken comes in to tell of his triumphant day with the Picasso Museum, the Pre-Christian exhibits, the Textile Museum, the other museum that he got a free entry to, and other exhibits that blew his mind. I tried to be as happy for him as my irritability would permit, but it was difficult. Tried working on a number of puzzles and got nowhere, and all he would say was that it was "a ten-minute walk for an 8:30 reservation." So we left at 8:15 and got there at 8:40, first into the room, closely joined by a pair speaking Italian, one of whom had won a Ballantine beer contest that gave him three days in Barcelona. Then another couple sat behind me, then demanded to be put into the inner room, and then, to Ken's shock, they LEFT. He kept describing the people behind me, since I was facing ONLY the wall. The servers didn't speak very well the English, and Ken did a classic joke at the end by saying it was just a "fish" (pescado) rather than a "sin" (peccado) that the chef didn't have two stars at least. GORGEOUS Alex Garas was the chef, who signed my menu, with the waiter saying he was busy cooking and apologized for not being able to come personally to the table. LOTS of problems with the wines, but we ended up getting about six of them for about 20€ apiece! The 105€ fixed price being increased only to 125€, and that was it! Leave about 11PM, walking along the Rambla de Catalunya, and getting back to the hotel by 11:30. I type this to 12:02AM after brushing my teeth thoroughly while reading Scientific American, and Ken figured he was leaving 64€ in laundry, very close to $100, which says how crazy HE is.

FRIDAY, 9/5/08: Ken's reading on the sofa, and I'm finishing up now at 12:03AM, ready to get to sleep despite his sneezing and coughing and generally making an ass of himself. Glad to get my teeth done, including all three implements AND the flossing device, though my gums feel quite raw, and my foot is SOMEWHAT better, but I can only hope it KEEPS improving. I said positively that I was having breakfast at Viena tomorrow, and NOT at Starbucks, which I just don't care for at all, nor for the feeling of nausea in my stomach when I finish with their beverages, despite the fact that Ken called me, distinctly, "a fool," for not trying their hot chocolate. So much for HIS opinion. Finish this at 12:05AM and prepare for bed, tired. 6:54AM: Bed at 12:10AM, after taking two acetaminophen in hopes of easing my foot pain. Then up with a seemingly endless dream of a long stay in rural Tibet. Type to 7:02AM, not getting in ANY of the dream-detail that I'd hoped to capture. Take two aspirin for what might be a slight hangover from the wine last night, and as a fervent hope for foot-pain relief. Get back to sleep fairly quickly, but Ken's up in the bathroom at 8:20AM, and assumes I'm going to get up, too, but I grumble, "It still seems a bit early." He takes down his $100 laundry and figures Viena won't be open until 9AM, which might in fact be the case. Now at 8:34, maybe we can delay until then? Ken outlines maybe a dozen places on a Fodor's tour of the neighborhood, involving a ton of walking that even HE feels he might not be up to, and sits reading his book while I put my Odor-Eater back into my left shoe, hoping my right foot is well enough with only one folded one for arch support, and finish this at 8:50AM. Ken LIKES Viena, and my bacon and egg sandwich is VERY rare but VERY filling. Onto B6 at 10AM, and into Monastery to 12. Took pictures of many dioramas. #142 apse windows at 12:19. 1:10 have Fanta and then into Ceramics Museum, Ken disgusted, moving apart from me. Decorative Arts are fabulous in old palace rooms. #144 15th Century erotic tile at 1:48. #151-2 Font D'Hercules, by Gaudi, from 1884, at 2:34, and can't find his symmetrically placed other sculpture. At 2:53PM find that bus 63 ends at Plaza Universitat! On bus at 3:06, down boring Diagonal Avenguda, off at 3:35 for Bikini and Pauliner at D'Or to 3:52 for 8€. Think Ken beat me to room, since key to 221 is gone, but he's not there; HE had it, coming in right after maid had to let me in. Do puzzles, resting my foot, and to Tapas24 at 8PM and meet couple from Vic. Ken has gazpacho, sausage omelet, and chicken, while I have potato and meal "bombes," good, and mediocre McFoie-Burger, raw meat and little foie, and good spicy lamb skewers, and two puffy pastries while he has vanilla and chocolate ice cream. Two glasses of cava each only 3€ each, a bargain for Seguras Vieudas. Done at 9:15 for 51.50€, which I pay. Ken phones. Finish HARD puzzle by 10:06 and do an ambitious sudoku, and Ken says he wants to go to sleep soon, so I finish this at 11PM and get ready to take my night pills and fill pillboxes for tomorrow, the next to last full day here! He's got tomorrow all planned, and I can't think of a THING I want to do. Bed at 11:05PM and get to sleep quickly.

SATURDAY, 9/6/08: 4:16AM: I think I hear a knock on the door and wake to say, "Yes?" aloud, but find I've been dreaming. Get ready to get up for the john to type a dream, but Ken gets up and beats me to it. When he comes out, I get up and get water and Neo and shit a bit and type dream. Finish typing (and shitting) at 4:27AM. Up at 8:40AM, amazingly LATE! Take a Toridol of Ken's at 9:35AM for pain, though it doesn't do particularly well. To Viena 9:53, for 6.5€ breakfast of VERY underdone frank and onions and an orange juice. To Liceu lounge at 10:04. #155 main lobby 10:52. Tour to 11:20. To #159 Palau Guell 11:54, having a free tour, but seeing almost nothing of the first floor but a souvenir shop, so I buy a little book that shows what we didn't see. Good movie, and then stand waiting on line at Cal Pep at 12:55, first for a 1:30 opening, and have LOADS of food, a cava, and two beers, with the beef at the end being the very best, sharing with our Japanese friends, who finally give Ken a reluctant taste of their mushrooms in exchange for my beef and potatoes. Lines of people waiting behind us, cheerful help, and we're out at 2:25. To pre-Columbian Museum 2:37PM for 1.7€ for senior. 2:41 Jaina male figure 500-900AD. #165 Maya male 600-900AD. #166 anthropomorphic statue, Chiriqui, Costa Rica 300-700AD, and I'm told not to take pictures. #167 lower left: La Bermudas, middle left Canarias, center Hispaniola. Want the two great erections (one displayed face down ONLY), but guard keeps looking at me, so finally I go to the reading room, look through amazing Antiquarian magazines, and finally find the two pictures that I take photos of! Leave 3:52. 4:05 to Liceu and I'm told ballet's over at 7:30. Since I'm over 65, it's a 30% discount. Get box 24 in Amphitheater for 38€, reduced from 57€, about $58. Sit at 4:17 in lobby and SWEAT. Look through photos to 4:34, having peed and drunk LOTS of water, with john right across hall, but it was hard to find how to open the door. 5:02-5:35PM first dance to zappy fado music and singing, fabulous bodies wearing almost nothing, very energetic dancing, SEXY guys. Audience quiet but not that enthusiastic. 6:02-6:22 ALSO fast and whippy and muscular and body-showing: MUCH the same. My box-mates don't show up, so I get the FRONT SEAT! GREAT luck! Orchestra shows up for third piece, by Ohad Naharin, and he's never gotten over, from Dance Theater Workshop, the idea that he can create a FUNNY dance by having people flail about the stage. It's just AWFUL, and I wonder at the audience's tolerance, until finally, at what seems to be a more acceptable Florence Foster Jenkins aria, the audience starts whistling and clapping JUST before that awful part is over. I'm getting ready to leave at 7:30, though they're not finished: flailing and milking final applause, which, amazingly, they GET. Go to the john again and leave, audience still applauding, at 7:38. RUSH home, in pain, at 7:48, Ken saying, "I was thinking of leaving," and DID say he complimented me on rushing home, but it put me over the edge: felt AWFUL as I dashed to change clothes and wash my face. We leave at 8:05, taking two subways with longer connecting tunnels than the actual one-stop trip that we took, still getting there too early, having to sit at a table refusing drinks until MOO in the Hotel OOM opens. Ken insists on the 100€ menu when I don't want that much, feel ill during the cava, worse with the poached Golden Egg, and didn't care for the foie SOUP instead of foie gras that Ken insisted I would have, but I KNEW it would not be foie gras, and then another substitution of pig's foot for something else, with the shrimp, and I take one bite of it and know that if I don't do something I'm going to throw up. Excuse myself, go downstairs to try to shit but can't, and tell Ken I'll just have to get a cab. They phone and say it's Saturday night, so no one's taking reservations, I can only go to the street to wait for a passing cab. Do so, and thankfully one comes quickly, knows where Hotel Gravina is, and it's only 4.2€. Out and stumble upstairs, feeling awful, and bed at 10:10PM: I may even have a FEVER. Drink lots of water but can't shit, thinking of Ken's getting constipated when he took codeine, as I've just taken for three days. AWFUL! Ken comes back about 11:30, saying the meal wasn't the greatest.

SUNDAY, 9/7/08: Bed at 12:02AM, feeling awful. Pee at 1:09AM. No shit. Shiver a few times, awful feeling. ENDLESS (random) linking of veins and arteries in a dream-fantasy of sorts, making me think I "rewired" my body so that water isn't getting to my GUT and I'll NEVER shit. Ken puts out a stool softener for me. Pee again 2:34AM. 5:55AM pee, and I take Ken's stool softener. BARELY sleep. 8:33AM pee. TRY to shit. Only one TINY turd. 11:55 shit fairly decently. 12:15: down to sit in lobby while room is cleaned. Back to room at 1:06. 2:44 up to read paper. Finish Sunday Times puzzle at 4:40, Ken back, praising his day in great detail, going into details about tomorrow, and I shower to 5:15, finish Grief to 5:50PM, still feeling dizzy and nauseous, and start typing at 7:08 and finish to date at 7:34PM, Ken patiently sitting. I HOPE I can survive dinner at his first, Stephanie's recommendation, Origins 99.9. Wish for pea soup and get vegetable soup, very like pea, but not very hot and not very tasty. The veal and olives has a great sauce, but the meat makes me nauseous. They only have melon and watermelon for fruits, so I take the peach in red wine, accommodatingly described as being "laxative and antiemetic." Just what the doctor ordered. Sexy bedroom-eyed waiter is worth the price, and we walk back at 9:10PM. Foot STILL sore, dammit; I thought it was healing! Sit up doing sudoku while Ken reads, and we're both tired and get to bed at 10:30, Ken having started packing. I have some little trouble getting to sleep, and burp peach juice twice, but not really as reflux.

MONDAY, 9/8/08: 5AM: Wake uncomfortably warm, then remember dream and go pee. Type to 5:05AM, slightly sweaty, no sign of shit. 6:45AM: Hardly slept since: thinking, thinking, thinking. Then decide to get up (having slept essentially 8 hours) and type another "special entry" in file 6: 6:48AM: Just lie in bed thinking, and decide I could type this insert rather than just lying there trying futilely to do an Actualism session (and blame it when it doesn't instantly cure me). Thought about poor Ken: I'd SAID to him that such things as my "viral infection" (as he insists on calling it, saying that HE had it, probably gave it to me, and I'm following him by half a day, and he assures me that I'll come out of it as HE came out of it---even getting to the point of saying, "I wish I could just wave my hands over your head and say, 'You're healed,' but I can't") hardly ever happened to me, but then of course I recalled our trip to Yellowstone during which (and what WAS it that inclined him to insist that I stop in at the clinic?) I was transported to a hospital across state lines (is that a felony?) and stayed overnight to take a $200 taxi trip back to Yellowstone the next day, after being assured that I WASN'T going to die of an embolism. And then I had to put up with his falling in the shower on the first day of our trip to Switzerland, and then, I think on another trip, when he hurt his shoulder so that I had to manhandle his overweight luggage into and out of hotels, and onto and off of overhead lugage-racks. So we've had quite a history, which I don't think I share with Fred, since I think (at the surface) that he and I have been healthy THROUGHOUT our (maybe a dozen) trips together. Then thought about Saturday, which was a BAD day because I had to leave Restaurant Moo for a taxi back to the hotel, and about all the GOOD things that happened that day: being first in line at Cal Pep, and sharing the mushrooms and beef with the Japanese ladies that Ken, at first, said, "Oh, BOB," at, and then later succumbed to temptation and asked for a taste of their mushrooms himself. And my delight with the two beers, the wonderful beef and potatoes that ended the meal, and then the luck of getting a 30% discount for a seat in the REAR of an amphitheater box and having the rest of the people in the box NOT APPEAR, so that I could move down to a front seat that cost probably something like TWICE what I paid for my, say, 40% obstructed view in the back. AND getting back to the hotel in time to LEAVE for Moo, though I left MOO at too early a time, though I suppose he was telling the truth (and not just trying to appease my sense of loss) when he said it wasn't the best meal of the trip, and PART of my nausea at the meal was the REPLACEMENT of shrimp and whatever with shrimp and pig's foot, which nauseated me so much that I had to leave the table for fear of vomiting right THERE! Yesterday was spent mostly in bed, though I COULD get up enough to have them clean the room, to take a shower, and to join Ken (which he greatly approved of, though I can't say I thought Origins 99.9 was as good as HE thought it was) to break my fast at dinner, before trusting to a buffet breakfast this morning to "launch" me into a new period of health. Really think I MUST compliment him on his patience with my illness, his constant encouragement and thoughtfulness in trying to get me over the humps, and his constant, constant planning, even though I have to put up with his ENDLESS rehashing of details of "getting the earphones, giving my ID card, going through the exhibits to the middle, going back to the desk, giving in my earphones, getting back my ID card, having lunch, going back to the desk, giving in my ID card, getting back my earphones, going back THROUGH the exhibits to where I left off," which I listened to in INCREASING numbness, but since that's the kind of thing I do all the time to Marj and Spartacus and Mildred, I can put up with it from Ken, though on occasion I make the mistake of saying, "You TOLD me already," when he starts talking about today, and he had ONLY told me about the travel TO our destination, and not the plan to check in at the hotel and then maybe go to the Dali Museum in the town before settling for a moderate dinner for our last evening before our trip-originating dinner at El Bulli. I even mentioned my fantasy, yesterday, of CANCELING OUT of the trip, and letting him finish on his own: he'd just have to pay for both HOTEL bills, not both RESTAURANT bills, anyway, which would probably be the more EXPENSIVE item. He mentioned that he's ALREADY withdrawn $900 and has to withdraw more before the end of the trip, and I've already put a lot on my credit card, and a possible future tragedy would be that Visa would STOP PAYMENT because they'd be sure it wasn't ME who was making all these charges and would have no way of CHECKING with me to verify that it WAS me making valid charges. And then I'd have to put it all on my HSBC card until THAT reached the limit, at which point KEN would have to pay for everything---all of which, of course, is possible, but I said yesterday that I was so USED to everything going OK, that when things DIDN'T go OK, I started to worry that they would NEVER right themselves and I would NEVER enjoy an instant of this trip. Or, needless to say, die of atrial fibrillation, or sinus arrhythmia, or premature ventricular systoles, or whatever might be causing my palpitations and fears when I wake and DEFINITELY feel something going on DIFFERENTLY with my heart, which Dr. Lee told me not to WORRY about, since HE has them all the time, but it's hard to be objective when you're HAVING them. Then tried Actualism, trying NOT to feel that it's NOT working, trying to rev up Radiant Warrior to get rid of my infection, if it is one; or should I start Cipro again, which I did before for two pills, which only increased my nausea, I think, or take more aspirin, but certainly NOT take any more acetaminophen with codeine, since I've had quite ENOUGH, thank you, of constipation, which, AGAIN, I never have on a trip, though I DO remember that awful evening in Washington when I writhed on the bathroom floor digitally extracting tiny turd after tiny turd from my distended anus as a relief from THAT episode of constipation. Who knew about stool softeners back then? Leave it to Ken to know about (and have a supply of) such things. On a different matter, thought about the Ramblas, and all the "living statues" that I didn't take pictures of, but console myself with the thought that "that was something you really had to BE there for," not something that could be adequately captured in a few pictures. And I still have a lot of days left on the trip---finally, painstakingly, counting through to find that we get back on MONDAY, not Tuesday, having somehow deluded myself into thinking that a 26-day trip was only ONE day short of four weeks, not being able to figure out how I could get back on TUESDAY, when I KNEW we were getting back on the 22nd, which is MONDAY. So now I console myself that "today is the first of the days of the week in which I have only ONE complete day of that week left in the trip!" I TOLD myself at the start that it was a too-long trip, but catered to Ken's wish to spend ELEVEN days in Barcelona, in my opinion much too much, though he kept saying it was one of the GREAT travel destinations; well, yes, but not compared to a DOZEN cities like NYC, London, Paris, Rome, St. Petersburg, Kyoto, Rio, Sydney, Madrid, Berlin, Munich, Moscow, and more BEYOND that twelve. But we DID have good times, and I managed to listen to his triumphs of food and museums to INFINITE detail, knowing that he'd do the same for me---and I've certainly SEEN Barcelona at this point! And hope that his patience with me will survive his directing me in the car for the rest of the trip while he navigates through his two or sometimes even THREE conflicting maps and sets of directions into and out of and through towns and countries for the fifteen days left of the trip. At least NOW, at 7:15AM, I don't feel nauseous, or constipated, though I AM a bit sweaty, but that may be because he turned down the air conditioner because I said I was cold. I guess I'm typed out---well, there WAS that crazed fever dream/reality of "reconnecting" veins and arteries in "eight different areas," associated with some BIZARRE fantasy about typing "eight different narratives" into one file, and somehow connecting them topologically and separating them out to print sequentially---but primarily SNIPPING OUT loops of blood vessels that "were in the wrong place," and reconnecting veins to arteries in the "correct" sequence, at one point looking down from overhead to a vast array of looping intestine-like red-and-blue-hued vessels in impossible intricacies that I had to "feel" my way through to make sure everything was CONNECTED properly. And I thought it went on for HOURS, but then I think I recorded two consecutive pees only about an hour apart, so it just SEEMED like hours, and of course I REALLY didn't do anything to my actual PHYSIOLOGY, as in my fevered state I feared I MIGHT have, totally ruining any chance for recovery I might have. How sick can THAT be? Now at 7:20AM can I call an end to this? Pee as I finish at 7:22AM, well over half an hour of typing. 8:04AM: After lying and thinking (and palpitating), look at my watch to see that it's 7:54AM, time enough to get up, so I shit SOME (not a little, not a lot, but SOME, just to get into "the rhythm" of my usual morning shit, I hope) and get out to find Ken up. Thank him again for his support and patience, and he responded, "Well, we both did all we could do." Which I suppose is good enough. I DID say that I felt QUITE good, though of course at 8AM it's hard to predict what the DAY will be like! I pack rather nicely until 8:44, separating out types of souvenirs, and then we go to Viena, where I START hungry and END feeling as if I've had something vaguely bad, though it was only a bikini and orange juice. Then try a closed pharmacy, Ken goes to find no Herald Tribune, then we're down Tallers to find no arch support, nor do they stock aromadors, or room deodorizers for shoes and shirts. Back for Ken to check weather ahead and get printouts for many towns, and I check my e-mail to find not much, except a "birthday song" from the day I was born from Suzie Mead. Up to type this to 9:56AM, remembering to take water bottle out of the refrigerator, and will now double my Odor-Eater for a makeshift arch support again. Pay bill of 613€+ by 10:08 and wait for taxi while sitting in chairs. Taxi comes at 10:17 and we're to Avis by 10:28. Two odometer readings of 826.0 and 4048 are a mystery until I drive (blindly through city, terrified of traffic, lights, pedestrians, motorcyclists, and Ken's directions); then tentatively through near countryside, aware of brownness of grass; easier when the road shrinks to three lanes (in one direction), then two lanes, then actually to one lane as we passed (because it wasn't marked and had to go farther and turn around a convenient circle to return to the N11a turnoff for Figueras) the right road, and got to Hotel Duran at 12:57 with the readings 940.4 and 4162, giving a difference for BOTH of 114, obviously kilometers, one being for a leg, the other for a trip, and Ken didn't know how to reset it, but he finally found a control over the rearview mirror that shut off the mid-back inside light that drove me crazy for the first part of the trip---he shut it off when we stopped for him to pee before we got to the Figueras hotel. We get a key and try it in room 102 a number of times; Ken goes down for instructions, and comes back to try again; then goes down again and comes back laughing: the ROOM'S RATE is 102€, our room NUMBER is 215! Unpack a minimal amount, enjoying the balcony view (we have one of only two in the whole hotel, and a truly luxurious bathroom with a shower stall bigger than any possible bathtub), and then across to the Meson Castel 1:35-2:49 for Ken's scallops after his gazpacho-style soup that I thought was quite strong in taste, and my lamb chops were tasty in their tiny nibbles of burnt edges and sides, including the hot fat adhering. I asked for vanilla ice cream in my profiteroles and we got into a huge argument about it until the waiter came out with a tiny puff filled with whipped cream: NO ice cream! Ken insisted they didn't serve it that way in France, and finally he asked if I'd "risk" his asking the couple behind him, French-speaking, which was true, and of course they agreed with me---HA, HA! Had the Catalan equivalent of the Italian dessert of a pastry roll stuffed with marscapone cheese, while drinking the most part of two bottles of gassy water, just delicious, while Ken had two cavas, just over a euro more than the water! BUT we paid for it: 79.91€! Across to the Theater-Museum Dali-Gala for 8€ for me, cashing my last 50€ note easily, and astounded by the quantity and quality of the stuff on their many walls and spacious halls and former stage and seating areas: #185 a Dali painted at age 11, and #187 at age 15. #200 from 1972-3, #203 and more from "Chants de Maldoror," truly sick. Many more pictures, though I could have gone on forever, to #214 Dix Recettes d'Immortalite, and there ARE nine reflections of the tenth real DNA-like strand. Photoed movies of hologram of Dali Painting Gala (who seemed to be painting, herself), and of a trio with the little girl from "Las Meninas" floating in and out between the left two figures. Then to the jewelry museum next door, great stuff, Ken buying a book about THIS museum, me buying a book for 10€ about all THREE museums in the area, and get back to hotel quite tired at 6:03PM. I read the two books we bought and Ken reveals he's had a stomachache so severe that he took a Cipro at 6PM to try to get rid of it so it wouldn't affect dinner tomorrow at El Bulli. He figures to go down to dinner with me and have "a salad and some cheese and a glass of wine," but when we dress at 8:36 and go down at 8:45 (to one other couple, later joined by maybe six others), the a la carte prices are so outrageous that he agrees with me that the 17€ daily menu can hardly be passed up. We take two of each: I the green beans salted (HEAVILY!) with ham, he the Catalan Omelette, both rather bad, as is the 6.7€ white half-bottle of wine, and then it goes ON: the meticulously prepared sole is "tasteless with too much butter" in Ken's opinion, and my pork is just barely OK, but when it came to dessert, and Ken wanted the pudding (which turned out to be the worst course of all), I had to choose the fruit, and the waiter suggested "watermelon, melon; or fruit: peach, orange, banana---" and I said yes, expecting a Dole Fruit Cocktail, but instead got a bowl overflowing with the real fruit, choosing a (what I thought to be tasty and juicy; Ken didn't agree) peach, an orange, better than the fresh juice in Viena this morning, and at Ken's prodding, the kiwi, which he also said was tasteless, but which tasted like any other kiwi to me. Up at 9:45, having signed for the bill for something like 35€ to be added to the hotel bill tomorrow when we leave. Back to the room, still cooling under my card constantly in the electric-slot, and Ken undresses and gets into bed, and I type this till 10:27, happy to be feeling better (though my feet hurt even though I DID curl up the Odor-Eater into a pad under my arch), and having an appetite, and FINALLY finishing a meal that didn't feel as if it tasted "slightly off": as if something wasn't quite right. Felt Ken's forehead a number of times to assure him he didn't have a fever, but he still determined to keep up with the Cipro, at the end of dinner, which he was happy to have had all of: "It was as if I requested a meal so bad that I wouldn't want to have much of it." Only up to note card 5 on this 12th day of the trip! But VERY happy to be feeling at LEAST 90% competent, and happy that we won't have to be doing highways at all during the next few days! And tomorrow (for all the agony it's caused both of us, according to Ken) the POINT OF THE TRIP: DINNER AT EL BULLI, which, with luck, in 24 hours we'll be about halfway through! Then decide I need to stay up some to digest more of my meal, and brush my teeth thoroughly, needing to, since they're getting furry, and my second-from-back molar on the upper left is beginning to feel sensitive, as it does when I haven't brushed for a while. Read Ken's (now my) book on the origins of figures of speech (Who Put the Butter in Butterfly?) while doing it, then get to bed to read more while Ken's still reading, and then decide to go to sleep at 11:20PM, surprised it's so late. Take out my earplug to ask how his stomach's feeling and he replies, "Fine," though I'm not sure with how much confidence. Can't immediately locate my "usual" facemask, so I take another loose-fitting black one from my dop kit and put it on, at first putting my head onto too-awkward a stack of pillows, but find a decent place to rest and drift off to sleep at about 11:45PM.

TUESDAY, 9/9/08: Pee about 3AM, then stay awake until Ken goes to the john, when he says he's still feeling OK, and looks at his watch to say that it's 3:45AM. Guess I get to sleep, because at 5AM I get up to pee and type a dream. Finish typing dream at 5:18AM, having gotten the core of it down pretty well, except for the sex scene. The light in the bathroom here in Figueras is QUITE bright on first entering the bathroom, but then it's OK to type in. 8:09AM: Ken goes into the john and I type 7:45AM dream. 8:16AM: Finish typing dream and wonder how many more mornings will find me wishing the trip over and myself at home free to do exactly what I want whenever I want, not the best feeling now: 13 days before the end of a trip! 8:36AM: Ken's clearing his throat (for the 87th time) looking at the "upside-down map," trying to figure how to reduce the number of turns to get out of town from twelve to a more manageable number. I gather all my stuff on my bed and update this, pleased to have a decent shit. Ken suggests asking at the desk for a place for breakfast with only cafe con leche and a roll. I update my copy of the itinerary with the remaining SEVENTEEN STARS in SEVEN restaurants over the next THIRTEEN nights. Finish dressing by 8:45AM. 9:23AM: Ken insists there's something terribly wrong with the orange juice at the Hotel Paris (which charges 13.2€ for coffee, cake, and orange juice for two), and refuses to drink half of it. Frankly, I'm not interested in the other half. The Rambla is pleasant, most of the clouds have cleared away, the sun casts some shadows, people pass and look at the menu, the flies buzz in the window, and the Asian waitress annoys me with her nasal whine. I help orient Ken with the map and the terrain, annoying him in the process, and get back to the room to check out. #248 from Hotel Duran balcony to Figueras Rambla 9:34AM. Check out at 9:45, Ken paying the bill and INSISTING that the bags remain INSIDE the lobby while he gets the car. [Start file 2 at 4:28PM 9/9/08] Start at kilometer 4200 at 9:55AM, Ken not allowing me to question why it should be 38 kilometers MORE than when we stopped at the hotel at kilometer 4162 yesterday. Drive out of town and get lost twice, but finally get to start the walk up to Monasterio de San Pere de Rodes at 11:11AM. #265 13th-Century mural at 12:03, after climbing up, down, around, and through the largely reconstucted monastery (being told that it was ransacked, looted, dynamited, and generally fucked over many times by many factions through the centuries). At 12:12 Ken decides to eat in THIS restaurant rather go down to Port de la Selva, since he's decided we're NOT going to take the side trip to Cadaques, because it will add two hours that he prefers to use to relax in the hotel before El Bulli. But THIS restaurant doesn't OPEN until 1PM. Drive down scenic drive to Port de la Selva at km 4250 at 12:56 and walk to Ca L'Hermine and don't think to open the door to the dark restaurant until a worker casually walks in at 1:05, and we're seated on a scenic balcony, where I take Ken's picture over the coast, order at 1:15, but another waitress appears and the service isn't as awful as we'd feared it would be. We have good cava to start, great salmon tartare for me and even-tasty-to-me anchovies for Ken, who also had a half-liter of white wine poorer than last night's, while I had a Damm beer that wasn't much better, and his fish, he said, was relatively tasteless, but my duck, rolled up on itself, was quite good, though we couldn't finish nearly all of it, holding off for dinner tonight. He got cheesecake covered with strawberry sauce for dessert, while I had two huge pieces of delicious watermelon, so pleased I didn't even bother to finish my beer by 2:20. Into car and drive more than halfway to Cadaques, but Ken remains firm and we miss Cadaques and arrive at the hotel at 3:12, to be shown to a room without air conditioning, which the maid said she'd take care of while Ken parked the car (laboriously, and finally with the help of a desk clerk), and when asked again she said I had to phone Reception and ask for service. Called at 3:42, sat outside in the cool hallway doing sudoku. Ken returned, went downstairs to change our room to 232 by saying that we had to rest up for El Bulli tonight! AND he told me in the car (possibly for the first time) that El Bulli strongly requested that we arrive by cab and return the same way, since we'd be having so much wine to drink. Desk says it takes about five minutes for the cab to come and 15 minutes to drive to the restaurant, so we're figuring on leaving at 7PM. I undress and try to dry out, when Ken suggests we take a walk along the beach. So I get dressed again and we go out 4:35-5:05, not really seeing much except some nice "yesterday (crumbling) and today (fresh and darker in color)" sand castles to which Ken donated a coin while I took a picture. Not much of interest on the beach, either physically, shoppingly, or scenically, so we come back and I figure to take a shower to free the bathroom for whatever he wants to do when he wants to do it, so I shower from 5:20-5:50, feeling much better for it, and finish this at 6:13, annoying him once MORE ("I TOLD you at least THREE times there were four starred restaurants in Barcelona, and only Abac had two stars!") and finding our trip giving the grand total of 22 stars in 11 restaurants in 24 whole days, or even 23 whole days if we discount our recovery day of the first Saturday. These next four days take the culinary cake, however: El Bulli (3) tonight, El Celler de Can Roca (2) tomorrow, Sant Pau (3) Thursday, and Can Fabes (3) Friday, giving ELEVEN stars (yes, HALF those on the whole trip) in FOUR days (as close to an average of three per day as you can get without actually doing it). Ken spends endless time on his bed checking maps and guidebooks, moaning about how lost we're going to get in the next few days, not at all helped by my somewhat snide remark that "It certainly bothers you MUCH more than it bothers me; I'm merely your little hand puppet, doing what you tell me; if anything goes wrong, I have nothing whatsoever to do with it" (though, in fact, my "wrong" turn today into Roses took us DIRECTLY to the front door of the hotel). Ken decides to take a shower just as I talc my crotch and deodor my underarms, and for a few frantic moments I think I left my clean socks and underwear behind! But then find them. Dress in them at 6:24PM, just about ready to go. 6:47: Ken had asked for FOUR more pillows for HIMSELF when I told him I asked the desk for two more pillows and they'd said, "Right away." I try to put folded Odor-Eater into black shoe, but it just won't work, so I leave it out: I hope there's not much walking. Ken now asks that I pay one of the cash cab fares. It'll probably put me in need of more euros. Now at 6:50PM I'm curious why we aren't leaving. Actually leave at 7:01 after not only TWO but FOUR pillows arrive for Ken! Down to order taxi at 7:05, which comes at 7:07 and arrives at El Bulli at 7:26PM, BEFORE gates open. Ken talks to couple from Quebec (of whom he says SHE reminds him of Simone Signoret, but I think more of---some other actress). We get ENDLESS mignardises (I keep saying, "But this is not dessert," but they simply respond, "They're apperitivos.") on the terrace, then lots of expensive cava, which Ken says we shouldn't have more of because we'll have lots of wine with dinner. Then inside, to a literally "chintzy" room, with us two being first, a couple whose guy wears blue jeans and white sneakers, and then a table of ten in the center, which I insist must be a cooking class, and the waitress says she doesn't know, but comes back with the report that they're GUESTS of the restaurant, and for the third time in three years! So they're REALLY someone! The woman "in pink," more in light violet, seemingly in charge, looking more and more to my inebriated self like Helen Mirren, rather looking down on the brash blonde at our end of the table who, amazingly, has the same RING (alexandrine, I think) of the "head mistress," but at one point the zhlub on her left puts his HAND on her ARM, which I don't understand at all. The OTHER guy (on her right) is a cypher, also, even when he talks, but I keep looking at the dark-skinned, black-haired, clear-eyed, transparent-emotioned maybe-Indian to "Mirren"'s right, who looks up adoringly at the waiter, with a smile at the man across from him, with intense yearning at the mistress, with puzzlement at something across the table: each emotion seemingly clear on his transparent visage. The courses go on and on, some better than others, but Ken finally confesses that it was NOT the transcendent experience he'd been hoping for, surely ranking it far below Alinea in Chicago, even confiding that to "Simone Signoret," who graciously comes by our table to ask how he likes the meal. About three-quarters of the way through, Ken insists he's totally full, doesn't want anything more, knows there're more desserts coming, wants no more wines. I had the temerity at one point to say I did NOT like the barnyard-y (Ken took me to task for expecting this European wait-staff to recognize an intensely American expression) red for the meat courses, and asked for another. The sommelier asking me what I liked, and I came up with Merlot and Pinot Noir, and he came up with a new red for BOTH me and Ken, which we both liked marginally better but which Ken didn't even finish, and I had no reason to, because when desserts came he asked if I wanted a glass of sweet wine and of course I did, and got a Rheingau Auslese that was quite good for the last six or seven courses. Finally it came time to ask for the check, for 582.16€, to which adding the 60€ for the taxis both ways, comes to 642.16€, or $964 for both, or $482 for each, less than Masa but probably more than the $400+ of the Rome Hilton. He wasn't sorry he CAME, but wouldn't come again, and was sorry it wasn't up to his expectations. I'm glad to have it over, at last, and be able to look forward to the two-star tomorrow followed by two three-stars in a row! And hoping that Eugenie Les Bains will still rank close to the top in quality, if not in price, though this time it just might. Left at 11:45PM, raced through the hills in our taxi; I tried to take an ineffectual video, and we got back to the hotel grounds JUST at midnight, and staggered up to the room, where Ken ripped off his clothes and I grabbed my Neo (oh, how that could be interpreted!) and typed until now, 12:26AM, still too early (and too full) to get to bed.

WEDNESDAY, 9/10/08: 12:26AM: Motorcycle buzzes outside; told Ken I climbed onto the john-seat to see if I could see the surf that he'd described as so---"I don't remember [the word I used]," he says, in a moment that reminds me of telling him to look at the moon, and he said, "It looks like the moon," and I said with as much bitterness as I thought he could bear: "Tell it to the judge!" I'm quite full, but not overfull, had a lot of wine and should probably take two aspirin along with my two night pills, which actually I think I'll do NOW so I don't forget! Bed at 12:40AM, saying to Ken, "How can I go to bed without typing what time I go to bed?" 6:07AM: Woke at 5:55. First impression: still being terribly full and sweaty under my bedclothes. Second impression: my heart doing one of its numbers: multiple beats, palpitations, whatever, to the point of my starting to worry (again) if something were REALLY wrong. Third impression: I'd lain on my side with the cord of my facemask eating into my lower left earlobe, causing quite a bit of pain, and as I sit on the john now at 6:10AM and transcribe these thoughts, it feels as if I have a large pimple that could have helped cause the soreness, or that could have been CAUSED by the soreness. Raised my eyemask and Ken was literally mummified in pillows, but then he stirred and unwrapped himself and looked at his little bedside clock (on the table between us that he said was too small for anything) and got up to go to the john. He returned as I got up to pee, but I think we both had our earplugs in and knew we couldn't say anything the other would hear, or we both felt so delicate about our present condition we really didn't want to talk about it. It was encouraging to me to see that I'd slept solidly for just over five hours, so I could sleep for three more hours with continuing improvement. But discouraging that I KNEW I'd roused to semi-consciousness sometime during the night with a dream that I thought to record, but was too paralyzed with food and drink to even DREAM (in the other sense: remotely consider) of getting up to transcribe. And of course have forgotten it. Burped a bit when I turned over; debate now taking two more aspirin---which I actually think I will, since I'm feeling "very fragile," if not actually dizzy or nauseous or bilious or physically unwell. Finish now at 6:16AM. At least, drinking water with aspirin, my heart has stopped palpitating. Ken's up at 8:40, going to the free breakfast with the old Brits that he characterizes, bizarrely, by saying, "Oh, yes, last night she was there with GOLD in her hair." I say I'm still tired and certainly not hungry. He returns at 9:20AM saying we have to check out by 10AM, so I get up and wash my face and see that I have a boil-like pimple a half-inch below my left ear; I have no idea where it came from. He says we have a few more days of clear weather, high of only 22 degrees, and I type this to 9:33 and prepare for the arduous job of packing, sure to be accompanied by his heckling. Pack improbably fast to 9:45AM. Pee and drink water and leave room at 9:50. Alone to counter, I pay, leave desk 9:56, two sets of people waiting behind. I guard bags as Ken goes WITH a room key to lot across the street for the car, back at 10:05, with km 4273, and we leave at 10:08. Park at Castillo D'Empurias at 10:27. Change $210 at 11:05 at Banco Popular for $136€ (despite dollar rising to a new high today, but Ken keeps complaining how his paying CASH for taxi fares COSTS him because when you use a foreign bank to take money out, that bank makes a charge, and YOUR bank makes a charge. Leave C.D'E. 11:45. To Ruinas D'Empurias 12:30, me free over 65, Ken 3€. Take photos in heat (surely more than the predicted 22 degrees), go to museum to photo cocks, and have lunch 1:30-2: croque monsieur good, beer, and wonderful lemon ice and AM pills with lukewarm water from the trunk of the car when we leave. Happy that we had time to go here, since Ken was thinking of canceling it because we had too little time to ensure we'd get to hotel in Girona even WITH getting lost. Castle Gala-Dali at 2:44-3:25, taking many pictures, but I think I'm tired and a bit bored and certainly footsore. To Hotel Ciutat de Gerona at 4:30 after I took the "wrong" turn on a road that ended RIGHT on Nord, where the hotel is. And HE drove off to the parking lot, encountered three posts blocking the road, walked back to the hotel to ask what to do, told to "drive up to them, and they'll sink into the ground," so he did that, and TWO sank into the ground, and the one on the right, which he couldn't see from the driver's seat, DIDN'T sink into the ground and he HIT it, though he "couldn't see" any damage to the car. We must have turned around, with Ken's incessant cursing, sometimes at my following his misdirected directions, AT LEAST FIVE TIMES. Lie down at 4:44, thankful to have my shoes and clothes off, and Ken goes to see the Cathedral, which I don't think sounds interesting until Fodor's says it has the BIGGEST NAVE IN THE WORLD! And then Ken describes this inconceivable "hanging wall" with windows lit, which can't possibly be lit because they're in the MIDDLE of the nave. I distribute the rest of the pills, with only Wednesday blank and Tuesday morning missing two pills; sort through clothes to hang up my dinner stuff and sort out more of the souvenirs. Ken comes back, I read his Tribune and do his puzzle and do an OLD puzzle of mine from the Saturday Times FINALLY to complete completion (as opposed to incomplete completion: I sadly admit having thrown away maybe two in the past), and he says we should leave about 8:30 for our 9PM dinner at Le Celler de Cana (with THREE Roca di Fontanés on the list). Take taxi for 7€, elegant rock-facing with a triangular glass atrium where we can watch the waiters parade past with wines, dishes, trays, and platters, and have a wonderful menu marred only by excessive waits for wines and courses, and one pissed executive who gets berated for using his cell phone at his table. We differ on what we like and don't like, but, for instance, the butter sauce on the sole was truly heavenly. Wait for the final wine list (and they ONLY charged us 40€ each for wines, even though we had a second glass from one of them) and wait outside for the taxi, which by coincidence is playing Juanes from Colombia, whom Ken likes, but dismisses the coincidence by saying, "Well, EVERYONE likes him." Yes, but in OUR TAXI!!?? Back to the hotel, and in the elevator before it leaves the ground floor my watch ticks over to 9/11. Up to pee and undress and compare notes and look at bills and compare weights (doing Ken's by my calculator to 211 pounds, really unfair after a full meal) and he reminds me that our breakfast here is free tomorrow, and being not stuffed and not squiffed, I just might do it, as well as paying for my entry to the cathedral to see what he thought was so unusual (and to photograph the largest nave in the world), and then to the museum, which the desk clerk says is worth more than a few hours. And then a casual day, which MAY bring rain for the first time, and a PAIR of three-star restaurants, both of which should end up on MY credit card.

THURSDAY, 9/11/08: Finish this at 12:35AM, ready to toss stuff off bed and get to sleep, but not MUCH before 12:45AM, since we really finished eating only an hour before. Relook at and finally SOLVE the difficult 8/2 Times puzzle at 12:59AM! Bed at 1AM. 7:19AM: Wake, thinking it must be something like 3:15AM, and MAY fall back to sleep, but then take stuff to bathroom to pee and type and find that it's 7:18AM. Type what (nothing) I remember of dream to 7:26AM, passing a few hard turds, happy that I feel neither food-stuffed nor wine-drunk, and that I can start the day with reasonable energy now, but I'd sure like a few more hours in bed. Boil under left ear bigger, redder, and sorer. What IS it? 9:02AM: Hear cough from bathroom and Ken is obviously up and getting ready for day. Transcribe dream to 9:06AM and sit in cold room, deciding to start getting ready for the day, wondering if it's raining outside, or again sunny in perverse opposition to a negative weather report. But it HAS been very dry, much grass is yellow-brown, so they clearly NEED rain. Turn air conditioner down to zero and put on luxury bathrobe supplied in room. Note that last night's meal might have been one of the best: perfect quantity, nothing terribly distasteful, nothing inedible, Ken particularly loved the sherry-type wine with the foie course, though we didn't particularly like the Prosecca (which Ken suggested might be the Spanish spelling of the Italian word Prosecco) that we were served, very late (in fact AFTER all the appetizers), after we said we didn't want cava to start. Ken looks at my lump and says it's a boil, "Almost certainly infected," and if it's still there in a couple of days I should consider taking antibiotics! Maybe France sells antibiotics without a prescription? To breakfast 9:27AM, bright Restaurant Blanc, eggs for the first time in ages, ham of three kinds, a glass of orange and a glass of apricot juice, hot chocolate, all for free, with a sports team of some kind filling the next tables, and out at 10:08. #358 WONDERFUL apartment above church, after climbing 87 steps, at 10:30. Then into museum, free today, a holiday, Catalunya Day (with a band going in one direction and fireworks in the other as we leave the hotel), and good audio guides to the best pieces, taking pictures of some, bored by many others, and out to try the cathedral, but they ARE charging, it's clearly not a very BIG nave in terms of height or width or depth, so why it's the BIGGEST is hard to determine, but there's a line waiting to get in, Ken's impatient to get back to the hotel, and I figure I just don't need to see it. #378 St. Narcis sepulchre, 1328 (Joan de Tournai) in St. Philip Feliu; #379 the tower at 11:52. Back to hotel (without getting lost, seeing big fish in the river) at 12:05 and drink FREE Fanta, wonderful and cold, and also the free Coke, but both only 200 ml, and I take the two gratis chocolates that Ken didn't want. Pack to 12:21, pee, and check out at 12:40, Ken going for the car after paying hotel 179.92€. Km 4373 at leaving hotel 12:56. 1:48 stop at gas station for directions from Bisbal. Ken goes nuts trying to get us onto scenic highways, then complains when I get out of the car to take pictures from the overlook (granted, I sometimes chose the wrong side of the highway to get off). Hot outside, very many roads from narrow two-lane to superhighway (though not the dreaded A7), and not THAT much to see, but some of the coastal houses are spectacular. To Hotel Gran Sol at 4:44, tired, at km 4518. To room 37 at 4:49 and pee before Ken gets in to pee, then he goes to move the car just before the phone rings to ask him to move the car. Hot in the room until the guy comes and adjusts the controls and it DOES begin to cool, and just now the maid brings three PILLOWS in place of her former three PILLOWCASES. Ken agrees to a taxi to the restaurant when I suggest I'll pay for it, even AFTER he bemoaned the losing of the good parking space IF the car had to leave for dinner in the restaurant in the center of town. Start typing 5:14 and end at 5:34, waiting for call to taxi at 8:50 this evening. Will start a Times puzzle and see how I feel: if I'd like to walk somewhere after sundown. Actually go through the Tribune and finish THAT puzzle by 6:23PM, as a kid somewhere outside absolutely SCREAMS as loud as it possibly can for a few minutes (at least I HOPE a few minutes). Then the kid stops before I put in earplugs. Do BOTH 8/3 Times puzzles by 7:48. COLD in working air conditioning. Start the 8/9 puzzle and get three-quarters through by 8:21 and just have to wash my face and put clothes on. Downstairs at 8:40PM to be told our taxi was here, and he had to go NORTH on the divided highway to a TURNING POINT to turn, so I broke the law, probably, when I cut across the lane to enter the hotel driveway. We got off in front of the restaurant, assured by the boy standing in front that he knew the number of the driver for the ride back, since he only charged, and seemed happy with, 5€ for the trip out, one that I DEFINITELY wouldn't have wanted to do: MANY turns, NARROW streets, practically squashing pedestrians against the walls of the buildings on either side. Into a lofty space, to be given a central table facing OUT over a wonderful garden with skin-textured plane trees under-lit, and passersby stopping by the gated side (when not overshadowed by trains passing directly behind them) to gawk at us. Wonderful waitress assured us she'd say everything in English, gave us a large glass of cava that was so good it equaled champagne, and then a whole list of appetizers with a CHART that showed what they LOOKED like as well as their ingredients! WONDERFUL idea! A marvelous meal followed, which Ken kept calling the best he ever had in his life. We ate, drank, and watched the Japanese woman behind me almost become sick, then took my tisane down to the garden with the ten desserts and an added Passion Fruit one to commemorate Catalunya Day today, which a waiter took pains to say went back to the late 1700s, when Spain took Catalunya into itself without asking permission, and Catalans have been pissed ever since, though today "is a day of celebration," according to his meliorating talk. Great desserts, great tea, brought up back to our table for me to get the check, marvelously reasonable at 355€. Got our copies of the wines, with a card from the sommelier, and finally my copy of the bill, and we went outside to wait for the taxi, which came quickly, and got back to the hotel miraculously quickly at 12:15AM, just as the first drops of rain fell from the sky.

FRIDAY, 9/12/08: 12:40AM: Prepared to brush my teeth, and Ken goes in to pee for a SECOND time, while I'd been outside since 12:18AM watching wonderful forked lightning across the cloudless-below sky, listen 5-7 seconds for the thunder, hear the first wet drops on the sand-dry earth, and smell the marvelous freshness of the new wet. In at 12:30, Ken watching TV, and I start brushing my teeth with great thoroughness, reading the Butterfly book, and get back to type this at 1:07AM, one of the latest times typed. Caught up with the end of yesterday's marvelous dinner at 1:15AM, Ken warning that today, all day, will be heavy rain, and we might just simply go directly to El Celoni after having coffee and pastry here for breakfast from the bar, checkout time noon and no reason to make it later. Last Spanish three-star restaurant tomorrow! Now finish this, Ken grunting from bed, my teeth tingling from their exhaustive brushing, at 1:17AM. Fill water bottle, and bed 1:24AM. 6:50AM: Wake with dream; heel hurts a LOT on the way to the bathroom. Pee and type dream to 6:56AM. 10:07AM: Get back to sleep quickly, having no trouble, it seems, sleeping on my right side so as not to disturb the very unsticking BandAid (because it's so VERY old and has been carried around for so VERY long) on the boil under my left ear, which appeared (before being covered up) to be near to popping. For that reason, this morning I filled my second back pocket (first has handkerchief) with toilet paper to stanch the flow of---whatever---might exude if it pops during the day. Ken (he explains later) tried to turn on his BED-light (which would have done it anyway) and turned on the ROOM light which, because I had on only the translucent-to-light RED eyemask, woke me out of a sound sleep, which (certainly needless to say) I didn't like at ALL, particularly when I found it was only 9:20AM, which IN NO WAY could have allowed me my much-requested eight-hours' sleep. He asked what I wanted to do for breakfast. I said, "I thought you decided last night to have coffee and something at the bar downstairs." "I don't mean to dictate to you," he said, I think innocently (little does he KNOW how he DOES dictate because I hesitate, unless in GREAT need, to contradict any of his slightest whims, however silly to me they may seem). I kept quiet. "Do you want breakfast?" he asked. I thought a moment, weighing future this-morning hunger pangs, and said, "No." So I put back my earplugs and he said something else. "I put in my earplugs," I said. He said something else, MAYBE asking if I wanted him to put out his bed-light, which I didn't catch, because I was quite angry when, from the silence in the room, it was clear that he had left, LEAVING THE LIGHT ON. So I grumpily got out of bed, clunked across the floor on TWO sore heels, put out his light, put on my eyemask, and tried to start Actualism, severely interrupted by all the things I wanted to say to him: PRIMARILY, I do NOT like to be WAKENED. When I said that on his return, he explained that he'd tried very carefully NOT to waken me, but it was by mistake that he turned on the room light. Things seemed to go better then: I understood he didn't wake me MALICIOUSLY, and I wasn't being angry with him WITHOUT CAUSE. Then he did one of his interminable itinerary-checks and said he suspected the next hotel wasn't air-conditioned. Oh. So he tried to use the room-phone, which didn't work, so he went downstairs and got them on the phone and found they HAD air conditioning, they simply hadn't mentioned it. Good. I had gotten up at 9:40AM to pack, in case this WAS the day for rush (it's tomorrow we have to be at the hotel by noon, he now tells me). Pack to 10:05, he returns, we talk, he packs, I catch up with this at 10:20AM, ready to fill water, take my HSBC card, and leave. Leave room at 10:25. I pay bill, Ken asks questions as I wander through dining room and look at swimming pool to 10:40. I want to at least look at the shore here, but when we go through the auto underpass at the hotel's entrance, we can only climb onto the (forbidden) roofs of the shoreline apartments, from where I take #387-388 of the St. Paul de Mar coast at 10:46, not really satisfying, but as close as we could get without going way out of our way. Ken gets it into his head that we should get gas, and narrow-mindedly complains when I didn't take it on myself to drive off the highway on a far-distant entrance to a gas station. I refrained from saying that we could undoubtedly drive all day on the gas we still had, but I knew that once he focused on something, it had better be done or everything else would be shadowed by that one task. I finally get off to a station that has no diesel, but the next does, and he fusses with the gas-tank cover until he simply presses on one side and flips up the cover. He unscrews the cap while I gingerly read something in the Spanish manual about "letting the air out," and then simply inserting the nozzle and squeezing the handle and the diesel begins to flow, delivering 42.7 liters at 51.76€, which Ken pays for at 11:18AM. Then commences an hour and a half of frustration for poor Ken as he tries to keep to the GREEN Michelin roads on the small-scale map of the whole of Spain, while referring to often-wrong directions to get from A to B that he printed from Google on more detailed papers, and VERY often switching back and forth while I have to announce that a cluster of traffic circle signs are coming up for which he has to make a decision. More than twice I simply said, "I'll go around the circle again and again while you find out where we have to go," sometimes making quite a spectacle as we're the only car on a TINY circle as he dithers between the only two possible exits, many times "Oh DAMN!"ing when he discovers too late that I've made the wrong turn, so I have to find a place to turn around (none too far, or he increasingly repeats, "You have to turn around," or "You're going in the wrong direction," or "You'll have to do something fast," without really telling me what the alternatives are). The worst point came yesterday as we came out of one of the scenic roads, maybe on the road down to Tossa de Mar, when there was a strange rattle on the right rear of the car that got louder, then quieter, then louder again, and it was CLEARLY something wrong, so I pulled over and Ken got out, while I suggested, "Maybe there's something caught in the wheel-well that's rubbing against the tire?" "Oh, no," he groans, and picks off a yardstick of black plastic with a strip of chrome down the middle of the "outside" and a row of four or five white plastic Xs, which had formerly attached this decorative strip to the side of the car. I got out in curiosity and was appalled to see the whole lower right rear back door caved in, allowing this strip to pop off, at least feeling good that we didn't LOSE it. And Ken said that his Visa account with the auto insurance coverage would be frozen while they try to decide who pays whom what, and there may be any size deductible, and of course we'll be equally responsible for the payment. I'm relieved that he's so equable about who may have done it---though it's possible THAT was the area that he hit when "the third post" didn't sink into the ground and he turned past it: he SAID no, he IMPLIED that he hit it with the FRONT of the car, but he said he didn't bother to look at the damage when he parked the car in the lot, which seemed strange, and maybe he KNEW that he really clipped the side of the car and didn't want to tell me about it. OR maybe he's just being as accepting as can be, since it was I who had been driving the car for the day before the sound started, and it seems fairly unlikely that the damage had been caused a few days before and the piece had hung on until a random bump caused the piece to begin to come loose enough to make noise. I'll never ask him about it: either he's being very fair and has no idea what caused it, being unwilling to blame it on me as being the "usual" driver, or he KNOWS he caused it and has fibbed all this time in embarrassment, and I certainly don't want to call him on THAT. Anyway, we both hope that the cost TO US isn't that great: that's what insurance is for, isn't it? Anyway, we boogie (to use Ken's term) up this way and boogie down that way, trying to keep to the green road, but I SWEAR he said he couldn't locate the Bobbsey twins of this stretch: Ruvius and Ossius, or something like that, which I found when I looked at the map to get an idea of WHERE we'd been after we got through THREE tries for the road to Hotel Suis, the last on Carrer Major, where a car parked farther down the block at least proves that cars CAN go down this street, which is so loaded with pedestrians going both ways that I have to move VERY slowly, but they notice and don't particularly take umbrage, just slowly move out of the way, and Ken shouts, "There it is," and I have NO idea where he's looking, and it turns out that we're RIGHT BESIDE it, so I at first pull up so close to the building that he couldn't possibly open the car door, and pull out into the street a bit so that he can, even though he protested (I didn't bother to say he was wrong) that he COULD have gotten out the door. Lug luggage to elevator on 0 and take it to 1, then check in to room 207, wait for another couple to take the elevator up, get into the elevator and press 2, and promptly descend to 0, where another group of incoming guests look at us as if we're a foreign species. Ken apologizes, saying we're going up to 2 and will send the elevator back down to them. In to a rather shoddy room, so old-fashioned we don't even have to put a card in the electric circuit because we have a KEY to the room. He leaves his stuff and goes down to move the car (what a RELIEF that I don't have to do THAT!) and I look at the resources available and think he can put his suitcase on part of the only table if he WANTS to (he doesn't), and find two extra pillows in a drawer, which I throw onto Ken's bed (he never says a word about them). Then get out his Spanish map and pore over it, seeing how LITTLE space occupied our 92 minutes of random (and repeated) driving over roads and particularly circles---we may (of course this is exaggerated) have spent more mileage on CIRCLES than on actual ROADS so far. Was happy to see that the next few days in the north are spent in a generally more scenic, mountainous terrain, with many fewer roads and relatively many more green roads, away from the coast, which is still a tourist magnet even toward mid-September, during which we're having WONDERFUL weather: for the past five or six days rain has been predicted as CERTAIN, HARD, and LONG-LASTING, yet the only manifestation was last night's delightful lightning-frosted sprinkle. Today was cool and less humid, actually walk-aroundable in. Gaze at the map to 1:20, Ken having trouble parking FREE rather than in a paying lot, and many of the names from the French trips come back, though with VERY few SPECIFIC memories. He returns and wants a quick lunch, which I'm hungry for, and we get three choices from the desk and go down at 1:30 to take #389 Carrer Major in Sant Celoni at 1:31, and to La Parra, where I confuse the clear "meal" as a simple "menu," and order two appetizers: the gazpacho, which I fill with croutons and onion and pepper and whatever else was on the side plate, and spaghetti carbonara, with somewhat more spaghetti than carbonara. Order a beer, Ken a glass of wine, being VERY confused when the waitress "explained" that it was all part of the meal "at the same price," but he didn't think to ask, as I would have, what the price of a glass WOULD BE and what the price of a bottle WOULD be if it weren't being served with the fixed-price (of 10€) menu. Place actually fills up, and Restaurant Syrah, three doors down, is only half full, with a 9.5€ fixed price with essentially the same choices. Back to shit, well, at 2:40. Finish 8/9 Times EXACTLY at 3PM (by church bell and by watch). Finish 8/10 Times puzzle by 3:33. Doze, thinking, Ken snoring briefly, to 5PM. Finish 8/17 doublecrostic by 6:15, by which time the noise outside is increasing, as the sound system's right outside in the town square, and I type some and suggest we go down to see what's going on, and find from 6:30-7:40 a mass step-exercise class, many onlookers with nothing better to look at, a cloudy sky that prompts us to think to take umbrellas on our walk to the restaurant, and wander past the "calcaire" facade of the Esglesia Parroquial de Sant Marti, with the same wide-naved dimness inside, and Ken is surprised to hear a woman "saying Mass," (though she's just leading the rosary), and actually stops to ask a PRIEST, fresh from the confessional, how a WOMAN could be leading MASS, and the priest's surprised to find that Ken's JEWISH, and didn't know what the rosary was until shown the beads. Education for all. Wander a few more streets, remarking on the number of banks and meat-selling shops, and back up for me to finish typing this at 7:55PM, looking forward to the last three-star restaurant until Eugenie Les Bains on the last night of the trip, with only one one-star and one two-star still to come. If only our luck with no rain could last the entire trip. Ready to go back to the puzzles, which I'm finishing off quite quickly, even the ones that START by seeming just impossible, but I work and work, keep going back to them, and eventually they succumb to my genius (HA!). We leave at 8:25, getting there first and taking the preferred table of a mother (or grandmother) from Italy and her fey son, at Can Fabes, and we can only get the menu in Spanish, and the first course, then the second course, then the next, and the next, and almost ALL of them disappoint, and we keep comparing them to last night and they come up short. The wait staff starts out fairly frosty, but then we get a cute, smiley, English-speaking waiter who defrosts a lot. Ken REALLY doesn't like some of the courses, and the waiter asks for the reasons, and Ken says, "Do you really want to know?" And of course the waiter says yes, so Ken tells him, in detail. The headwaiter comes out and essentially asks him if he wants to continue with the evening. Ken says yes. It goes on, getting no better, until the cheese course, when there are some Corsican bleus and some smoky Spanish pear-shaped cheese, and it did improve. I took a glass of red with the pig, which Ken REALLY didn't like, and a glass of sherry, which was ordinary, with the desserts. We sat, waiting for the check, which was a long time coming, but it was for 398.04€, for which I paid, and they took nothing off for anything, except the sweet waiter suggested I might want to put on my jacket because it was cool out, and it was, and I did. Back at 11:30 to a cool-enough room to leave off the air conditioning, and Ken gets undressed immediately and I sit in my jacket and type this to 11:42PM, knowing that I've got to sort out my stuff for the laundry tomorrow by noon in Vic. Well, I can do it in the morning. Finally give a blue toothpick to Ken. The streets are ENTIRELY quiet after the festivities this evening, and we figure we can go to sleep without any problem. I'm a little overfull and overwined, but I guess I'll survive, with no stars for the next five or six days, only mountains and scenery. And laundry tomorrow. 11:55PM: Absolute PANIC because I go through my ENTIRE bag and LOSE two shirts: my dirty original, and my "replacement during laundry." Can't figure WHAT could have happened to them! Then find them under the "regular" stuff on the bed, in the last possible place---where else? Ken puts on the TV VERY loud to see what's on, and I type this to 11:57PM, quite stoned, putting in three shirts, three shorts, and three pair of socks, which I hope comes out somewhat LESS than the $100 Ken spent before for laundry. But at least I've found my spare black eyemasks, with which to replace my translucent red one. I don't CARE what my stomach says, I'm going to bed SOON, now that I catch up to date at 11:57PM. Ken knows he'll be up for a while.

SATURDAY, 9/13/08: 12:05AM. VERY tired to bed, having given my laundry list to Ken, but I still have to CARRY it. Ken wants to be up by 8AM, but will compromise at 8:15. Takes some time to get to sleep, but finally do after Ken shuts off light. 4:12AM: Wake sweaty and full feeling. Up to pee, type dream, and take two aspirin and some water. 6:09AM: Up to type TWO dreams. Finish typing at 6:16AM. 7:03AM: In the intervening 47 minutes, my mind cycled through several areas of memory, accomplishment, and problems: 1) This trip divided itself into three distinct sections: a) Barcelona and a transition day (12 days), b) Food (4 days of 3-2-3-3-star meals: 11 stars in 4 days, clearly a lifetime achievement), c) Closing (10 days; I think 6 in northeastern Spain and 4 in southwestern France, starting with sightseeing primarily, leisurely days enjoying the countryside, and ending with a 2- then 3-star finale before flying home (with difficulty?) the next day. 2) Trips in general have been so successful: a) Waterfalls: Angel, Sutherland, Kaieteur, the Circ in southern France, various high falls in the United States, Iguazu, and the unforgettable, lost, Sete Quedas. b) Countries: I've seen all of them in the Western Hemisphere except for the newly formed province of Nunavut, and small Caribbean island-nations, which leads to a cycle of friends who provide companionship on past and future trips, at least once a year: a) Ken, for this, many in the past, and maybe India next year; b) Shelley, for the Ukraine boat past and maybe Arabian Sea boat next spring; c) Steve, for Greenland past and possibly Greenland and Nunavut future; d) Fred, for many past and possibly some future; e) Dale, for Mayan past, Egypt and Petra coming up, and maybe more in future. 3) Music: thinking of the wonderful records I haven't listened to in ages: Chariots of Fire, Ken's future recording of Song of the Forests, Vangelis's cycles, Kitaro's flights. 4) Finances: no cash left at end of this trip, possible HSBC overcharge already, more to be taken from IRA and even Keogh with the right forms, or more borrowing from Shelley to tide me over to a more advantageous money-withdrawal time. 5) Medical: a) looking forward to orthotics for foot problems, b) wondering what will happen to my boil, c) looking forward to Holter-reading results with Chin, d) whatever may come up in the future, primarily blood-test results. 6) Website, not actually included this time, but clearly a priority between my return from this trip September 22 and taking off for Egypt November 2, if I remember those dates correctly. 7) All the other tasks that will have piled up in my 26 days away. 8) Actualism, which I keep thinking to resort to, but the start has been postponed at least a half-dozen times because of the cycles described above, and now FINISHED described at 7:19AM, ready for less than an hour's rest before getting into the current priority: getting to Vic to get our laundry in by noon. Then "relaxation" until the last one-star restaurant on Monday in Spain, Tuesday-Friday in Spain, and then Friday-Monday in France, and the French finale with Eugenie-Les-Bains, which better be early, since we have to drive to Pau the next morning to catch a 10:55AM flight to Paris. 7:35AM: An impulse to write "In case of my death on a trip," to be put into an envelope permanently in my shoulder bag, on the processing of what would then be my final website entries from my Neo. 7:46AM: Herewith the card: "9/13/08: In case of my death on a trip. My Neo will contain my final website entries: 1) Files 1-6 will contain last JOURNAL entries, 2) Files 8 & 7, in that order, my last DREAMS. My executor, John A., 167 Hicks St., #7, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA, has keys to my apartment. Either John, or Carolyn Meiselbach (who will get my final computer website entries) will 1) Find the Neo-Dell connecting cable atop my filing cabinet in my bedroom. 2) Connect the Neo to the Dell (open to the WP51 program) and use the "send" button on the Neo to transfer each file to the Dell, which Carolyn or John can then transmit to Tris Meiselbach to go onto the website." Finish transcribing this 7:52AM. Now to find an envelope, label it "In case of my death on a trip," and put the card into IT, and it into my shoulder bag. Actually manage a full Actualism session before Ken stirs and gets up at 8:10AM, observing that I won't need the 8:15AM alarm. I sort through the wastebasket (and the ENORMOUS quantity of e-mails and messages that Ken sent and received to make this trip possible) looking for an envelope for my note. None there. Look through my stack and find one from Hotel Ciutat de Gerona, which I date 9/13/08 and add in a box BELOW "In case of my death on a trip," "Final request of Robert Zolnerzak," just to make things PERFECTLY clear. Put card in and seal it now at 8:18AM as Ken shaves in bathroom. It, of course, passed through my mind that it would be TOTALLY ironic if, in fact, I DID die in the VERY near future---like, NOW?---and so my Actualism session was devoted to CONTINUED lovely life and activity. And now prepare to pack before breakfast. Amused to see the entry on the "final" index card: payload 76. 8:28AM: Clarify days at end of trip while doing packing. Good breakfast 8:40-9:10, alone in sun-filled room overlooking town square, cold cuts, an awful fresh peach, decent fresh plum, good hot chocolate, juice, water, and back to room to finish packing. 9:28AM: I'm shitting on the john at 9:18 when Ken calls in, "Is there any reason I couldn't go get the car now?" and I say no, and then try a new thing: putting my "artificial arch formed by folding an Odor-Eater" inside my SOCK instead of inside my shoe, where I have trouble placing it, and I end up having MORE trouble placing it in my SOCK, but try to leave it for today. The worst that could happen is that I'd stop and change it in the car. Knew Ken would take a while to walk to the car and drive it back, but didn't think it would take as long as 9:30, which it is now. But I'll pack up my Neo (having showed Ken my "final request," at which he joked (I guess?), "I'd just call down to the desk and say, 'There's a strange body in my room, could you get rid of it please?'" Blow my nose many times. People outside are wearing not only sweaters but JACKETS, but I can't believe it'll be THAT cool by this noon. Finish this at 9:33AM and prepare to leave Sant Celoni. Ken comes in and directs me to BACK OUT of the Carrer Major into the central plaza, and go around a few streets to get out of town. After a few botched circles and one "infinite go-round," we get to a country road that has ONLY cyclists (in addition to a number of cars going in the other direction), motorcyclists that zip past everything, and one or two cars going in my direction that I let pass immediately, so I quickly settle into an idyllic slow drive over a very curvy road with views of distant tree-covered hillsides, some so high they appear to reach the tree-line. Houses that seem totally inaccessible peep out of acres of trees with no signs of roads leading to them. I do stop at one overlook, but I didn't want the passel of 6-7 cyclists to be passed by us AGAIN (we did a second time when Ken directed me to the VILLAGE of Montseny, which turned out to lead up a hill, on a narrower and narrower road, until it ended in a hotel-restaurant). Get into various troubles entering Vic: he started screaming I shouldn't have made that turn, but I felt justified in that the FUTURE sign had NO indication for Vic, and that we'd undoubtedly come to another circle that could undo any mistake I could have caused. Come to a street, very narrow, which he says we should turn on IF it's a particular name, but there's no name visible, so he gets out of the car to find it, while the driver in the car behind me goes more berserk than Ken in waving that HE wants to go down this street and I'm blocking his way. Finally I just stop looking in my rearview mirror. Ken gets in and says this mustn't be the street because he can't find the name, so we go to the NEXT street and turn right, and he can locate it, and we follow the next few turns without any problem until he tells me that the hotel has its OWN parking lot, and that I should turn into what is obviously a PUBLIC parking lot. I pull PAST it as every other car going in the other direction pulls into the garage. He insists I go over the high curb onto the pedestrian walkway beside the entrance, and I say it's clearly NOT meant for cars. He gets out of the car while I watch innumerable cars stream into the garage and wonder how ALL of them are going to find parking places. He comes back to say that I should pull in to the dark maw of the garage AHEAD, which immediately goes up a ramp to the right OR straight into the parking basement. I ask which I should take and, of course, he says, "I don't know," so I take the easier straight lower level, going along until we see a blank space and I pull into it, but unfortunately it has a NAME on the space. He figures we should just take out the luggage and again ask the hotel what to do, and I register that we arrive at the hotel at 11:19 (he got increasingly antsy about having "all the time in the world," then changed his tune to "you never know how much time these winding roads will take," and was about to switch into "we've got to get there by noon" when we stopped in front of the garage. Record that we're at km 4627. Take everything out and go to the lobby, where the girl thankfully speaks English, and tells Ken that he has to take the car out and around a number of blocks and drive into the public lot, get a ticket, and return to the hotel to get it stamped. When he gets back, Ken says that the attendant said, "We're full," when he drove in, but at his hysteria managed to "produce" another parking space. "And this is with five or six cars behind me on the ramp; I have no IDEA how they could get out of there!" And the desk-girl sympathizes, saying she knows exactly how it is. This is after a long, long talk to 11:34AM about laundry, during which a dour-faced woman stood by, obviously not liking anything she heard, but Ken was willing to make out any number of laundry lists and produce any number of e-mails to prove that SOMEONE here agreed that if we got the laundry in by noon we could have it back the same evening. Yes, except now the dryer is broken! "Well," Ken says defiantly, "they'll have to think of something to do about that." We get one key to room 209 and are told we can get a second in ten minutes. We go up to the room and unpack, and then decide to see the weekly market, which may be why so many people are parking in the garage and cluttering the sidewalks. We leave at 12:25, making our way through crowds, and come to the sand-covered main square, so full of booths and trucks and people it's impossible to see what the BUILDINGS around the square look like, which Ken said merited a mention in his Fodor's on their own. We get tired of that rather quickly and look to have lunch, trying a few places that serve too much for too much money, and find Brasserie Gaudi that has a decent 12€ menu, and at 1:15 we sit down to a full bottle of white wine, my tasty toasts with paté and VERY underdone pork cutlets with Roquefort and "not yogurt" that tasted quite a bit like yogurt, and his salad and fishy-tasting meatballs and blah triple-flavored ice cream of which only the chocolate had any characteristic taste. Out at 2:31 after my Visa card doesn't work (but does later at the museum) and my HSBC card is "blocked," which Ken says means I don't have any cash left in it. Walk to museum 2:45-4:24, fantastic stuff, but quite exhausting, and I really can't resist paying 25€ for the only English-language guide to this incredible collection. Something more to weigh down my bookshelves. Ken wants to rush back to the hotel because it looks about to rain, but I pass a sign to the Roman temple that I remember I wanted to see and say I'll see him later. It's actually farther back than the cathedral (which wasn't very interesting, not even the "restored" Romanesque crypt, which presented only the column capitals), but take #408 at 4:47 and get back to the hotel by side roads thanks to the hotel's good street map of Vic. Back at 5. Shit loose, then Ken takes a shower. I look at pictures (#401 1437 original cathedral altarpiece; #406 Jaume Balmes Memorial), mostly OK, many fuzzy to-be-discardeds to 5:13, when I start reading the museum book. But at 5:47 my eyes just start to close [start file 3 9/13/08 at 8:19PM] and I turn most of the lights out and just lie there. Worry about the boil, taking a shower, having a dinner that might be boring, and finally at 7 I decide to bite the bullet and take the Band-Aid off my boil---and there's a red spot in the middle, the boil looks significantly smaller and less sore, and it might have taken care of itself! Shower to 7:25, slightly chilled at the start, but feel OK at the end. Start typing when Ken comes in with the laundry, and I find all my stuff there for a total of 65.29€, roughly equivalent to $97.94! They charged their "camisa etiqueta" 12.09 for ALL the shirts, even my short-sleeved two, making 36.27€ for my three shirts, 4.42 per three drawers at 13.26, and 3.83 for three pair of socks (when they were SELLING them at the market for 4 for 3E!) at 11.49, a total of 61.02E to which was added 7% IVA, coming to 65.29E, telling Ken I'd double that (to 130.58E) and say he paid THAT for the laundry, but take the final hotel bill of 155.58E OFF the list of final hotel bills, whoever pays it. This all goes to 8:27PM, having determined that we're NOT eating downstairs because the dining room is filled with a wedding party (we can eat in the lobby if we really want to), and the lobby is filled with a family with screaming kids, reports Ken. But he finds that Melba, right along the tourist route beyond the square that we probably passed without seeing it, is taking reservations for their opening at 9PM (the other place the couple from Vic recommended to Ken a number of days ago in Barcelona isn't even answering its phone so early in the evening), and Ken accepts my request that we have something "DIFFERENT" soon, maybe just by passing something on the road, and he goes on to read me various passages from the Michelin Green and Red guides (which differ quite a bit even with hotels and restaurants, he says). I don't know what else to do, so I continue typing to 8:31PM and move to put my laundry spread out on the bed to lose its very slight dampness (his trousers aren't dry yet). Leave 8:55 and get to Melba the first---and only---clients. The waitress is wonderful with Ken and his Spanish-versus-Catalan questions, and the food is good enough (except for the appetizer that was all beets for poor Ken), and got back at 11:05PM to pee. Somehow all my stuff is lined up against my bed, and I put out my note to get my water bottle from the fridge. Full from dinner, but VERY tired, and now without the need to sleep only on my RIGHT side (with the boil essentially gone), I can be COMFORTABLE for a LONG night's sleep, what with only ONE glass of wine (rosé, with my second portion of pork) tonight. Count to find that for SOME reason I only have SIX nights of Zetia and Proscar left! WHY?? Bed at 11:25PM nevertheless, after SHOUTING to Ken to TURN THE TELEVISION VOLUME DOWN, insisting, "It would drive you CRAZY if I did that!" He seems DETERMINED to piss me off. Couldn't get to sleep until he turned off the lights about 11:40PM.