Greetings from Barcelona, Spain. Actually, I´m staying at Villafranca del Penedes which ( I think ) is a bit south of the big city of Barcelona. It´s been good to be here with Mao-Mei and Isaac — folks I´d gotten to know during my time in Oakland. Actually, I hadn´t spent all that much time with them, but I think if they would´ve stayed longer in Northern California, I´d probably have gone deeper with them. All to say that they´re really good folks, and I´m grateful to be here in Spain, one step closer to the ominous USA (aka home).

I´m staying at a Pensio (cheap hotel room) about one block away from where Mao-Mei and Isaac stay. Up the block from me is a huge church that´s so beautiful! We stopped into look a couple nights back, and I swear I almost cried when I went inside. It was as beautiful inside as it was on the outside: the ceiling vaulted high above, there were red candles lit on the sides, and the inside was huge. It was dark, quiet, and eerily serene. There was something holy and glorious in that space. I hope to spend some more time there before I leave.

So far, I feel like this side trip is a real blessing. My accomodations are awesome: I´m in between my friends and this awesome church, the air is cool and comforting, I´ve been eating a lot of good food, watching a lot of World Cup Football and I´ve just had a lot of down time to look, listen, sleep, and settle in. My two goals for my time here are to: 1. see La Sagrada Familia and 2. to spend more time at that church. Actually, my other side goal is to also watch a lot of World Cup football, but I´m already achieving that goal quite well! I´m grateful for this place of rest.

It´s really beautiful here. I really like the architecture, and the classic, quaint Spanish style. There are a lot of big beautiful churches, revolutionist graffitti ( I´ve actually missed good graffitti ), and a quiet quaintness that´s really different than Freetown. I really like the architecture, and I think today, when I go into Barcelona with Mao-Mei, I´ll see a lot more things that I like. I´ll try to take lots of pictures.