Barcelona

Our tour of Barcelona started off with a trip to a cathedral. It was very pretty. While we were inside, looking at a chandelier, Sandra pulled out some glasses to look at it. I said something to her about not knowing she wore glasses. She said she only wore them to look at beautiful things. That was a surprise, as I had known her for almost two years. We then went to an art museum that had some more Picassos. And, we saw a statue of Columbus pointing to the New World, which is where we were headed tomorrow. We went to a artisan place to see glass made and other crafts. One of our tour ladies bought a sword letter opener which would be confiscated the next day by the airline security. We got back to the hotel and had lunch at a restaurant next to the hotel. When we got our bill, we about had a heart attack, because it was thousands of pesedas, but after some calculating, it was only about $5. The girls and I went back to the 9-story department store to do some more shopping. They sold records, and I wished I had bought some Spanish Beatles records. But, that was another opportunity lost, like the 1-carat diamond necklace for $150 in Israel. We looked into going to the beach, but it was 30 miles away, and we would have to take the train, so we decided not to go to the beach. Toward the end of the afternoon, Sandra asked me to go with her to the post office to make the long distance call to Jim to tell him she wasn't marrying him after all and don't bother to pick her up at the airport tomorrow. We got to the post office, and after a few gestures and attempts to communicate what she wanted, she got a line to the US. She went into a private booth, while I waited. After her call was over, she came out and said she had talked to Jim. On our walk back to the hotel, I could tell she was upset. I don't know what Jim told her, but she told me that she had decided to marry him after all. I was crushed, but that was that. No debate. "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with." And to top it off, when I got back to the hotel room and cut on the music, it was the theme to "Brian's Song", which was one of the most depressing movies ever filmed. At our dinner that night, Mr. Vivian went around the table asking what our biggest memory of our 3-week trip. That was very hard, as each country had its own ups and downs. But, I went with Israel and didn't elaborate. There were a lot of life-changing experiences in Europe and the Middle East. I grew a lot in those three weeks. Now, we were going home.