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Tanger to Barcelona By Ship

We acknowledge that our carbon footprint hasn’t been great during our almost two years of travel. Still, when possible, we’ve been trying to avoid planes, and instead default to trains or ships.

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To travel between Tanger and Barcelona, we booked a cabin on a Grandi Navi Veloci ship. When the vessel was originally constructed, it was probably designed to feel like a cruise. However, most of the cruise elements seem to have been gutted, at least for this journey. The two pools were empty, aside from cigarettes butts. The beauty salon had been converted into storage. Many other rooms were just blocked off and closed, or converted to prayer rooms. Continue reading “Tanger to Barcelona By Ship”

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Barcelona: If This Isn’t Nice, I Don’t Know What Is

We’ve been in Barcelona, Spain for just over a week… and like Stockholm and Taipei, we’ve quickly fallen in love with the city, for very similar reasons as we did the first two. The food quality is amazing. Public transportation is widespread. Kids are welcomed and integrated into everyday life.

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Part of my birthday lunch at Teresa Carles, entirely vegetarian and probably our favorite restaurant thus far in Barcelona. Continue reading “Barcelona: If This Isn’t Nice, I Don’t Know What Is”

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Flamenco

Our friend Carly is visiting and offered to babysit, so Brian and I went to see a flamenco show on our own. (Honestly, I think Theo would have LOVED the show, but it’s challenging to coordinate evening activities around his early bedtime, so we were super-grateful for the babysitting.)

Barcelona isn’t “the place” for flamenco in Spain, and the show we saw was marketed for tourists… but we thought it was amazing! For most parts, one dancer would take the floor, while other dancers and musicians would clap the beat and cheer them on as they danced. There was so much energy and camaraderie between the dancers and musicians.

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Mopping Yet Another Porch

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Mopping is exciting enough to Theo that it can be used as a reward for completing other, less exciting activities. Would we take advantage of this? Well, maybe.

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Stumbling Into Yet Another Holiday: The Festival of San Juan

A nice thing about traveling is that we often stumble into unexpected holidays. Last week, it was the night of San Juan, which, as Theo’s preschool administrator explained, was a pagan holiday celebrating the coming of summer until it was Christianized. From what I can gather, name aside, it’s largely turned back into a celebration of the summer solstice in Barcelona. Festivities include jumping over bonfires on the beach, drinking, waving around torches, and setting off lots of fireworks.

Our neighborhood of Gràcia, is not on a beach, but they compensated with a parade of dueling drummers, horses, and lots of torches.

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Istanbul

We spent a month in Istanbul last year.

I fell once while trying to get onto a bus while carrying Theo and a stroller, and half a dozen people rushed to help us.

We saw political marches, almost daily. Even though the government is often not kind to dissidents in Turkey, people are still willing to march.

Theo and Brian were once ushered into a bank to warm up, where Theo was provided with hot milk, chocolate, and a book. Unsatisfied that Theo was really warm enough, a bank employee went out to buy Theo soup.

If you sit between the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia, then you can hear the call to prayer echo between them.

I try to not dwell too much on terrorism, but after the recent airport bombing, my heart goes out to this welcoming, vibrant city, especially since it’s already struggling economically because of similar attacks.

The narrative of terrorism as “Muslims against the rest of the world,” fails to look widely enough to see who suffers the most because of terror.

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