catching up:

a warning, in advance: i am doing lots of catching up on happenings since last thursday, mostly for my own benefit in the future. so this may be a long one. good luck.

our going away party last thursday night. we had dinner at a nice restaurant across from the cathedral, got lots of free wine and booze, then went to a discoteca to dance and act stupid our last night together as a group. a few photos:

ligon, liz, and me before dinner.

dancing at the discoteca.

the next morning, i left for vacation with my family very early, but not before saying goodbye to my madre, which was very, very sad.

on to gibraltar another time. this trip we had a tour guide who put monkeys on our shoulders. mom's, dad's, bailey's, and hannah's monkeys were all tiny babies. when it came to my turn, the guide coaxed one on top of me that was about half my size. it was very reluctant to dismount. i was terrified and grossed out.



after gibraltar, on to granada for a second visit. we went shopping on a tiny street with neat moroccan clothes and tapestries and visited the alhambra palace. then valencia, where we stopped for a quick trip to the aquarium, which is as awesome as they say it is. THEN barcelona.

the highlight of my barcelona experience was all of the gaudí architecture. and the highlight of that was climbing to the top of the tower at la sagrada familia, his masterpiece/work-in-progress.




after barcelona, on to figueres, salvador dalí's hometown, to visit his museum, which was incredible and incredibly bizarre.



and then france! which is beautiful, exactly as i imagined it to be. we have visited lots of medieval castles and seen a lot of french countryside in these past three days. many hours of driving in our huge, blue rental van. we are all completely exhausted from nonstop driving and sight-seeing. we drink a lot of wine and eat a lot of bread and cheese and sunflower seeds and anything else that we can get our hands on, so that we are never actually hungry during meal times. we are spending our last night in france in bayonne. up early tomorrow to drive to madrid. our flights leave on saturday. and then home!

just a quick run down. thanks for hanging in there.