Rainbows and Barcelona with a side of icy sidewalk

My Dad passed away week of Xmas - incidentally that was the exact same week my grandmother, his mom, passed away. The day after the funeral, we were sitting outside chatting and noticed a gorgeous double rainbow. This rainbow filled up the entire sky and you could see it end to end. The ironic thing about this sight is obviously it was right after Dad passed, but even weirder is that when my grandfather died (my mom's dad) and when my grandmother passed (Dad's mom) there was also a rainbow! True story.

In keeping with how my Dad would have wanted us to feel/react, etc to his passing, Charles and I kept our plans to go to Barcelona for NY's. Dad didn't want us to feel sad or upset about his passing. He looked at it as a natural part of life and a new journey for him. Boy, has his passing got me thinking of a lot of things - but I digress. So, off to Spain we went. First, I loved Barcelona. We had fun looking at the gorgeous churches, eating tapas, and toasting the new year. We even had the opportunity to "almost" get mugged twice! The first time, there were two guys and they started chatting us up. Then one guy tried to dance with Charles and stuck his hand in the front of his pocket. Simultaneously the other guy beside me tried to do the same with me. At the same time, Charles shoved the guy and told him to f' off and I looked at the fella beside me and said leave me the f'alone. Needless to say they ran w/o succeeding in getting our money. The second time wasn't as close. There was a fight in the street and a guy tried to distract Charles.. nice try.

For me, the trip to Barcelona was the first time I felt relaxed in months. It felt like a real honeymoon for both of us. Our "official" honeymoon was filled with me worrying about Dad. Sigh.. it's a shame we were both exhausted from the funeral and traveling to the states. But, I still enjoyed the trip and wouldn't mind going back again. Especially to the see the inside of the Temple de la Sagrada Familia. I was a bit hungover from the NY's celebration and didn't get out of bed in time to see the inside. opps. Charles was up and had coffee and juice by the time I rolled out of bed. We just missed seeing the damn thing too. Opps. ;) One too many champagnes. The guy at the restaurant brought us TWO free champagne bottles! That's right - TWO. So we had a bottle of wine at the meal, and two champagnes b/w the two of us.

One final note on Barcelona, for NY's they have a tradition of eating 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight with each ring of the bell! Now, that sounds ok, but think about it for a minute. How the fuck do you eat 12 grapes within the time of the 12 bells. We couldn't do it. hahaha.. hopefully won't be too unlucky this year. We didn't eat black eyed peas or cabbage either. I'll take my changes 2010 will be ok.

Which brings me to my closing thought - today I fell on my arse from the icy sidewalks here. Opps! hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come. ;) I was just a bit mortified, not hurt.

bye for now.