Scottish Deep Thoughts

I slept longer than I wanted to this morning. Normally, I wouldn´t be bothered but I wanted to sort out a place to stay for tomorrow night. Instead, I decided to take a train to Figueres to visit the Salvador Dali museum. A fantastically bizarre and genius palace of artisitc expression. This may sound pretentious and naive of me, but I think ol´Salvador and I have similar brains. Some of the things he has created are really like what goes on in my mind sometimes, which is kind of disturbing. Anyway, it is a highlight of a Spanish holiday. It is worth sitting on the 2 hour train trip from Barcelona (the train also provides amazing views of the Pyrenees).

And now for a short examination of train trips...

Train trips are fun, sort of. It is an excellent time to people watch, eavesdrop, sleep or stare out of windows for prolonged periods of time thinking of nothing at all. The success of a train trip is very much dependant on who sits next to you and across from you. For example, on my trip to Figueres two girls sat opposite me. Unfortunately, the 6 foot 5 inch girl sat directly in front of me. My whole trip was spent trying not to knock knees. We were both constantly shifting and sharing awkward smirks of apology when we did accidently bump into one anothers knees. Some might think this might sound like a good way to pick up the ldaies. You could not be more wrong. First, they did not speak English. Second, it would just be creepy if I were to intentionally rub knees with her. On the other hand, this may just be me and my damned shy personality showing through. By the end of the trip I was in serious need of stretching my legs. To the casual observer I must have looked like I was going to piss my pants. In fact, I am highly suspicious that this is what the two girls opposite me were saying to eachother in their foreign language. My trip back was not much better. At least on the way there I could stare out the window at the passing scenery of the magnificent Pyrenees (I really must make it up into those hills on my next trip to Spain.) When it is dark, you have three places to look: the ceiling, straight ahead at the other person opposite or across to the other aisle (providing that you have a seat at all!). Two of these options get very boring very quickly and the other option makes you look like a psycho. I spent the first half of the trip standing amongst two families and being flanked by two baby carriages. Train trips can be fun on occassion but, unfortunately, these two were not.

I got back to the hostel and went out for dinner with a guy from the hostel. Had paella and wine. For some reason, you can only order paella if two or more people are having it. I suspect that money has A LOT to do with it.

I booked a place to stay in Zaragoza tomorrow over the phone...I think. I either have two nights booked at a hostel or a threesome booked with a Spanish whore. Either way, tomorrow should be fun.

Gaudi park is amazing! Dr. Seuss and Willy Wonka would be great frineds with Gaudi. I love it. I wandered around there for most of the day. Good day.

A very smooth start to the trip, as usual. I am quickly becoming a seasoned veteran at low budget travel. I made it to Barcelona and the hostel - a very good location - with ease. I was greeted by the hostel employee, who turned out to be a Scot. I was shown around, introduced to people, given a glass of wine and fed. Pretty good welcome! I met most of the people at the hostel when I was shown a chair at the table. Most of them seemed to be from eastern U.S. We all went out for a few drinks later. We got back around 3 and I crashed after a LONG day of travel.

The next day I walked around the city and made it down the Ramblas - a very large boulevard of street performers, kiosks and markets. I suppose it is the heart of city and somewhat impressive - good vibe and a lot going on. The food here is amazing! I found a cool market and introduced myself to the tapas bar (a bunch of tasty small dishes, for those unfamiliar). Unfortunately, I was relegated to pointing and speaking a broken, incorrect Spanish. It was annoying and embarrassing. I really hate not being able to speak the language. After a delicious lunch of roasted peppers and octopus (i think) and wine I found myself staring at Picasso masterpieces. The museum has a decent representation of his work and charts the progress from a "normal" artist to his cubist stuff. I found a pretty cool restaurant down a wee side street in the Old Town for dinner. Again, awesome food. I completed the night at a tiny relaxing pub and wrote a few postcards.

I booked my flight and hostel for the Christmas break. I am going to Spain for 9 days. I'm flying to Barcelona and maybe go to Madrid for a couple of days. Should be a good break. Only 3 and a half days of classes left then I'm off on the 26th.

We had a house-leaving party on Friday night. We extended an invitation to all the staff...4 showed up. Our staff are kinda lame but the people who did show up made it a good time. We drank a lot of beer and ate a lot of sausage rolls and mince pies.

I had an eye appointment at 9 am on Saturday in Inverness. I woke up late and hungover. It was worth the pain though. Now I have a much-needed new pair of glasses and a set of contacts. After going through the uncomfortable experience of showing how well you know the alphabet in a dark room with funny glasses on your face I decided to brave the consumer hoards in Inverness. I walked around for 4 hours and ended up buying one Christmas card! Christmas shopping done. I was supposed to go curling while I was up there but it was cancelled. I went over to Eleanor's place instead.

Moving day today. Then a hockey match tonight. Hopefully win and score a few goals.

Last night we had our staff party. It was quite enjoyable once I had about 3 pints in me. The mini-bus ride to the restaurant was painful; the Scottish songs were playing the whole way there and everyone was singing along whether they could or not. Kinda makes one cringe. There are no shortage of songs about geographical places in Scotland. In the 30 minute bus ride they were singing about Loch Lomond, Orkney, Aberdeen and Glasgow. I suppose it would be the equivalent of singing about Vancouver, the Rockies, the Prairies and the East coast of Canada. Anyway, the food was good and the drink didn't stop. The one part about these parties that I loathe is the dancing. Yet again, I was dragged up for Scottish country dancing. In times like that, I'm glad that no one i know from Canada has visual evidence of me partaking in such embarrassing events.

The night ended with deteriorating conversations about nothing of importance and I think everyone escaped being the "incredibly annoying and embarrassingly drunk person at the Staff Party".

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An update for those people who wish to be at the forefront of the pathetic state of my love life: nothing new. I went to the staff party a single man and left the same.

Rugby went well. The 45 minute trip to Kingussie with 40 kids was fine. Our seniors got flattened by Kingussie. The juniors played very well and won their match with ease.

I went up to Inverness with plans to watch the new Harry Potter but ended up watching a DVD at Eleanor's place. The end of a long and tiring week and the start to a long and tiring weekend.

Saturday afternoon I was picked up by the mini-bus packed full of hockey gear and hockey players. I'm not exactly sure which smelled worse: the hockey gear or the lethal butt-gas pouring through the bus. Anyway, we played in Paisley (scummy place on the outskirts of Glasgow) on Saturday night. We lost by a lot. I scored 2 of our 3 goals. Our next game was early in the morning about 2 hours away so we didn't get drunk; we made it to the hotel and went to sleep. Our second game was better but we still lost.

I was tired today. Mondays are shite.