Let’s go, Let’s sit, Let’s talk, Politics go so good with beer

Carnaval.  (Sorry, some of the pictures are kinda blurry.  It all happened so fast…)

What’s funny is that the whole time I was taking these pictures, a guy I know here (not for very long at this point) is telling me how big of a crock of shit Carnaval is in Spain.  He kept yammering at me about how it’s only for the churches to glean more money from ignorant Spanish thinking they’re donating to kids and schools (each “car” had its own money collector that’d come by afterwards asking for donations), and how much money they waste building and planning these parades.

He said to me (I’m translating here so it might not be exactly what he said), “They can always find money for feathers, but we can’t feed those poor sitting down by the train station?  Well, each year there’s more and more poor, and each year the feathers just get bigger and bigger.”  It’s good to know there’s as much hypocrisy and turning of blind eyes here as there is in the States.

I mostly felt bad for all the kids who had to get all dressed up on a Tuesday night, and parade up and down the streets of their hometown, dancing in unison to blaring house music.

But lady you need some cold advice, About a few things

You know what the best thing is about telling an 8 year-old that you’re 87? They don’t get the sarcasm at all.

Sun keeps risin’ in the west, I keep on waiting for it confused

Taken January 6th, at Parc Güell in the Northwest outskirts of Barcelona.  It’s basically a giant hilltop park designed by Antoni Gaudí, who also did the previously mentioned Sagrada Familia cathedral.

All the girls here, All the girls dress like sailors

Taken January 4th at the Torres Winery in Vilafranca de Penedès, a town in-between Tarragona and Barcelona about a half-hour north of here.

Torres is a fairly well-known European winery that also has vineyards in Chile and Napa Valley. And their operation here wasn’t any Mom-and-Pop outfit. The grounds were gigantic, cellars like post-modern catacombs, and the process incredibly organized.

Taken during the Smell-o-Vision part of the tour. They took us into this long room with images of nature and vineyards projected onto one wall. All the while, odors were pumped into the room that represented the four seasons and periods of wine-making. I think this one was of springtime. The smell was lilacs or some other early blooming flower, if I remember right. The whole thing with the smells and the images (and also the crazy nature sounds blaring from the speakers) was incredibly cheesy and strange, like something out of Willy Wonka’s factory. Needless to say, I thought it was pretty cool.

Ryley laughs a lot when he drinks wine.  I don’t know why.

From the autumn section of the Smell-stravanganza. The odor was of burning grapevines.

The Pyrenees in the distance.

The entrance into the Reserve cellar.

The private family stash, dating back to the 1800s. In other words, some of the world’s oldest vinegar.

Bottles that cost as much as I make in a month, that probably don’t taste very different from the more economic options there.

Statue at the end of the Rambla in Vilafranca.