ADIOS ESPANA

NEW YORK, NY

Yes I am back. I guess a round up is in order so I can move on to bigger and better things. Yeah!

After Valencia I went to Barcelona. Dave joined me there for 4 days of musuem going and walking. Too many tourists, especially young Europeans intent on drinking as much as possible. But the place was beautiful. We went to Sitges for the day and did the beach scene.

Then on to Bilbao for the absolutely magnificent Guggenheim. It was good to see the city in better weather.

Then we had 7 days in Madrid--probably a little too long. Made day trips to Segovia and El Escorial. Again, lots of museums and walking. But the trip was just fantastic. Lots of Spanish wine and you just can't beat the art.

Postcard wise I did pretty well. Lots of bullfighters and soccer (football) players. I found 5 Manneken Pis cards that I didn't have (though 3 were different editions of cards I already had) in a shop in Madrid. But France certainly was the fount of most my finds.

So on my trip I not only survived French and Spanish but Basque (both French and Spanish dialects, Galega, Valencian Catalan, and Barcelona Catalan. I can assure you that I am equally inept in all of them--though my feeble French did surface as soon as I got to Spain.