Hot! Hot! Hot! The temperature, the men, this country! 30 degrees today people, 30 degrees centigrade on May 3rd. Phew, I musthave melted a few pounds off today. Unfortunately, I am quite sure I consumed a few pounds today in chocolate, candy, gelato, etc. Oh and half a kilo of strawberries. Ah but I am getting ahead of myself. Let´s start from the beginning....

OK, so Valencia was amazing. Our second day we did what any sane-minded person would do - we laid in the sun, ate sinful foods and basically did as little as possible. We started this strenuos day in the city park, which is actually a dried-up river bed that runs through the middle of the city. Its been landscaped since then and is gorgeous. We ate the strawberries we had got at Valencia´s marke, apparently the biggest in Eurpe. One kilo of delicious strawberres for 90 cents!!!

Eventually we dragged ourselves to the beach and laid in the sun. I waded into the Mediterranean, but didn´t make the full plunge...

The evening was spent wandering the streets and then trying to figure out where we were going to g the next day. Jen & had scrapped our plans to go inland due to travelling time and lure of the coastal towns.

We eventually decided to head to Tarragona, a medium ized city about an hour from Barcelona. The main attractions: another beach!!! and some Roman ruins (been there, done that in Italy).

Anyways, Tarragona was fabulous, nt least because we had a private room with shwer for 17 euro each wth a balcony that overlooked a lovely plaza.

The main highlights in Tarragona were:

the beach - I had a lovely siesta mid-afternoon

the promenade and main street - absolutely gorgeous, with palm trees and all that jazz

getting invited to join a stag party - three Canadian girls and about 15 Spanish guys..only one of whom spoke decent English. Ah, but it was all good and free drinks are always appreciated. Sadly, the husband to be was dressed up as dynamite and only getting married because the bride was pregnant....

the Carinapizza Jen & I had at a restaurant - it was gorgeous to look at and delicious to taste. We didn´t know what we had ordered but found ourselves chowing down on a pizza with big strips of bacon, red peppers, NO tomato sauce AND a huge egg fried into the middle - it was yummy!!

Yesterday we arrived in Barcelona an, cross my fingers, that was the low point of my holiday. It was raining when we arrived, the hostel we had booked was dodgy to say the least, particularly the area in which it was located. No one who I had hoped to hear from had contacted me (ahem!) and I had to cancel my Visa because I couldnt find it. However, the most disturbing part of the day was when, about an hour after we left our dodgy hstel, I completely broke out on both my arms. It started on one hand, with what looked like bug bites, then travelled up most of my arm and formed a huge red rash. Then noticed the same thing was happening on my other arm. I freaked. Jen remained calm and useful. I feared the worst : bed bugs! I rushed to a pharmacy and the woman would only give me allergy medicine, depsite my insisting I am not allergc o anything. I shelled out 6 euros for the tablets, but popped into the next pharmacy, where they gave me a foam to rub on teh rash. That worked like a miracle and I was all better in mere minutes of putting it on. Was still wary about staying at hostel, but in the end we did because it wuld have cost too much to switch . I know now that it wasn´t bed bugs, but I still don´t know what it was....

Today was lovely - sunny and absolutely sweltering. We moved from dodgy hostel to hostel whch I suspect will be really LOUD! I am getting too old for this..or too spoiled. Whatever - Ireland B&B´s, here I come! Jen and I trekked to Park Guelle, which is this massive park with architecture by Gaudi - absolutely stunning...I have postcards to show everyone. Other than that we did a lot of wandering, got lost and did some other stuff..like eat and search for public washrooms.

As we were walking back to the hostel tonight, my arms broke out again!! I don´t know what it is - but the foam did the job again!! I hope this is a short term thing.

Anyways, one more day in Spain, then off to the Emerald Isle for some solo R&R.