Barcelona and Heemstede

Some of my roommates came in late last night. Some of them slept two to a bunk to avoid making noise making up beds, something they had neglected to do before going carousing. In the morning the woman in a blue dress was there as I checked out of the hostel.

I had an uneventful trip to Barcelona. I decided to catch the subway to see the forum site. It was a waste of a fare, the site wasn't complete and entry was restricted to participants anyway. I took this picture and left.


Back at Plaça Catalunya I bought 1€ of Internet time, dealt with my email, then had a sandwich in the attached cafe before catching the train to the airport. I was early so I read the El Pais that had been given to me for free at the forum.


On the plane I found myself seated next to a petite Turkish woman. She was reading a biography of Atatürk in English so I struck up a conversation. She was a political science graduate student in the US, had just presented a conference paper and taking a trip to Izmit to see her family. Her hair was a bit unkempt because she had spent the last few days in a hostel. We had a great conversation about political systems in countries around the world. She was interested in my observations of Cuba. She was pessimistic about Turkey, and felt that it had missed a chance in the 60's for development. I realised after we parted at Schiphol that we hadn't even got around to introducing ourselves. I wondered too if I should have chatted up the woman in the blue dress back in Girona. Oh well.


The bus back to Heemstede was like clockwork. Back at P and K's place I found that they had two women guests, a USAn and a German who had attended graduate school with P in the US. We had a jolly Indian takeaway dinner. The conversation ranged from reminiscences about grad student life, the status of women in Germany and the weather in the south of the US. The Canarian goat cheese, honey and palm honey that I had brought back were sampled and declared interesting by all.