We arrived in Barcelona right in time for lunch so the first meal we had was at a tapas bar. Tapas are small appetizers or snacks that are sometimes served on toasted bread. They usually somewhere between €1-€2 so you can try a bunch of different ones for a good price. Some of my favorite ones were the seafood tapas which were really fresh and had some great flavor combinations.

During our stay there we also managed to grab some Paella for dinner. I’m always happy when rice and seafood is involved, but I have to say, the best Paella I’ve had is still made by Pete Tam.

If you were to tell me before the trip that the best meal we had in Barcelona was going to be at a Vegetarian restaurant, I’d probably laugh at you. We’d been using TripAdvisor pretty extensively throughout the trip and it was showing us there was a pretty highly rated restaurant between the subway station and the hotel. After reading some reviews, we decided to give it a shot. Sesamo turned out to be so good that we ended up going the next day for lunch as well! Some of the highlights of the meals were the watermelon gazpacho, beet & hazelnut gnocchi, wild mushroom risotto, and the brie and fig appetizer. The owner and chef also took time to come out and chat with us during both our meals which just added to the experience. At this point you’re probably thinking I liked Barcelona the most because they had the best food. You wouldn’t be too far from the truth.

If you go to Barcelona, you have to visit Sagrada Família. It’s still under construction but this was easily the most amazing Cathedral that we saw during our trip. It was great to be able to see some of the more historic Cathedrals in Paris, Prague, and Florence before we set foot in Sagrada Família because it really gave us a good historical background.

Construction of the church began in 1882 and is still going on today. The anticipated completion date is 2026! That just blows my mind to think that even with all the advancements in construction technology, it still takes this long to complete a Cathedral. Even with the church being only partially done, it was still a spectacular sight.

As amazing as the exterior is, the interior is even more so. I mentioned to Yvonne that if Scientology were to have built a Cathedral, it’d probably look something like this. After seeing a bunch of Cathedrals that were built 300-400 years ago, it was refreshing to see a modern take. When the church is finally finished, we’ll have to go back and see what it looks like then.

The picture below is from the La Ramba, a tree lined pedestrian mall area that runs all the way to the beach. This feels like the central hub of all the tourist action in the city. During the day there are tons of vendors, restaurants and street performers vying for attention. There’s also a market called La Boqueria where they sell fresh seafood, fruits, and vegetables. Yvonne and I were able to by some cured meat sandwiches and fresh fruit for a picnic at the beach. The city itself reminds me a lot of Los Angeles; a huge bustling metropolis with great weather and a huge beach area to relax. Another thing that I loved about Barcelona was the subway system. You can get anywhere in the city with it and it’s newer and cleaner than Paris’.

I think what I came to appreciate most about Barcelona was the diversity of things to do and see. I’ve also discovered that the more touristy a city is, the more I dislike it. Venice was beautiful, but the amount of tourists and the way everything revolved around tourism was suffocating. Barcelona has the feeling of a city that local people enjoy. They still have their touristy areas but it’s more integrated into the fabric of the city. In that way, you are able to really see what the local culture is like. 3 days was just enough to get a taste of what Barcelona is. I’m looking forward to going back there someday to find out more about this great city.

June 3-6 Paris
June 7-8 Prague
June 9 Venice
June 10-11 Florence/Pisa
June 13-16 Barcelona

I’ll only be bringing the iPad2 there, no laptop, and using the camera connection kit to offload my pictures to it.  The GF2 with the 20mm and 9-18mm lenses will be it for documenting the trip.  I’ll update my flickr while I’m there with a few pics but the heavy editing will have to wait til I come home!

I say for now since I’ve decided to keep 2 of my Nikon lenses.  Maybe in the future I’ll go back to Nikon, but the Micro FourThirds system has made enough steps forward to make me believe that they’re heading in the right direction.

The GF2 was announced this morning and although it’s a step toward the consumer market, I still think it’ll be a good upgrade.  It fits me perfectly because I’ve never been just a photographer or just a videographer.  I do a lot of both and switch between them at any given moment.  The GF2 has full 1080p HD video with a better sensor which will allow me to take high quality video.  The touch to focus during video mode is also a really easy way to get high production value without that much effort.  I’m waiting for the low light samples to come out since that’s one thing I felt was lacking in the GF1.  Photos taken above ISO 800 were pretty unusable unless you ran them through noise reduction software.

There’s been rumors that Nikon will release their own mirrorless camera system.  I hope this is true so there’s some more competition and innovation amongst the camera vendors.  At that time I’ll reevaluate and see if I want to reinvest in Nikon, but for now, it’s goodbye!

Recently, I’ve started to reread some books that I enjoyed from middle school and high school.  I remember reading Ender’s Game in middle school so decided to reread that first.  That lead to reading other books in the series, Ender’s Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon.  Overall a enjoyable series and pretty easy reading.

I remembered one of the few books I enjoyed in Highschool English AP class was John Steinbeck’s East of Eden.  I ended up rereading the 900+ page book in 3 days.  I didn’t even remember most of the book but that probably made it more enjoyable for the rereading.

I still haven’t finished reading The Year of Living Biblically but so far it’s been entertaining.  The premise of the book is that they author is trying to follow all the rules of the Bible for a whole year and writes about the experience.

You may have heard of the new TV show Sh*t My Dad Says starring William Shatner.  I’ve only seen some of the TV spots for the show and I can already assure you that the book is a lot better than the show will ever be.

If I keep up my current pace, I’ll be finishing a new book every 3 days.  I used to think that I didn’t like reading much.  Maybe I just needed the iPad to get me started.

So in the past month I’ve improved my score from around 110 down to 102. The goal right now is to break 100 and consistently shoot in the 90′s. My short game has turned out to be my strength but my putting still needs a lot of work. I also have an iPhone app called GolfCard that allows me to track my scores and upload them to oobgolf.com. If you want to look at some of my score cards from the past few weeks, here’s a link to my profile on the site. I’m a stat junkie so I love being able to break down all the different numbers that revolve around the golf game. If any one is interested in a round of golf, let me know!

Wanted to jot down some thoughts on the game while it’s still fresh in my mind.

- The Rose Bowl is old, run down, cramped but an absolutely unique and amazing venue. I am happy to have made it there for such a huge game. The atmosphere was electric.

- After Longhorns fans realized McCoy was out, we rallied around Garrett Gilbert. At the beginning of every offensive possession during the TV time outs, Longhorn fans would chant Garrett’s last name over and over until they lined up to play. One of the few times I felt we could will a player to greatness during the game and Garrett kept getting better and better through out the game.

- I absolutely love the way we competed during the 2nd half. I was actually optimistic during half time but the way we rallied was quite surprising. We were truly a 2nd half team this year.

- Those 10 minutes from when Shipley scored a touchdown to when we recovered the “onside” kick was one of the more magical moments in UT football that I’ve witnessed first hand. The come back in the Fiesta Bowl last year was special but I expected it to happen. This was special because we were riding into the unknown with a freshman quarterback leading us.

- I have no regrets about going to the game. It was worth it to cheer on our team and I was proud of the way we fought. The future looks bright, looking forward to next year. Hook ‘em!

I’ve been dealing with a problem with my car the past few weeks. The remote was not able to lock the doors so I kept having to lock it manually. I was planning on bringing it into Sterling Acura but kept putting it off. I finally got a chance to bring it in today. They fixed it under warranty which is great. On the way out I asked the service rep when my warranty was up, she responded, “Oh in 5 miles.” Woow, driving home my warranty expired. If I had driven anywhere else today I probably would’ve had to pay for the repair out of pocket. I also drove to Dallas and back this weekend which put 300+ miles on my car. Glad I brought it in when I did.

Used my GPS program on my iPhone to map out my bike commute to work this morning. Not bad compared to my old car commute from up north. Follow this link to view the full route in google maps.

Distance: 3.23 miles
Elapsed Time: 15:13.6
Avg Speed: 12.7 mph
Max Speed: 27.0 mph
Avg Pace: 04′ 43″ per mile
Min Altitude: 455 ft
Max Altitude: 575 ft

2nd busy Saturday in a row. Last week I moved into my new place. This week I had:

1. Vox Leadership Appreciation Lunch
2. Coed football game
3. Nick’s Birthday dinner at Aussie’s
4. Star Trek tonight at Galaxy 10