Becoming trite at this point, but we have once again blown right through another month. {Looks out window} Not seeing people flying off the planet, so I cannot place blame on an accelerated spin – time simply marches on (as a friend always reminds me, the alternative is not healthy). Truth is, I’ve been incredibly busy getting caught up from the winter migration and now prepping for the extended spring trip in a little more than 3 weeks. More importantly, Transworld is this weekend – not a fan of the name, but this is THE commercial haunt industry’s annual gathering in St. Louis (link here). While I clear space on the phone for oodles of pictures/videos and dig around in the Intrigued HQ couch cushions for spending capital, Brad is going to take you along on another adventure across the pond. See ya’ next month!
Take it away Brad…
Jan and I were on assignment to tour and inspect the Wildlife Intrigued offices scattered throughout Western Europe. The Intrigued corporate jet was unavailable, so we had to fly commercial (sure hope that touring superstar returns the jet soon so we can use it). After visiting for a few days with Jan’s cousins in England (yes, we did also that last Fall), Jan and I had the good fortune to be able to spend a week with the editing team in Barcelona, Spain. On our first non-travel day, Jan and I walked about a mile, gently uphill, through the friendly streets of Barcelona to Park Guell (see here), one of the largest green spaces in Barcelona. Originally, Park Guell was going to be a private residential development on a mountain outside of the city. The homes were to be designed by Antoni Gaudi (of Sagrada Familia Basilica fame, see here). As usual, location (quite a distance from then developing Barcelona in the mid 1800’s), financial troubles and lack of interest ended with only three spectacular dwellings being built. Only one of those buildings is occupied today as a private residence. Oh, and it’s for sale if you are interested.
Jan and I arranged an English-speaking tour of Park Guell. Incidentally, English is only the third most popular language spoken here, after Catalan and Spanish, we might be at a slight disadvantage as general tourists. We did find that nearly everywhere, the locals were more than willing to accept my twenty words of high school Spanish, and then quickly shift to speaking nearly perfect English for us. On another tour, our guide told us that children in Barcelona learn three languages from the very beginning of school: Catalan, Spanish and English. Once Jan and I arrived at the park, I heard at least a dozen different languages being spoken, English being the least heard. For the tour, Jan said we were supposed to look for purple jackets from the tour company. The purple should contrast nicely with all of the greenery around.
We see green flecks, hit the jump to learn more about our Spanish find.
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