it's so damn hot outside, there really is nothing better to do than sit in a semi-air-conditioned internet cafe in barcelona. we had great weather all around until about vienna, where the sun began to bake us alive. it's been baking all of europe now for the past week or so. and now to add insult to injury, barcelona attacks us with its humidity. i see no point in showering anymore. within 10 minutes of leaving the hotel and walking around the city, my skin is drenched with the air's moisture and my own sweat. and i'm trying to keep sweating to minimum today, as we've already checked out of our hotel and will board an overnight train (sans shower) to seville tonight. pablo's parents will pick us up from the station in the morning, and i'd rather not greet them for the first time in over a year as a stinky, sticky mess, though it looks like i have little control in the matter. i already feel pretty disgusting.

so anyhow, i was going to finish up with vienna, but can't recall too much about it. we were just there for one night, which i spent in the hotel room battling a stomach ache. we went to a great art museum there and again did plenty of walking through the city, trying our hardest to stay in the shade. now in barcelona, we checked out the beaches and saw the magnificent sagrada familia, which was built by the city's famed architect, antonio gaudi. we saw a bunch of his buildings, in fact, and they were all quite impressive. the dude had real vision.

the bummer is that the thing is years away from completion. gaudi died over 80 years ago and they still haven't finished it. construction on the church's interior hadn't even begun, so we could only appreciate the outside. pablo again convinced me to climb the stairs to the highest point in the tower, and though the stairs could easily be beat, the heat couldn't. it was like being in a sauna. we wanted to hit up the picasso museum today, but it's closed on mondays, so we've been walking (slowly) around the city, often ducking into cafes for a cold drink. barcelona is ok. besides being too damn hot, it has the misfortune of being the last stop on the trip, so the excitement of visiting new cities is hardly there. plus, pablo has been talking about doing a semester abroad while in business school, and that will likely be in barcelona. so there isn't this great pressure to see everything, since we'll be back here in a year and a half for about six months.