A Magical Mystery Tour

OK, yeah, there's nothing out of the ordinary happening, but ever since a few days ago when Jody referred to my 2 weeks of travel as a magical mystery tour, the song has been popping in and out of my head. At this point, I can't help myself.

So where did we leave off? Oh, yes, my last day in...

Florida

My flight out of Fort Lauderdale didn't leave until mid-afternoon, so after consulting the innerwebs, I decided to spend my time before the flight strolling along the Riverwalk, and picking up some lunch. Per the web, I would find a walk along the river (obviously), along with some parks and cute little shops/restaurants. What I found when I followed my directions there, however... well, it reminded me of when a Floridian friend told me not to visit that particular city, adding "Lauderdale's a shithole."

So I ended up back in the 'burbs eating fast food, then off to the airport to spend 20 hours or so going FLL - PHI -  LHR - EDI.

Edinburgh

A couple hours after landing in Edinburgh, both Jody and I had to start working, which we were none too thrilled about. I was not only exhausted, I felt physically unwell after all that travel. It hadn't been all that much longer than usual, but for some reason it broke me. Jody mentioned several times that it's the worst state he's seen me in after a long-haul to Edinburgh. And he would know.

Unfortunately, working Seattle hours for a couple of days meant that my evenings were mostly occupied and I couldn't attend Jody's campaign events. I did take Tuesday off to celebrate his birthday, though, and Saturday was spent seeing Scotland lose at rugby. The game was... erm... well, at least it wasn't cold and raining. And by losing the game by 30 points, Scotland ensured that Ireland finished top of the 6 Nations Tournament instead of England, which is still sort of a win.

It's nothing specifically against England. Really. It's just that the Scottish no longer have all of that rage about the English murdering their ancestors and crushing their culture in daily life; it's all been redirected into sport. Team England losing any major or minor sporting contest will send waves of delight all across Scotland.

But anyway. After only a week in my adopted home city, I had to fly off to Spain, sans Jody. His excuse was a couple of political engagements while I was away, but I'm sure his desire to avoid flying also contributed. So we said goodbye at the airport, and off I went.

Barcelona

I took the train from the airport to a station a couple of blocks from my hotel. As I stepped off the escalator onto a busy sidewalk, blinking at the bright sun, my first impression was that Barcelona reminded me of Paris. But I quickly realised that was just the architecture; the city has a completely different attitude, much more upbeat.

I showed up really knowing nothing about Barcelona, or Spain in general. I speak no Spanish, but occasionally understand bits and pieces due to my past French and Italian lessons. I'd never had any desire to visit Spain, and only did because of the Robbie concert, so I did no research whatsoever before turning up in the country. I was lucky to do as well as I did.

Only after arriving did I search for things to do, and found that I had no interest in any of them. Tapas, meh. Young Picasso, enh. Architecture, history, the public squares that inspired this art or that book, psh. What did interest me, especially recently with all their attempts to gain independence, was Catalonia. So the tourist attractions I chose were the National Museum of Catalan Art, and the Catalan 14th century cathedral Santa Maria del Mar. The museum was interesting for a while, but it was a lot of very similar art from a very similar time period, almost all paintings, and their 'modern' collection only went as recent as the late 1940s. It failed to keep my attention for long. The church was pretty, but had just shut for the day when I arrived, so I got a quick snap of the outside and went back on my way.

I also walked many miles, despite also riding the Metro as much as possible. My hotel was in the midst of block after block of high end shopping, where the streets were always busy with cars and the streets were not well marked. I constantly got lost and worried that the rest of the city would be the same, but found it very easy to find my way in other parts of town where road signage actually existed and streets weren't choked with vehicles.

Of course, Friday night brought my main reason for the visit: Robbie Williams live at Palau Sant Jordi.

It was my fourth time seeing Rob live, all in about 3 years. The first three times were high production value affairs with huge, dazzling sets, pyrotechnics, dancers, and so on, all around the theme of the current record. This tour isn't supporting an album, it's just him playing live at cities he missed on the last tour, and was more like the shows of his heyday that I've seen on video. He appeared on stage with bleached hair, wearing devil horns and bondage trousers, and after spending an hour jumping around in front of the band, changed into a kilt which he used to flash his undies and shake his ass at the crowd. Basically, old rockstar Robbie was back, but now he seems happy about it, unlike in the previous days of stripped down shows like these.

It was great fun, despite me getting a bit of a lump in my throat during Angels. During the 15 years I raised my Selby from a kitten, many things changed in my life. The only 2 constants, there the whole time, which always got me through the rougher parts of it, were that demanding but totally devoted little siamese face, and Robbie's music. So given that I still miss her, hearing over 20,000 voices singing and through it all, she offers me protection, a lot of love and affection, whether I'm right or wrong... well, it hit a soft spot. I kept myself together, but I did stop singing along for a moment or two.

Regardless, Mr Williams sounded amazing and got the whole crowd into it, as always. I was buzzing way too late into the night afterward, especially considering that I got back to the hotel around 1am and had my alarm set for 6:00 to catch my flight.

After a couple of days back in Seattle, I'm still getting back into the old routine, and trying to catch up on sleep. And attempting unsuccessfully to knock my allergies into submission... it's clear that my sinuses are tired of going between climates and want me to just pick one where I'll stay for good.

Shrug. Never gonna happen.