A welcome dose of the girly stuff

I just had a friend visit from Oxford and we browsed Sephora, lounged with expensive cocktails on cushion-covered beds at a beach bar, ordered ridiculously rich chocolatey desserts at restaurants, bought magazines and enjoyed being spectators at the fashion parade that is Barcelona. Fun stuff! We also discovered a store that is in close contention with Liberty for my favorite store ever. It's called Vinçon, it's in an opulent turn-of-the-century apartment building, and it's a dream.
I've seen lots of fantastic shoes, though always on people's feet rather than in a shop. Not that I have luggage space for more shoes (despite having sent several pairs home I have somehow still ended up with six pairs here in Spain), but I'm inspired. I've also noticed that women in particular wear really bright and groovy specs. If a person is wearing bright red and purple glasses - especially if they are also wearing sort of bohemian-rocker attire - then they are almost certainly local. If they are wearing comfortable sandals and any sort of backpack, especially on their front, they're tourists of course. I don't wear a backpack across my chest, but I will never emulate the effortless cool of Europeans. At least looking a bit like a tourist makes people more understanding when I am butchering their language.

Now of semi-fixed address but apparently unable to receive mail

We're living it up in Barcelona now. For me it feels like an extension of our travels as I can't get beyond feeling like a tourist, except every now and then I do some freelance work or clean the flat, which adds a pinch of normalcy. I expect, given that Jeff has an hour commute to the office each day, he feels more like the holiday is over.
We have a flat in the Eixample, which has turned out to be better than we expected in many ways. It has a lovely back terrace off the bedroom, on which we eat breakfast every morning while enjoying the multi-channel soap opera that the neighbouring terraces provide. The flat also has doors opening onto precarious balconies over the noisy boulevard out front, and you can see the mountains from there. It has high ceilings, wood floors and lots of space. It has a washing machine and dishwasher (SCORE!). However, this being an old building, there are quirks too. Every room has a door that must be closed at all times or drafts slam them shut - and I'm too nervy to handle being startled several times a day. There is no lift in the building and we're at the top, six high-ceilinged floors up. Some of the rooms look out onto really narrow little light wells, so as to have a window of sorts, and sound from other flats carries up in strange and at times alarming ways. The shower oscillates at whim between scalding and freezing. We are not entitled to access the mailbox for our flat, and as we have trouble communicating with the agent (we are trying to pick up Spanish but my linguistically challenged brain keeps defaulting to French) we haven't bothered to ask about it.
In any event, we (or rather Jeff) did really well for having chosen a flat over the internet, sight unseen, and the location is as good as I could have hoped - walking distance to just about anywhere central including the beach. I managed to overcome a formidable language barrier to join a gym, and now face a bit of a cultural barrier given that I don't see too many other women working out in old gym shorts and baggy t-shirts. Neither do they appear to sweat - a faint glow is as good as it gets, and I seem to be a foot taller than everyone including most of the men. However, I have never in my life made working out look glamorous or effortless, so nothing new there.
So I really like the city, and I'm really glad to be here for a bit, but I do miss having friends about. And perhaps, very VERY occasionally, I miss having a real job - or at least the financial security. We are on very limited bandwidth (long story), but I'll try to post some more photos soon both from our blissful month of travel and from BCN. Boy, all it takes to get me blogging again is a work deadline ... procrastinate, procrastinate ...
Here's Jeff having a leisurely Sunday breakfast on our terrace, reading the international edition of the Saturday Guardian (sadly it doesn't come with the magazine part and costs a small fortune).