March 22nd 2007 - Barcelona Spain
Not sure where it all started, though on my first walk with the Tararua Tramping Club (http://www.ttc.org.nz/) in NZ I was walking with a girl who´d just returned after riding to Europe. In those days Afganistan & the surrounds were not a real problem. I thought it´d be great to do it then, but figured that my dicky knees would never allow it.
Since then I´ve contemplated bicycle tours of Europe, but ruled them out due to dicky knees, figuring that if you get stuck somewhere waiting a week for the knees to get better then you´ve just written off a substantial part of your annual leave. Hence the idea of not taking leave, and doing it open ended. Fortunately when I mentioned that I was going to leave, Haliplex ( http://www.haliplex.com/) suggested that I might take time off with no pay.
So here I am - currently in Barcelona, arrived into town at 2am this morning local time after delays at Heathrow, it´s now 05:45 Friday Melbourne time and the only sleep I´ve had since Monday morning is a couple of hours Tuesday morning (Melb Time) between Melbourne & Hong Kong and then 6 hours once I arrived at my Hostel (midday Thursday Melb time). Fortunately I´ve always been good at surviving periods on little or no sleep with reasonable alertness & sanity.
Today I´ve been looking around town, buying food & supplies. I´ve managed to find an outdoor shop that sells MSR whisperlight stoves the same as mine - but as yet to locate anywhere that sells fuel - even they dont know where to get fuels for the stoves they sell! Looks like I might need to use the multi-fuel option earlier that I was expecting. (and yes I have found that site on the web that list all the local names for the various stove fuels for countries all over the world.)
It was a very pretty Barcelona this morning around the old town with it´s old alley ways, the sun shining and beatiful blue skies. Eating breakfast down by the port looking out over the boat harbour was very picturesque. It was most enjoyable riding around soaking it all in. But this afternoon once the wind picked up, the clouds rolled in and the temperature sunk it just didn´t have the same appeal.
Times about to run out on my net access gotta go.
Jeff
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