southern france to spain...

nice was incredible... it was extremely beautiful, warm and inviting... i honestly could have stayed there for days on end... ryan and i split up for our second and final day there... he went to monte carlo, while i stayed to wander the streets of nice, basking in the sunlight, shopping and indugling in a fantastic modern art museum... i stood up close and personal to some works by artists i only ever thought i´d study from afar in university... i felt like a kid in a candy store...

today, however, we spent almost the entire day on a train -- small price to pay though in order to explore two spots in spain, which was not originally planned... we just arrived in barcelona at about 8:00 p.m. local time, so at this point there isn´t much to say... but i will remark that the little bit i´ve seen of this city is gorgeous... the architecture is such a change from what we´ve already seen... ryan was feeling a little under the weather so i went off to a little outdoor restaurant for a delicious meal of ham laid out on a quarter pineapple, fried potatoes, a half litre of red wine and then followed by espresso and a trufito -- ice cream wonderfulness...

i know one thing is for certain -- i´m hitting the beach tomorrow HARD... we had a taste of beach life in nice and it was incredible... i think this might be the point in the trip when we slow down and read a massive amount while taking breaks between sun and shade... plus, an old colleague emailed me to say he´s living here in barcelona and has invited us out tomorrow night... next stop in a couple of days is hopefully madrid for about two days and then on to my ultimate -- paris... from there it´s on to lille to see an old friend from high school, head to the beach, flanders field, vimy ridge and possibly brussels... then back to frankfurt and then home...

i´ve reached the halfway point of my trip if you can believe it... i can´t...