Barcelona

We had an awesome time in Barcelona. The hotel was on the Ramblas where all of the activity happens. The street performers are amazing. The hotel was small elegant and quiet and perfectly located. We met 2 couples one from Chicago and one from Bellevue. We went to a concert at the Palau Music Theatre by a Spanish singer named Mayite Martin that was exquisite. We went for tapas first and then to the concert which started at 10 pm and finished at 1:30 in the morning! The Spanish have staying power and they sure like the night life.

The couple we are working with are great. He is a lawyer and she a mathematician (Peter and Patricia). Not only is she really bright, she is also very pretty. We have hardly worked at all because of being in port. We did an open house on the first day and do not teach until tomorrow (Wed). We had a great time in Marseille eating moules et frites with Peter and Patricia. The next day we were in Villefranche and took a bus to the little medieval town of Ez and hung out. Yesterday we had hoped to get together with Val and John but we weren't getting a response to our emails to Viareggio so we spent some time in Livorno and took the train to Pisa once again to the leaning tower. Today we are in Rome and have decided to stay on board and get ready for our heavy teaching schedule tomorrow of one class each. This is too good to be true.

There are 7 crew members on board that were with us on the Galaxy so it kind of feels like home. The lab is bigger and better than the last one. The technical support staff are not as strong as the last team but still fine. We are meeting the 'techies' from the last ship (Christine aka tintin and Emery) for coffee on Oct 14 in Villefranche.

The weather is consistently around 75 degrees during the day and a little cooler at night.