12.00am, Monday 16 August, R's ....sun

Back to old patterns: I got picked up by a Pakistani. Not quite like the Bangladeshis in my younger days travelling in foreign cities, but close enough. Actually, the guy was 30, which is considerably younger than the types who used to pick me up. He talked to me at the beach today and then tried to hold me in the water. So that's it - from now on I turn into a bitch and walk off after saying hello. It would be nice if girls were as chatty to strangers as boys are.

So here's my advice if you want affirmation you are beautiful: travel alone. But if you don't want the men who in their desperation think you are beautiful because you deign to talk to them to touch you, then travel with a companion. Or stay at home.

Today was truly back to travelling - I walked for around three hours in blazing sun - lovely. I went to the park, past the Catalan art museum that looks like a palace, and walked around the waterfalled plaza below Olympic Stadium. It is a vast, mostly empty space, with patchy grass, yellow and black poles, views overlooking the city, a promenade, and the fountains - steps pouring with water. Olympic Stadium looks like a coliseum.

Across the way I saw mysterious black stone constructions on top of the hill. What was it? A fort, a neighbourhood? What? I decided to see if I could get there and find out. I walked on a track through fresh-smelling oleanders and brush until I got to... a cemetery. It is very beautiful and very distinct. The constructions turn out to be kind of graveyards: walls built of small round stones housing rows and rows of boxes. The boxes are covered by a plaque engraved with a family name and most are enclosed within glass, behind which are plastic flowers, vases, statuettes, photographs.

The cemetery is full of these grave monuments, as if it is a ruin of an extensively-walled city. The cemetery itself is enormous, as I discovered. It extends around and down the hillside, and as I walked lower and lower, down staircases leading to more sections of walls, traditional gravestones, mausoleums and statuary appeared. Some mausoleums were like little cathedrals.

I got lost in the cemetery and I didn't want to wind back up the hill, so it took me around 2 hours to finally get down the hill and emerge somewhere that was not train tracks or the port. I finally came to a major road that circles the city. When I finally got back to civilisation, I found myself in a less upscale part of town, with plain though colourful buildings and unglamorous people, like drunken mechanics.

I wandered about, trying to find a street sign, but I finally had to ask someone for help. She pointed to a roundabout on my map and told me I was there. Not too bad, I walked some way back up the mountain. I started my climb on two outdoor escalators, which brought me to a hillside suburb of apartment blocks and local cafes.

I am so tired now, I must to bed. More later.

11.15am, Sunday August 15, Bellapon bakery

I was going to resume no-coffee travelling but the cafe con leche at the tapas bar last night was so good that I refuse to say no. So I am in a bakery, with a chocolate-filled croissant stick and a cafe con leche. Also I buy a loaf of pan gallec. I sit at the first table from the door, not too far from Plaza Espana.

Yesterday I arrived safely at R's place, thanks to a friendly airport worker who spoke English and was getting off at the same stop. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have figured out when to get off the bus despite my map.

Pratt is an interesting suburb, almost like a movie set, with narrow streets, lined with apartment buildings and first-floor shops. There is something about the narrowness of the streets, the level closeness of street to sidewalk, and the colourfulness of boxy buildings that make the neighbourhood look a little unworldly - but cute and welcoming.

Today I aim to walk up a mountain in the Parc de Montjuic and then go to the beach.

?, Sunday August 15, R's kitchen .... easily awake

Oh, being back in the travelling mode in which I get woken up by the morning sounds of other people and get out of bed without regret, without difficulty!

Last night I had to stop writing and jot down notes because I was so tired (so some of this is a little bit of a repeat as I fill in details). I didn't describe the feeling of being on a motor scooter: a little bit scary because my hands were holding on behind rather than in front of me, a little bit moon-like because turning my head in a helmet while moving quickly drags wind, but otherwise great.

The back of a motorbike is an excellent place from which to see a beautiful city speed past without the hindrance of windows and doors, and also an excellent place from which to feel a cool breeze on a warm night.

A motorbike is not the place, however, in which a physically awkward person is to feel graceful. When I do such things as get on and off a motorbike I think about Geena Davis and how she used to make clutziness sexy in her movies.

So tooling down the streets of central Barcelona on a scooter was, obviously, quite divine. We passed the Placa d'Espanya, the two Gaudi buildings, blocks and blocks of old, old apartment buildings with balconies and awnings (awnings!).


Barcelona!

At first the city seemed empty but this was because everyone was in 'the village', massing through the decorated streets.

R and I enjoyed the festival for a bit, wandering in the barely-there gaps between people while drinking beer with lemonade (the fizzy kind) - this allows people to drink more. Eventually we walked to the tapas place for dinner, where we sat at the tapas bar, plates of potato, vegetables and meats encased behind glass above our heads, and ate potatoes and mushrooms and drank more beer. After dinner we continued our slow ramble, conversing mostly in English. R's English is close to intermediate, while I can't understand a word he says in Spanish.

At 11pm a lively band began playing in the Japanese-themed street. There had been other bands playing in various streets throughout the evening but this band located the night party, with mostly young people spilling into the block with beers and talking and dancing.

These young people were good-looking, stylish, a variety of types. I watched girls with dreadlocks in bright summer dresses, girls with bias cut hair or thick square glasses. A cute and smiley girl behind me in a peach sundress, with bright light purple glasses and ahort black hair was jumping, dancing and singing with the joby appropriate to the moment. R only occasionally danced and I made eye contact with the addictive girl. She eventually introduced herself. Marina. Marina's friend was standing against a building, and one can't let a girl dance alone. So we jumped to the music together, the kind of music you can't not help jumping to.

Marina is the type of girl I'd be mimediate friends with, I think, in different circumstances. But R was hot in the pulsing crowd, so we left after 4 or so songs to walk a little more and then go back to R's suburb, Pratt, by way of La Rambla, Barcelona's Champs d'Elysees, a wide stone-paved strip lined with umbrellaed tables.

These sun- and music-drenched cities of the Spanish-speaking peoples are addictive, though of course I am here in Barcelona on an ideal weekend.

1.30am, Saturday, August 15, in bed ....perfect

It is a beautiful warm night in late-summer Barcelona and the Festa Major de Gracia is on. I don't think I could have had a more Barcelona experience than I have had this first night in this cheery city.

1. I rode into town on the back of a motor scooter.

2. I saw a parade. It had drummers and sparkler-like fireworks spewing with loud bangs from huge twirling contraptions. It was like a movie parade.

3. I wandered the alley-like streets of the Gracia neighbourhood, ambling in street-filling crowds under the colourful canopies of a neighbourhood festival.

4. I ate tapas.

5. I drank cheap glasses of beer mixed with lemonade while standing in the streets listening to Spanish music that made me want to jump up and down with dancing pleasure.

The draw of the Gracia festival is the street-decorating competition, whereby residents use recycled materials to deck out their streets according to theme. One street - the one that usually wins, R tells me - created a medieval mead hall, complete with a 'stone' castle entrance made from newspaper-stuffed frames, walls lined with various coats of arms, and wonderful paper chandeliers emanating plastic-gel flames.

One street was themed Japanese, with paper and foam cherry blossom trees, a sand garden and a colourful canopy of dangling origami dragons and plastic lotus flowers. Another street had plastic disks hanging from the canopy, first in shades of peaches and pinks, then blues and purples, greens and yellows. It was simple and very beautiful.

Two streets had autumn/Halloween/Carnivale themes, with orange leaves and black bats, while another canopied its blocks with papie-mache autumn branches, another simple and effective design. There was also a woodland sprite street, complete with a large papier-mache fairy statue kneeling above a fountain.

These streets, mind you are packed. You slither through the bodies of people that cover entire streets, inching your way from one block to another.

With R, I ate tapas (in Spain!), sitting at the bar/counter. We had potato in a garlicky mayonnaise and mushrooms coated with garlic, oil and parsley. Delicious.

Later in the evening I couldn't resist dancing to the strains of a Carribean-inflected band at the end of a street. The street wasn't so crowded, the night, I suppose, being still very young. I found myself dancing alone next to a purple-spectacled girl with short curly hair and a pink sundress. I was drawn to her, also dancing alone, and we shared smiles. I wanted to know her and finally talked to me. She spoke English. I'm sure we would have been great friends!

Barcelona is full of a diversity of people decked out in a variety of styles. Everyone (young people) looks great, be they hippy, funky, professional or street.

I would have liked to dance longer - and if I was here with MS or S we'd be dancing all night, I'm sure - but R was hot and not into dancing, so I only danced for 15 minutes or so.

Wonderful!

7.35pm, Friday August 14, Terminal 7 ....at last

I am on the road again! It is very welcome. I had a day of sleeping in, laundry and wrestling with Auunt K's computer and scanner. But the sun came out in the afternoon; I had my last piece of NY pizza.

Yesterday, before heading to Bronxville on Metro North, I bought an arepa con queso from a Columbian cafe in Woodside and chatted a little bit of Spanish to the waitress. The arepa was delicious and very filling. I wasn't hungry again until late in the afternoon, which found me in Bronxville with L, J and baby L, all also starving. We found a deli, where I had a great, sweet bread pudding and a knish with mustard. Not a real knish unfortunately, but the square kind sold on the street. I never did get to Yonah Schimmel's knishes this visit. I have just finished a pumpernickel bagel, however.

Just before, the news had a feature on the Australian healthcare system, highlighting how Australia’s tax-funded healthcare costs less of the Australian GDP than America’s private systems costs the American GDP. Australians live longer and are happier with their care than Americans. About time we start hearing that kind of rhetoric. Though the story did add that 42% of Australians also have private insurance, attributing it to avoiding long waits and choosing a surgeon of one’s own rather than Howard's tax levy.

2.45am, Friday August 14, ....Aunt K’s

It is the end of my last night in New York, America. I had a great time - S joined Aunt K, her husband K and I for dinner and then S and I went for a sing at Marie’s Crisis piano bar.

What I still love about New York: the amount of people on the train to Queens at 2am. At 1.30am French Roast cafe was still serving food and coffee to a good amount of people. Yesterday a man gave me his Metrocard when he saw me trying to top-up my card. I used his card for the rest of the day.

Today I spent several hours with L, J, and their new son. I finally saw their living quarters in Yonkers, which they have been in almost since I’ve been in Australia, said hi to L’s dad, sister and neices, walked around downtown White Plains (where I grew up) and visited A at work. S and L are very excited about how White Plains has changed, but I still find it a completely uninteresting place, though the area where L and J might be moving to is a nice neighbourhood with a mixture of houses, a part of town I’d never had cause to be before.

Tonight Aunt K and I took K to his first Indian meal and the waiters were excited to recommend things to him. They even brought out a little cup of mango lassi for him to try. We had poori, that great puff of thin-fried bread so astonishing on first encounter.

Marie’s Crisis was a bit of a disappointment. The crowd was singing showtunes that S and I didn’t know. There was hardly any Les Miserables. I’m not up on good old classics like Hello Dolly! And Gypsy. Nor have I seen anything recent. So my repetoire is sadly lacking. S has the same problem.

1.00am, Thursday August 13, Aunt K’s ....blissful

It is blissful to be back with a good, beautiful friend in a big city with lovely warm evenings. Being with S gives me energy.

Thanks to my parents I had enough money to enjoy a pricey dinner and $30 bottle of wine in SoHo with S - also due to my stinginess in South America and the excellent exchange rate between the American and Aussie dollar.

S and I put our names into the lottery for Hair on Broadway but we didn’t win $25 tickets. We trundled over to the TKTS stand but the tickets were $90 a person. We stood on a corner with a village Voice searching for movies to see but didn’t find any we particularly wanted see, so we walked around SoHo, found a Korean restaurant and cocktail bar, and got in five minutes before the close of Happy Hour for our $5/6 cocktails.

I had a white peach flavoured coktail and S a lime and jalepeno one. Both delicious. The bartender was young and chatty and he told us a bit about New York history, the Chinatown wars between the Chinese and … that the police let go due to lack of language skills. Also the prevention of a major highway through the Village due to community activism.

S and I talked about Anmerica, politics, boys, sex, personal frustration and change, friendship, all kinds of interesting and engaging things. It is also nice to walk again. My heavy backpack turns out not to be so burdensome after all and I jetted through Times Square, dodging through crowds, not because I was in a hurry but so that I didn’t have to break the rhythm of moving.