Costa Brava: Top 5 Places You Had No Idea Existed

Visiting the Costa Brava, Spain, is like an endless treasure quest. There are enough quaint resort towns, hidden beaches, spectacular mountain views, wineries and restaurants to fill hundreds of vacation itineraries. There is just so much to see!

If sightseeing is your thing, do not miss these little known places to visit in the Costa Brava. Thanks Costa Brava Maniacs for providing inspiration and insight for the list!

The Hut of Salvador Dali

Bosc de Can Ginebreda Erotic Sculpture Museum

Mont Roig – The Castle of Horrors

Monumental Trees of Catalonia

Cellers Santamaría  – Gran Recosind Winery

Have you been to any of these? Do you have stories to share?

Valentine's Day Dinner at East Thirty-Six

Right in time for Valentine's Day, my boyfriend and I had a chance to spend a very romantic evening having dinner and sampling cocktails at East Thirty-Six, the Wellington and Church cocktail bar and bistro, which also happens to be our favourite splurge in the city.

E36 held a social media contest for its fans a few weeks ago. A dinner for two was the prize, which I handily won last weekend. Obviously, I was more than glad to use this opportunity to take Matt out to celebrate the V-Day. It was not our first time at the restaurant, so we came determined and prepared to be adventurous with the menu.

Things I Love About Toronto

Once in September, I went swimming in Lake Ontario. The heat and humidity had been killing me before I dove into the water and splashed my way around, honestly wanting to stay in the lake for hours. It got me thinking that I should really make a list of things I love about Toronto, since I wouldn't live anywhere else. I love Toronto. I hope you noticed.

It is now almost Christmas time. The heat and humidity aren't the issues right now; snowfall and freezing winds are. Things I love about Toronto are unchanged, though, and here are just some of them, in no particular order.

(Warming: a lot of  gushing and I love's ahead!)

5 Things to Make Air Travel More Comfortable

Flying nowadays is integral to travel. Driving is another big one for sure, but taking a flight is one of the most common modes of transportation for travellers, especially on overseas trips. (Duh.)

Spending a lot of time on a plane is any frequent traveller's plight. Most of us fly economy, and it is not always fun. Flying today is the cheapest it has ever been; compared to what it cost to fly in the 1950s, even the costs of business class start to look not that bad, but not everyone can afford - or is wiling to pay for - business class, let alone the first.

Being confined to economy class get old really quick. Trust me, I know. Even so, I am not a fan of peeps complaining about how terrible it is to fly economy. Neither am I fond of saying that you get what you pay for. It usually isn't an amenity missing, but dumb luck of unfortunate circumstances that makes the whole experience unpalatable. Overhead bin space that ran out. A seat mate who hasn't showered. Air conditioning full blast in the cabin. Expensive sandwiches. (Okay, the last one is an amenity, really. Or lack thereof.)

Maybe flying kinda sucks for a lot of people, but I still find it romantic and exhilarating. I get annoyed with all the airplane inconveniences too, but I have also developed routines to deal with them. I know a few things to pack to make it all easier. And this is what I want to share with you now.

Any list of this sort is personal, since everyone's idea of comfort is different (just like the idea of fun is), but here are some general ideas that I find help me - and maybe can help you too!

5 things to have on an airplane

Visiting Mackenzie House

Mackenzie House is one of ten Heritage Sites operated and maintained by the City of Toronto. It's a great little museum that I visited by chance last Friday - and loved every minute of it.

I was actually on my way to Montgomery's Inn, another Heritage Site, riding the subway westbound, when an announcement on the train told me that the service was temporarily suspended between St. George and Ossington stations. This being a new and unexpected development, I figured it would be a while before shuttle buses showed up, and abruptly decided to visit Montgomery's Inn another day.

Good thing that Mackenzie House is located in the heart of downtown, just two streets east of Eaton Centre, so I could go there instead. Located at 82 Bond Street, it blends in with the area quite well, but you wouldn't miss it.

Online Dating Experience (With Screenshots!)

Reviewing online dating apps was a fun exercise, and you all seemed to enjoy the post (a sincere thanks for all the ad clicks! Please keep clicking!), so here comes the sequel: The Online Dating App Experience - With Screenshots!

I think posting actual examples of messages is a good way to illustrate what it's like to try and find dates online. Of course, it is just my experience, since every screenshot below is of a message I personally received on my dating profiles. Everyone else's experience may be completely different, and it goes without saying that it is all valid.

Note that I am fully aware that it's not only women who get terrible first messages and are insulted and objectified at online dating sites/apps. What transfolk, disabled people and people of colour experience trying to date online is much more horrifying. People of all genders can be desperate, clueless, racist, classist and everything else in between.

Online harassment is a problem for everyone.

Yet, I am a straight white cis woman, and I mostly deal with straight cis men online, so naturally every message below comes from a man.

I've been having it quite good with online messages for a while, honestly. I haven't gotten a dick pic in a long time. I haven't been called a bitch or asked if I was a feminist. (I am, duh.)

Most of the messages I get are vapid one-liners, inane references to my practice of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, out-of-context compliments or just lazy "hellos". Then there are some odd ones. And ones with sexual undertones. And the combination of all of the above. I don't frequently engage the messengers, which probably accounts for lack of post-rejection insults.

A Bit of Bordeaux in Photos

Our first stop in France is the Right Bank of Bordeaux. I can't really promise you posts about any other stops, because you probably don't want to see countless photos of empty wine bottles, and that's honestly the only thing on my mind here. (Wine, not empty bottles.)

 The line of vintages from Château de Siaurac

We have Bordeaux City, Lyon, Avignon and my old pal Marseille ahead of us on the itinerary, but today, we are enjoying Saint-Émilion and its surroundings. There is a château everywhere you look - and it's glorious.

Online Dating: A Very Biased Review of Tinder, Bumble, OkCupid and Coffee Meets Bagel

"Now where is my bagel?"

Despite being busy with fun stuff like training Brazilian jiu-jitsu and working, I am single and thus receptive of going out on a date every once in a while. And thanks to various mobile apps and online dating services, at times I happen to be dating quite actively.

Online dating used to be weird. I remember the days when it wasn't strange to suggest lying to your families about how you met, if you met your partner online. Today, so much of people's lives happens online, that online dating has successfully claimed its own sweet spot in our collective cyberspace as well. It is no longer much stranger than updating friends on what you ate or what you thought about the latest Marvel movie.

Online dating websites are still alive and well (or so I've heard), but it's online dating apps where it's at these days. I also find most of my dates online. My social circle, although not small by any means, happens to consist of people who are already settled, happily or otherwise. I work from home and spend a lot of time training BJJ, which limits my time and, indeed, opportunity to meet someone new in the wild (although things happen). So I turn to online dating again and again, despite not having much luck with the most popular dating apps out there.

After all, dating is fun, even if it doesn't bring desired results.

Oddly, when it comes to finding people online, I do best with Reddit. I owe Reddit several very close and very treasured friends, several casual relationships and one full-blown ex-boyfriend with whom I don't talk anymore. These are all stories worth telling, but not today.

Great Wolf Lodge: Being Single in These Trying Times

Not sure if you could check into Great Wolf Lodge by accident, but I'd certainly count it as one if you were single - like I am. I can't help but wonder if there's even one more single person staying in the lodge right now. How do you even get here without a ring on your finger and a little cutie-patootie in a pink swimming suit in tow? Or blue swimming trunks. Or waterproof diapers. Or whatever.

There are some 400 suites in the resort, so it is statistically likely that at least some of them contain single people. Single friends. Single moms. Single dads. Single aunties and uncles, perhaps? Third wheels who end up being pillars of support to tired moms and dads ecstatic to be on vacation but equally eager to catch a water slide ride by themselves and not carry the whole 30 pounds of toddler around all the time. Why else come with anyone but your spouse and children?

That's approximately how I feel about my brother and his lovely wife bringing me along. Three adults per one child is the minimum requirement for all involved to have some fun at Great Wolf Lodge - taking turns at fun, perhaps, but fun. Watch the little angel shoot a water gun at other babies while the parents soak in the hot tub; switch places; cannonball down a giant vortex thing; rinse; repeat.

I am genuinely, painfully curious if any single people are present here. I'd like to hang out. Any non-parent with enough patience to be here is someone I'd probably share a beer with. Preferably in a bar. Wouldn't it be nice to have an actual place for adults to go to to have said beer or a glass of wine? But alas - no nightlife at Great Wolf Lodge after hours!

Oh the after hours. The waterpark is shut, the arcade is winding down, all "restaurants" are closed. Kiddies are in bed, exhausted from the day of mayhem, all that splashing and squealing (weeeeeeee!). Dead silence falls all around. The after hours begins... at 9:30 pm or so.

What's a single girl to do?

Well, spoiler alert: nothing really. There is nothing for me to do at Great Wolf Lodge after 9 pm apart from drinking in the room. A bottle of Rioja Reserva 2010 is nice, but boring.

Some friendly company right about now would be so awesome. Someone who isn't already asleep. (Or married.) Since I bet there are some (see above), we could have a nightcap together, if only there was a place for us to go. Not that I'm asking for drunken debauchery opportunities. Just a meeting place.

I like the vibe of Great Wolf Lodge, I really do. The family-friendly theme is valid and exciting. It's great fun with my nephew. But it's also thoroughly nuclear family-oriented and I feel I have no place here, being single and all, unless I leave after the waterpark closes and everyone settles for Storytime.

Maybe I should just take this opportunity to go to bed early myself. That's a rare luxury these days, is it not?

Writing, Consigo and My Other Plans

Currently in YYZ and enjoying some spring warmth at last! (Yes, it's May. Get your weather act together, Toronto.)

Not much travelling has been happening in the last year or so, while I have been working on getting my professional life in order. I have been writing full time for the last 12 months, but only recently began zeroing in on what I actually enjoy doing as a (technical) writer.

Blogging - check.

Copy writing - check.

Help sections and articles - check.

Resume writing - not so much, although I'm still happy to create a kickass CV for anyone who wants one.

I am also neck deep in helping run a tiny accounting firm in Toronto called Consigo, whose goal is to get a foot in the door of the exciting world of online bookkeeping and taxes. We are proudly an online-only service provider with transparent pricing and super-friendly people. So if you need an accountant to take care of your books, you know where to look now ;)

Apart from writing and Consigo, I intend on updating YYZ-BCN way more often from now on. Stay tuned for more travel advice and more moments of conventional wisdom!

There, I Said It: Feel Free to Be a Tourist

Much has been said and written on the subject of being, I quote, "a traveller, not a tourist". Tourists, purportedly, beat the beaten paths to death, take selfies with the Big Ben, eat on Las Ramblas, probably speak only one language and in general don't know shit about life.

Whereas, you know, true Travellers go only where the locals go. Travellers don't book tours or use travel agents. Travellers speak twenty languages, find the best latte without uttering a word of English, and would never, ever, EVER set foot in a McDonald's lest they be considered tourists. That's, like, so gross!

What a load of bullshit.

It has always rubbed me the wrong way how people would recoil from doing things by themselves. Going to movies alone? Horror. Travelling by themselves? Unthinkable. I'd like to claim that I never understood why, but I do. Solitude, for the unaccustomed and little self-aware, can be uncomfortable and scary. Solitude is a skill, and so is solo travel, which I am absolutely in love with. I prefer travelling solo, and I also have a strong aversion to others telling me what to do and how to do it when I travel.

This crude, cruel and unnecessary distinction between tourists and travellers illustrates the same idea: that somehow one way of doing things is better than the other, is better than another. That you absolutely need to defy the mainstream to get the most out of your trip or vacation. That if you stick to the well-known, conventional even, you are automatically a lesser individual - less adventurous, less resourceful, less open.

And let me tell you to screw that. Do what you feel like, be it when travelling and otherwise. (Don't litter though.) I just can't stress it enough: please do what you truly, really want to do when you are on a trip. You don't have to go to that major art gallery just because the guidebook told you it was "a must-see". You don't have to go out of your way to find a quirky place for lunch when you're next to a wide avenue full of places that don't shutter mid-day. You are under no obligation to visit any museum, any sight, any park. You really aren't.

Yet, when we get ready to travel, that's what we are conditioned to do. Make a list of places according to what everyone else said we should do, and go see them. This isn't to say we don't enjoy what we end up seeing. But I have a feeling that too many people on the road feel pressured to do certain things instead of undertaking some activity that they could quite possibly enjoy way more.

What is the point of riding the tourist bus if you are more inclined to go sketch the sea on the beach while getting drunk on beer at one o'clock in the afternoon?

What is the point of touring trendy cafes when you'd rather just have a big steak and chill in your hotel after dinner?

Who has the right to tell you to go visit that church, no matter how splendid its Neo-Gothic apses may be, when you enjoy shopping at local markets and haggle for cheap vintage posters instead?

How have we become so complacent to let anyone, ANYONE, tell us what to occupy ourselves with when we travel? How have we let others, who know so very little of our habits, passions and preferences, to decide what is fashionable and what is not for us to do when we go away on a plane? Why, why would we listen without consulting our own ideas first?

Here is a sweeping generalization of the day: there are no tourists nor travellers. There are people who either decide to go at their own pace and discover things that matter to them most or those who are lured, lulled, tricked into following someone else's path. That's the difference. The pre-defined path may be hipster or Lonely Planet, it really matters not. The pre-defined path is the one that may not be as awesome as the one you may choose to take if you just pause to listen and ask yourself what you, in all earnest, would like to do on your trip.

Please sleep in till noon if you want to. Please go on a pub crawl if you feel like it. Please drop everything else and visit art museums for hours and days. Please eat lobster for breakfast and sandwiches for dinner if that's what you're into. Forget convention and forget trends. Do. What. The. Fuck. You. Want.

And here's hoping that every travel will be an unforgettable one for you this way.

Lunch in Valencia

I had an extraordinary lunch in Valencia today. So extraordinary, in fact, that it warrants its own blog post, not a handful of tweets (no matter how much I love Twitter).

I also love Foursquare, and those who have known me long enough are aware of how fanatical I can get about my check-ins and how furious I was when the app was split into two. This, however, is not the time to rant about Swarm (which did improve a lot since its release). Foursquare got worse in my opinion - it's slow, buggy and clunky, but I still use it because we've got history, the app and I. I'm a Superuser Level 2 (humblebrag). Four and a half years worth of check-ins, ratings and tips are in there. I like making lists. And whenever I am in a new place and hungry, I use the app to find nice places to eat.

Foursquare can be a hit and miss for restaurant recommendations, since it's based on other people's opinions of them, and opinions are subjective as hell. But the hivemind works sometimes: when Foursquare is a hit, it's platinum.

That was a long winded way to say that I discovered an amazing place for lunch using the app today. I checked into my hotel in Valencia and, running out of time before places started shuttering post-lunch, picked two promising restaurants that were right next to each other on a nearby street. The first place looked too expensive even for me in the holiday-goddamit-I'll-have-what-I-want mood, so I settled for the second one.

Their lunch menu deal was a tasting menu. Imagine that? For 13.50€ plus drinks. No choosing dishes; they only gave me the menu to ensure I was okay with eating what they were offering. I just said yes and was subsequently presented with the following:

• cream of something soup
• tiny veal kebabs with tzatziki that was fresh fresh fresh
• a squid and vegetables taco in the softest bread shell
• the absolutely damn unexpected rice with green peas, egg and sashimi
• apple purée with cookie ice-cream and yogurt mousse. In a jar.

Never had anything like it in a seemingly Mediterranean restaurant, which it wasn't, turns out. Fusion? Asian? No labels necessary. I asked the restaurant manager, Catina, to reserve a table for me tomorrow night. I actually have a rule that I don't eat in the same place twice when travelling, unless I'm in some remote location that has no other options (like a few towns in Priorat, for example). I fully intend to break this rule tomorrow night, because if this was lunch, I want, no, I NEED to try their dinner.

No food pictures to illustrate the post. Was too busy eating.

El Delicat
Carrer del Comte d'Almodóvar, 4, 46003 València
963 92 33 57

Opinions Good. Reviews Bad.

Writing about food is hard, and whoever said it wasn't is pretentious or lying. Writing about food is hard, because it's an attempt to describe something that's indescribable. (You're better off snapping a picture and posting it to Instagram. Maybe.) If you write about food in a restaurant review, you also present your writing as a solid and objective look at something that can only be subjective. I have a big problem with that. It feels like opinions are being shoved down my throat, and this is not the feeling I want to associate with food.

What are being passed off as restaurant reviews are opinions - glorified and authoritative sometimes, but opinions. Of course, the same can be said about pretty much any other review - wine, film, music album, a poem, a novel, your friend's new haircut.

Are opinions wrong? No. But when it comes to entertainment and hospitality, opinions sometimes count for too much while offering very little. People who share them elevate their experiences and thoughts to the level of universal usefulness and applicability, but these experiences can never be truly universal - there are 7 billion people on the planet, after all. And restaurant reviews are the worst offenders, because there is nothing more subjective than sensory experience of food. It is dependent so much on everything else besides the food itself, that the experience may not even be applicable to the next time you, the reviewer, visit that eatery, let alone to someone else's visit.

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, yada yada. I agree. Everyone is. What irks me is the belief that opinions and experiences transfer. The belief that subjective can ever become objective if imparted by someone smart, someone older, someone with 10 thousand Twitter followers. A trusted source is a better source when it comes to facts, but food experience can never be a fact. Wine experience can never be a fact. Even experience of weather can differ a whole lot.

The jist of the post is not "Don't read restaurant reviews". Read whatever you want to read, but take it with a grain of salt and don't let it limit you. Don't feel bad if you hear a bad opinion disguised as a review of a place you like. Please don't think that you shouldn't drink a certain wine if someone said it wasn't good. You can drink anything you damn well please (if you are of legal drinking age). Ain't no such thing as a bad wine or a bad dish - if you like it.

If I post something about a restaurant I went to, just remember that everything I say about the food or drinks specifically is just my opinion and you can safely ignore it if you feel like it. Better yet - share your own opinion with me, and we can have a discussion.

Opinions are great and interesting and open doors to interesting debates. Opinions aren't great when they shove something down the public's throat - no matter how subtly. Just share tips on when to beat the line at Uncle Tetsu's Cheesecake in Toronto or recommend a place to eat if you want soft jazz music and table candles. Don't tell me if eggs benedict are too buttery - maybe I like them just this way.

(I'm aware that these are not eggs benedict. It was a delicious potato salad from Cañota, Barcelona.)

Priorat

It's been quite a while since I first opened a bottle of wine from Priorat. I won't claim that that was the moment I realized I had to come here, but I always knew that I would. Priorat is one out of the two wine regions in Spain to ever claim the coveted DOQ marking for their bottles (the other being La Rioja). DOQ stands for Denominacion d'Origen Qualificada, which is a high honour in the wine world: many other good-quality wine regions obtain only the DO standing - Denominacion d'Origen, without the Qualificada part.

Wines from Priorat are special. They are rich, full-bodied, full-Spanish, very expensive to the local standard (to the Canadian - not very). They are the wines with character, with a touch of history. They are bold and demanding. They are a pleasure to drink.

So my dad and I finally got the time to drive up to Priorat for the weekend. The wine region is found in Tarragona and is only an hour and a half drive away from Barcelona. But it is secluded, so solitary, so perfectly void of human noise, that is is very difficult to describe how comfortable we feel here. I suspect that we've been craving this kind of solitude for a while now, and this stay in the middle of nowhere - only the stars and the best wine in the world to keep us company - arrives just in time.

We've been welcomed with arms open wide. I honestly cannot remember if I've ever been treated with such warmth and genuine interest elsewhere in Catalonia. Today we had lunch in Falset, which is the capital of Priorat, and stopped at the bodega Buil & Giné for the night - and at both places we were (and are) taken such good care of, that I find it hard to believe we will need to leave. Wine here flows not by the bottle, but by the barrel. Hospitality is truly boundless.

It's been a while since I first opened a bottle of wine from Priorat. It's been a while since I wanted to stay longer somewhere so bad as in Priorat. Good call, Dad, good call.

Foodie in the Mission 101

I spent my weekend in San Francisco exclusively in the Mission district, only leaving the neighbourhood once to go to Haight-Ashbury. Considering the circumstances and the fact that I'd been to San Francisco before and done a fair share of sightseeing, I don't feel bad about it. The Mission is a great place, and I mean Great. To eat, to drink, to have breakfast or afternoon tea, to shop, to do anything you want - you can do all that in the Mission. Below are the food and drink establishments that I have visited last week and loved.

Paprika (3324 24th Street) is a cozy restaurant with a classy vibe, specializing in goulash and sausages. There are two goulash options on the menu, one slightly more expensive than the other, with sour cream and sauerkraut - that's the one you should get. Delicious.

Mission Pie (2901 Mission Street) is a pie shop, duh. Their banana cream pie is to die for. They also have hearty stew served with kale, which is all the craze in California, apparently.

Wise Sons Jewish Delicatessen (3150 24th Street) is a deli cafe, where I had a slightly hungover breakfast. Chopped liver, pastrami scrambled eggs, bottomless coffee make Kaplansky's in Toronto look like a joke. Or maybe I'm just biased!

Zoe's Bar and Restaurant (3088 24th Street), has great cocktails that, considering the level of fancy, are quite decently priced. Trouble and Strife with beaten egg and a flower on top particularly stands out.

Boogaloos (3296 22nd Street) is a favourite breakfast haunt of the Mission hipsters. Chorizo scrambled eggs with black beans and salsa tomatoes tasted great and filled me up till a very late lunch. Since I was there at 9 am on a Friday, all the hipsters were at their coworking offices, presumably.

When I needed a coffee break to get some work done, my two coffices were Philz Coffee (3101 24th Street) and Haus (3086 24th Street), both lively and full of Mac-yielding people of all ages. Philz has only brewed coffee, some 20 types, and Haus serves espresso drinks. Both naturally have Wi-Fi.

Total San Fran Withdrawal

Current temperature in San Francisco: +15°C.
Current temperature in Toronto: -17°C.
The temperature drop of 32°C total is a bit much for me. I would like to go back to T-shirt weather and brunches.

Back for More in San Francisco

I don't know where to start my post about San Francisco, except to note that I cannot believe I haven't blogged about it last year when visiting it for the first and second time.

One of the things I always remind myself of, and the thing that I remember well, is that the world is enormous and interesting and not confined by Barcelona, no matter how much I love the city.  The temptation to stick to the comfort zone and remain safe in the familiar surroundings is huge, and that's why I book my travels way in advance with non-refundable tickets - so that when the moment to travel comes I cannot cancel it. I never want to go travelling right before the set date, because I am always happy where I am, but I know how important it is for me to travel. Travelling expands my horizons (which are quite broad already, if I may say so), gives me energy, inspiration and focus. Travel is an immensely valuable investment for me and I never forget that with my head. With my heart, however, it is trickier, because the heart prefers to be calm, nevermind that it actually loves adventure and excitement.

The point of this long interlude is this: the night before yesterday I didn't feel like going to San Francisco at all. I would have had more time in Toronto, with my friends, family and my lovely nephew, I would have done more work, I would have slept better - what is this business, flying somewhere early in the morning for one weekend, crashing at someone's place, shopping for dresses? What is this nonsense? That this nonsense made perfect sense I realized only when my plane was taking off from the Minneapolis St. Paul airport where I had a short and painless layover. "My life is great", - this is what I thought during takeoff. This is what I always think during takeoff no matter where the plane is going.

And when I finally arrived to San Francisco, and it was sunny, and summery, and glorious, I realized yet again how thoroughly I forgot about all the excitement of travel. I need to be reminded all the damn time. San Francisco is intoxicating - not only because it's sunny and warm and cool here - but also because I am surrounded by energy, ambition and joie de vivre that never ceases to amaze when I come to the United States and especially California.

I am loving every second of it.

Silence In the Library: Borrowing Books in Barcelona

Barcelona has an excellent library system. There are 36 libraries in Barcelona, which may seem like few until you actually think about the neighbourhoods and how small, in my opinion, the city is. According to the official website of the library system,  there are on average 2 volumes per inhabitant in the collection (meaning approximately 3 million books); 27 libraries out of 36 have multimedia collections (read: DVDs of movies and TV shows, CDs, videogames), and each and every library has free Wi-Fi. The whole library catalog is naturally available online. Ayuntamiento (the city government) spends 15€ per inhabitant to fund the library system: that's a lot of euros from the city budget well spent, in my opinion.

And get this: anyone is allowed to obtain a library card in Barcelona. Anyone. You live in Barcelona or elsewhere in Spain? Have it. You live in Europe? Have it. You are visiting for three days? Have it. You are here illegally? Have it, I guess, no one will ask you how long you are here for and why. To get a library card, you need a valid ID, which could be your DNI, NIE or a passport - any passport. You do not need to prove you live in Barcelona, you do not need to provide a permanent address, you do not need to explain why you want the card. I am not sure if this is due to upholding the human right to information and knowledge, or the Barcelona library system is just so all-inclusive just because, but basically, if you are here and you want to borrow books and movies, you are free to do so.

You can fill a form online to get a card or go to the nearest library directly. The card will be made on the spot for you anyway, so whichever option you prefer for whatever reason works fine. As I said, you will need to provide a valid ID with the name matching the form filled and the picture matching your face, along with a local address, but nothing will be actually mailed to that address, so it could be temporary accommodations or your friend's mailbox. So you show up at the library, ask for a card, give the librarian your ID, and they print the card out in 5-10 minutes, which you are free to use right away. With the card, you are allowed to borrow 15 books or magazines, 9 DVDs, and 6 types of other media (CDs and videogames for example), for 30 days, from any library in the system. That's 30 pieces on entertainment for a month. In Spanish, Catalan or any other language you can dig out. For free. It is truly very impressive.

You can renew each borrowed item three times, provided that it is not reserved for another library user. If you fail to renew or return the item by due date, each day you are late is marked with one penalty point per item. Once you accumulate 50 points, your card is automatically blocked for 15 days, during which you cannot use it to borrow other books, reserve a computer or use other library services. If you lose an item, you need to buy an exact replacement for it, and if you can't find one, the library will indicate the material or cost necessary to reimburse the loss. Sounds pretty fair to me! Oh, and one last thing: you don't need to present your card when returning the borrowed materials, so you can ask a friend or a relative to return them for you if for some reason you can't make a trip. Cool? Very cool.

I personally have started using my card already: I have three books and one hiking map on loan at the moment, and I'm in love with the future possibilities, considering how impressive a DVD collection in my local library (Poblenou-Manuel Arranz) looks. I'm a bit afraid to forget to return the books, but the library website helpfully tells me that I will receive an email reminder three days before the due date.

Great job, Barcelona libraries.

Infecting Europe with all the good things

Barcelona, like any big city in the world, has a fair share of places catering to any possible hobby you could have. Dance schools, gyms, tango, painting, wine pairing, opera signing, ballet, even hockey (yes, in Spain), what have you - there is tons to occupy your free time if you have it, and so many options to spend it, if you only look for the thing that interests you.

Of course, martial arts are no exception, being the highly regarded and followed sport around the world. There is a lot of variety in the world of martial arts themselves, even more than you could imagine: lots of people have heard of boxing, karate, and possibly kung fu, but there is also kick boxing and Thai boxing (Muay Thai), jiu jitsu and Brazilian jiu jitsu, capoeira, jeet kune do, wresting, MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) and many many more. And basically, if you want to try any of it, you are in luck, because in my experience every big city has at least several studios, gyms or dojo that offer martial arts training in one or a few disciplines. Yes, even for adult beginners.

Barcelona being no exception, it didn't take a lot of time to find a martial arts school just for me. I was looking for a place to continue training in Muay Thai that I started in Canada, preferably close to where I was going to be living in Barcelona - no small feat because, alas, you can't count on the gym being close to you, only on the fact that it exists somewhere. As luck would have it, I found an academy 10 minutes away from my apartment. Barcelona Martial Arts Academy had a website (!), it was close by, it looked good, and I laughed my ass off at their awesome headline, "Infectando Europa con Fuerza Técnica" (I still laugh at it, but now I love it, because I know it's true).

So in April I went there, intimidated like hell, because all I did in Toronto was fitness-oriented kickboxing. I was in good shape, could take multiple reps of abs crunches, seat-ups and body kicks, do cardio and more cardio, but technique-wise I was an absolute beginner, and I knew that. My first class was a complete failure, or so it felt like, - but it was no question if I was going to be back for more. I mean, eventually I would learn the difference between a jab and a cross and won't have to ask Natalia to show me how to do a hook, right?

Right!

BCNMA is addictive. In spring, I was coming three times a week for an hour, mostly because I had to commute from a temporary apartment I knew I was moving out of. In summer, when I came back from Canada straight into my permanent accommodations that were close to BCNMA, I started going four times a week without fail, week in week out, Monday to Thursday. At  some point I realized that it was not enough and picked up a personal trainer for Kali (a Filipino martial art that we do as part of the self-defense class) in the meantime: basically, a super-awesome friend who goes to BCNMA as well agreed to hang out and beat me up in the park or on the beach with bamboo sticks so that I could learn the basics faster.

And then, not very long ago, I was at last allowed to move up from the foundations level to what I call "everyone else level" (and what Michael calls "Combat Athlete Program " level, but I like my version better). All it means is that I no longer wear a grey T-shirt, but a blue one, and I am allowed to attend classes where beginners shouldn't go, for the sake of their egos among other things, because the stuff taught there is much harder. I am so damn proud of my blue shirt I now take my ass to the academy five times a week, doing two classes at a time on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That's the plan anyways; in reality, sometimes it turns to three classes per night, because hey, why not learn some Brazilian jiu jitsu as well?

We now have a gorgeous new space with two training areas, so now two classes can run simultaneously. We have awesome people coming in to train, mostly guys (not surprisingly), but quite a few girls too. All classes - be it Muay Thai, self-defense or BJJ - are really, really fun and educational. They are fun all thanks to the instructors, obviously, and BCNMA is a very special place, because it is run by people who make it so every single day. Michael and Natalia are the only ones teaching, and they are the owners, so there is no slacking, neither in teaching nor in being taught. I used to be intimidated by both of them, albeit for different reasons, but that feeling sort of went away, now replaced by endless respect and admiration.

If I don't literally have heart eyes (like so ), while at the academy, it does not mean I don't feel this way every single time when I'm there. Sure, there are bruises, and sweat, and hair getting in the way, and shins kicked, and insteps injured (ouch), but this is my favourite place to be in all of Barcelona. Well, maybe apart from my bed. Zzzzz.

Amsterdam: First Impressions

Amsterdam is lovely, but I didn't have to tell you that, did I? It is totally picture-perfect, making it impossible to put the camera away, because there is always some other canal, some other impressive boat, some cute fat cat or some comical Spanish restaurant to take pictures of. Amsterdam requires a lot of getting used to navigation-wise: any change of course may spin you in a new direction while going completely unnoticed... Having to navigate toward (really cute) bridges to cross canals, we took the wrong way numerous times, and we have only been here one day!

Today, Amsterdam was so choke-full of people that my friends and I had to hold hands so that we don't get lost in the crowd. Thing is, I had no idea that I will be visiting the city on Gay Pride 2013 weekend, and while super-duper awesome, it was also really tiring to get off sidewalks (for the lack of space) and jump away from bicycles to avoid injury, only to have to squeeze through colourful groups of dressed up people and having beer spilled on. Crowds get old really fast, but the general merriment and the definitely commonly shared feeling of "We are proud" was beyond amazing. Amsterdam, you definitely earned your right to be proud!

I have one random complaint though. Some places do not accept credit cards, only debit (but not Visa Electron) or cash. Some places do not accept cash, but take chip-and-pin cards. What's the deal? I am as of yet not terribly inconvenienced, but my limited supplies of cash are slowly dwindling! Please take my touristy Mastercard more, will you, Amsterdam?

Speaking of touristy, we visited Rijksmuseum, albeit briefly, De Jordaan, the Sex Museum (funny, tacky and a great way to spend 4 euros), and the New Church today. Does not seem like much, but we walked all across the city, got sunburnt and had a really light lunch, so by 9 pm we were beyond exhausted. Mid-afternoon Amstel and an early evening Kaldi espresso helped to balance out the day though. Plans for tomorrow: Rijk again, Stedelijk and Van Gogh!