hola mi amigos. so much has happened since i last wrote, where shall i start? italy was fun. the last night tegan and i took a short bus ride to the city/suburb of Firenze called Fiesole. it is a very nice little town that overlooks the city. i also bought a commedia dell'arte mask from a professional mask maker in a little shop that was something out of a fairy tale. the walls and cieling were draped with tons of masks and the man and his shop seemed about as quaint as gepetto in his workshop. then its was off to agde to meet my troupe again. this was a lot more difficult that was necessary. but i eventually made it there to the touristy beach town in the south where a friend's grandparents were lending us their beach house for free for a week. yeah. pretty un-cool. the ocean was wonderful, but we soon had to depart to barcelona. this was also quite the challenge because our ginormous chests didnt fit on most trains. we ended up having to stay a day in some town called narbonne. howver, this turned out to be one of the coolest things ever because narbonne just happens to be an incredibly beautiful city established probably well before the 13th century because there is a catherdal in the town that has as much beauty as notre dame, though its a little smaller. the first stone was lain in 1276. we went to mass there in the morning, and it was a beautiful experience. then it was time to keep trying to get to barcelona. which we eventually did make after a several hour stop in the most bizarre, desolate border town/station with very few working toilets. the landscape howver was very beautiful. we arrived in barcelona at about 1030 or 11 pm. we searched and searched and searched for a cheap place to sleep, but everything was full. we finally had to settle for a place that was 27 euro per person, but we were glad to have beds. but it turns out that barcelona loves her straat performers. the road that is the "hip" section of town, where all the performers are, is called la rambla and is virtually built for street performers, vendors, and outdoor seating for restaurants. its a pretty cool city, even though its filled with prostitutes (including many transvestites), drug dealers and theifs/pickpockets. but, hey, nobody's perfect right? unfortunatley, being overseas also means that news is not easy to aquire especially since it is in another language. so we only just heard this morning about the war in the middle east that has apparently been ready to boil for sometime. i hope that it will not be long, but i cant judge based on the few scraps of information i have. peace love happiness darla