We slept deeply and packed our things in the morning, purchased a few more bottles of wine and checked out of the hotel after breakfast and a walk and drove up up up out of town and then down down down back into the flat landscape of Catalonia. Violet was tired of driving. It had seemed inefficient to have me drive, since I didn’t drive stick and it would take a while to learn and we couldn’t get to where we were going as quickly. “Are we there yet?” she asked.

We tried to go check out Colonia Guell outside of Barcelona- a chapel that Gaudi designed. It was unfortunately closed but we could admire it’s seemingly random curves from afar. So we had lunch and then were on the road, into Barcelona, as I did my best to navigate, and got to the parking garage outside of Jami’s place without much consequence. There were crowds of people and, when we got up to her fifth floor apartment, she was excited to have us back. There was some kind of festival going on, that had been going on for a few days and there was music tonight,  fireworks, who knows what. So we quickly cleaned up, grabbed a few things an headed out with her towards the harbor where we would see a performance of some sort of circus thing.

We met up with her friends Rachel and Diana there and then quickly got sidetracked by the rows of tents offering wine-tasting. We love tasting wine! But we miss the performance. We decide we are all hungry and take off for tapas at a crowded little place and eat a huge selection of dishes, with two other fellows joining us as we drink more wine from little glasses, laughing, talking, enjoying. We head to Dianas place where we get a wonderful view of the city rooftops from her rooftop apartment, the cathedral next door with it’s stained glass windows lit up, the distant fireworks going off signaling the beginning of the fireworks show. Like little kids we gather ourselves up and  head to the harbor again to see the fireworks show that is being put on by Uruguay. It huge. It’s loud. It’s fireworks and it seems fitting for our last night. We wander home through the darkened streets to a bed that welcomes us.

The next morning, with too little sleep, we are up early, pack up our things quickly, trying to pack our five bottles of wine as carefully as possible and then are on our way to the airport, returning the car, picking up our tickets, standing in a line, getting on a plane to Amsterdam, being served breakfast and getting off plane. We have a six hour layover so we grab our things and get on a train to the Van Gogh museum. Seems everyone in Amsterdam speaks pretty good English. The Van Gogh museum is a wonderful treat with it’s several hundred Van Gogh’s – his signature gloppy brushstrokes, thick in consistency, little over painting but… so right each time. We purchase a poster and some postcards on our way out, try to get into the Rijk Museum nearby but find we have no more time, with we had more time for the rest of the city and then are on our way back to the airport.
The plane ride is pleasant enough… dinner… wine… movies… land in JFK, get a hotel with the most comfortable bed yet, some Italian delivery dinner, a night sleep… on the plane to San Diego, are reminded what American airlines are like (Jet Blue) – with their meager snacks and $5 movies per person(!) and finally arrive home in San Diego. And that is when the Honeymoon is over.
But good things like this… they last a long long time… new adventures… new projects… inspirations… unfolding…