We are in Barcelona! We arrived about six hours ago. So far, I have managed to get us lost for about an hour looking for a restuarant called Origens 99′9%. So, we came back to our room, looked up directions, and left to find it, only for me to get us lost yet again. After about two hours of walking we found it. On the bright side, we got to see quite a bit of Barcelona tonight! Plus, we worked up a really good appetite. The funniest part of the evening was the confusion over leaving a tip. The credit card receipt had no space for a tip. Our waiters both didn’t speak any english (and they could not understand our bad combination of Spanish and Italian). They finally brought a woman over who spoke very little English. They had no idea what we were talking about, so we left five euro. They were shocked and really thankful. We were just confused…
So far, we are having a really good time! It is nice to not have snow. It is raining a bit, but the weather is really comfortable outside.
I just finished the Seattle Half Marathon this morning. I had such a good time! Anthony has pictures of me running accross the finish line (Below). There were about 14,000 runners in today’s race. It was pretty crazy. It took me literally five minutes to get to the start line after the start buzzer went off. My official time was 1 hour, 43 minutes, and 55 seconds. My goal time was 1 hour and 50 minutes.
I am not planning to do the Vancouver BC Marathon in May (the whole thing!).
Posted 1 year, 9 months ago at 2:46 pm. Add a comment
November 4th was one of the most surreal nights of my life! I was in Italian class when it was announced that Barack Obama would be the next president. We could hear cheering, honking, clapping, fire works, etc. When I left class, I met a few friends a few blocks away from our house. There we found thousands of people, the oddest mixture of young and old, gay and straight, every ethnicity, etc cheering and singing. It was the most un-Seattle Seattle I have ever seen. I saw hipsters (yes, hipsters) waiving American flags, smiling, singing as well. I knew that this was something momentous. I left for home only moments before a drag queen led the crowd in the national anthem. AMAZING!
While Obama’s win is amazing in many ways, I was saddened quite a bit by the passing of Proposition 8 in California. It is amazing to me that people are so concerned with gay couples marrying. I think all of us gays are still in shock that it passed. Additionally, many of us are angry and outraged. Many people are protesting (peacefully) the passage of discrimination. Some want to boycott Utah because of the Mormon Church’s massive support of this proposition (somewhere in the range of $25 million). If a faith group (and many, MANY minority groups, I should add) want to write discrimination into the constitution, then I think it is definitely within our rights to peacefully protest a group that encouraged ignorance and hate.
So, while I am saddened by California, I am hopeful that we are moving towards progress. While Obama is in many ways a centrist, not the liberal many try to make him out to be, I am encouraged when he mentions GLBT folks in his speeches. It is a refreshing change from the last eight years of an administration that has done everything they can to vilify our community.
Posted 1 year, 10 months ago at 5:36 pm. Add a comment
