The Rain in Spain - and Portugal

It's a toss-up between Venice and BAR-thelona for "My Most Favoritest Place I've Ever Visited in my Whole Life Ever." Barcelona was beautiful, clean, and so easy to get around. The subway system was the best we encountered, probably because it was completely overhauled for the '92 Olympics. The people were very friendly, and the food was awesome. We went to one restaurant where they gave us a choice of seating: fumado o no fumado. We chose the no butts section, which was basically the one table in the whole place without an ashtray. And then there was this:

It is a requirement when touring Barcelona that you visit at least one of Gaudi's incredible structures. I can only liken his style to those drip sandcastles you used to make on the beach. Amazing. This is his apartment building, Casa Mila. And here's the rooftop garden:

Sigh. T-Bone had to pull me away so we could catch our train to Madrid, where we spent a couple of days before moving on to Portugal. Upon arriving at the Madrid train station, we found out that there was a strike and that we would be riding a bus to Lisbon. Shit. It turned out to be an awesome charter bus, and we sat right up front where we could hear the driver's tunes - a random mix of American soft rock. I vaguely remember hearing "Afternoon Delight" right before I dozed off. When we arrived at the Lisbon train station at 5 AM, a strike had just been called there, too, so the place was empty. About an hour later, station workers started showing up, saying, "No more strike. Strike over." Apparently, they play this game a lot.

It's a toss-up between Lisbon and Juarez, Me-hico for "Place I Felt the Most Like a Vulnerable Tourist Ripe for the Picking and the Robbing." Dude. Lisbon was rough. We were offered hash on the street. At noon. In front of a church. More than once. We saw a drunk homeless guy getting the crap beat out of him after he spit in some people's food at a sidewalk cafe. We saw very young prostitutes trolling the train stations for tourists. Creepy. And yet, the architecture and the TILE, especially in the Alfama area, were incredible. We also took a day trip to Estoril, a resort town with beautiful, sandy beaches. There was a pottery place out that way that I had read about, but of course it was closed the day we were there. I had to feed my tile fix with pictures of these awesome street signs:

From Madrid:

From Lisboa:

And from Alfama: