Barcelona...looking back, and moving on, for two

I can't believe it's been almost a week since my last Post, which is probably a Blog Absence record on my part. Couldn't be helped really, as the weekend offered no opportunity and have been swamped playing catch up since I got back. Even today after 12 hours in front of a computer screen I am still stealing time from something else that should be done right now. But whatever, it's almost 11 and I have definitely put in my time today.

I am not one to adopt cliches readily, but that ubiquitous Dickensonian prologue of torn emotion could not be more apropros when it comes to my weekend away; however this time it was a mere tale of one city, and it most certainly was the best of times, and the worst of times.

The city itself was still beautiful, and I got to see many more tucked away places than I had last time as I was staying with someone who has lived there for 6 years. It was very funny, as we would pass places I used to go to all the time and that he goes to all the time we started to wonder if we had ever been in the same place at the same time before and dared to think that are paths had previously crossed and tempted a twist in fate. But we will never know, will we?

Unfortunately my purpose there was not so much for exploration and fun but to offer some company and comfort to someone who truly needed it. It was perhaps the saddest weekend I have ever spent with someone, although peppered with great laughs and a bit of fun and enriched with the experience of feeling yourself get closer to someone because they need you, and grow stronger yourself because someone needs you to. I watched my friend ache, and I ached; I watched a good person be a better person despite having a more than reasonable claim to the opposite; and I hope I took care of someone as best as I could, offered tokens of happiness in the form of meaningful things and thoughts and a shoulder and an ear. Even now I am most sad for him...

But it was beautiful there and so many memories came back. It was much different to be there in the winter, and somehow, over the course of the weekend...I became...ONE OF THEM! Yes, there it was, fifteen degrees and yours truly, supposed hardy stock from Canada, was decked out in a scarf and 3 layers and closed toed shoes. I would pretend to be sorry if it didn't mean I was just becoming more and more acclimatised to la vie en Europe ; ) We walked and walked, to breakfast to 3-hour-2-bottle of wine lunches to 4 hour dinners, sometimes talking sometimes not. Through it all I have made a most special friend that I hope to see so much more of (much time to be spent throughout the holidays - I now have a New Year's date!), work more with, and look forward to a potential adventure post-Congress in Brazil. I hope the little things nudge him towards feeling better, or at least to the more fun stage of bitterness where we can plot the torturous suffering of our enemies hehehehehe.

I'm tired, although logged more hours of sleep this weekend than any in recent history, despite hitting what I'm sure was a significant fraction of the gay bars in Barcelona!

Good times...and there will be more, and better, and it WILL all be for the absolute best...if anyone, I know.