We continued around the park which is dedicated to Gaudi and yet more of his fascinating work. One of the centre-pieces of his work - a large Dragon snaking down the steps to his house and museum - had been vandilised and had its head chopped off a few days before - a huge controversy as I been led to believe by a spanish guy i’d met the night before. It really was a shame as it looked cool, but it wasn’t completely ruined and i’m sure can be fixed. We wondered around in awe to the underground caves with elegantly carved pillars all representing the natural world.

We all felt particularly rough so headed off to the beach to chill out and sooth the hangover with more beer! On the way we went up a large column which looks a bit like Nelson’s column in London. The experience was rather sickening as the thing had sloped floors and swayed wildly - making you feel like it could collapse any minute. It was here we decided not to go up any more high things - despite wanting to go up the huge cable car over the sea! That evening we chilled and experienced the inside of a few more bars and a spanish curry restaurant!

My birthday started with another day of doing the tourist thing - a trip to the Casa Batllo (pronounced bat-yu Jon!) - another incredible Gaudi designed building. Our hostel was in the perfect location - sandwiched between the Casa Batllo on Passiage de Gracia and La Ramba de Catalunya. I’ll let the pictures do the talking about the Casa Batllo - needless to say the guy is a genius. We couldn’t help thinking though - If we were given endless money and the run to do what we wanted - and copious amounts of Marajuna - Jon, Dan and I reckon we could design something similar!

After more drinks we headed out to the Camp Nou once more for the finale of our holiday - FC Barcelona vs Racing. Fantastic experience - Ronaldinho scored twice. Valdes saved a Racing penalty. The English sang loudest and we all took part in a metal mexican wave which went twice around the stadium! We rounded off the holiday with Tapas in 2 restaurants and drinks until about 3 before our 7am wake up call and the flight home.

So I’m back with mixed feelings. I loved Barca so much - I really want to go travelling or just live somewhere warm and different. I’ve returned to a new world however. I’m not going to comment on this myself - but needless to say it will change my life over the next few years. I now work for one of the largest search marketing agencies in THE WORLD!! The opportunities for paid travel are possibly endless! Its so exciting but with a mixture anxiety - I want it all now - I want to just travel europe or the world and learn new languages now! My time will come though - anxious/impatient/excitement? No emoticons for those so i’ll just use thoughtful!

What an incredible night. Lovely meal at Pinxto People (Spanish Tapas). Fantastic Entertainment from The Luke Rattenbury Trio (and nameless compare in silly red jacket!). Amazing clubbing experience at Koba (great DJing - except for two knobs called Good Looking - or was that Looking Good?)! And finally, great after party at Jon and Dans - did someone say Champ?!

I really, really, really am in one of the most privileged positions into which life could ever have placed me. I work with fantastic people! The now 60 strong company for whom I work contains 59 of the best friends for which I could ever wish. This week has undoubtedly been one of the best of my life - one I will not forget in a hurry. As I write this, I am on my way to Bath (blogging on my mobile baby!), to see my lifelong great friends, and spend my 5th night in a row getting sloshed and having fun! I think I may run up and down the carriage with glee!

Ah - I’d better shut up now - people are looking at me with the ‘is he watching porn on his phone?’ look. No - my blog is just pleased to see me!

Back to tiredness - i’ve definitely been in a state of delirium today. I had appraisals to do with my team, sandwiched between trying to spec up new interfaces for our key processes. I still haven’t sorted out details of our Team Building session in London, which is on Friday. We are going to play Monopoly around London - which has been ‘organised’ by Jon and I. When I say organised of course, we haven’t had any time over the last week to have a trial run - so things could go horribly wrong! I’ll detail what the plan is tomorrow - But i’m in my hotel now (has it really taken me 6 hours to write this?!) - and i must sleep. Big Big day tomorrow of course. Nervous, but up for the challenge. In between writing this i’ve even written a little SEO quiz to add a bit of excitment to tomorrows long presentation! I may post it here after. Good bit of link fodder!

Nite

By the way - If you’re wondering how i’m posting this - there is no broadband at 25000ft - i’m cheating and wrote it earlier - i’m now stealing the Novotel in Manchester’s wireless connection! Good day to you.

So anyway - next week I’m presenting 2 training workshops for e-consultancy. Pretty exciting, but i’m quite nervous! I’ve never done training to a group of executives before! They’re all paying £395 to hear me speak! Wow! Everything is so hectic at work too. I’m off to Coventry tomorrow at 7am for a meeting, plus I have meetings in Maidenhead and London over the next 2 weeks. Mental. I’ll still be having fun though. Saturday is Miss Brinkley’s birthday, so hopefully i’ll be meeting up with Dan, Saro, Deano and all the lads who I haven’t seen for a while - well since pride anyway. By the way, i managed to get my Brighton pride photos up finally. Also my photos from Rockclimbing in Southampton. It’s so easy now I have Gallery 2 and Wordpress. I love it.

Well, back to work. Woo!