Friends!!!

We've got friend's visiting now, cruising buddies from the States. They got in today...I went out to Placa Catalunya to meet them off the airport bus. Unfortunately their flight was delayed, and I had no way of finding out how long.

I got to do about four hours of people watching. It was interesting, some of the time

I saw a full grown woman go by, apparently sane and normal, wearing a pink plastic tiara with a heart on the front. Her boyfriend had a pierce going horizontally through the skin over his spine, right at the back of his neck where that one vertebrae sticks out more. Now there is a pierce that would alarm me.

There were some really big tourists, plus lots and lots of groups of twenty somethings.

Back packers are not really taking in the spirit of minimalism these days. I went around the world in a knapsack like you take to school. There were people I saw with those big camping packs back then, and I always thought they looked like luggage with legs. Now though they seem to have small knapsacks on their fronts, plus water bottles, cameras and frequently purse type jobs. I remember swearing about the weight of my bag, and it was REALLY small, I cannot imagine they are having much fun hauling all that stuff. What have they got in there anyway?

Lots of cops. Good considering the number of pick-pockets people claim there are.

The line for the tourist bus must have been about 300 people long. What's wrong with the metro people?

It is amazing the number of people who open their luggage right there on the sidewalk where you get off the bus. I mean really, no wonder there are so many pick pockets. Heavens above, I was tempted it would have been so simple.

There are some amazing tattoos out there too. I saw one girl with a tattoo of some form in that soft lower part of your belly just where your trousers cover, or would cover if they were not these ultra low pants that require both the guys and the girls to use neat to remove their pubic hair. Really if your 18 year old son is buying neat, that's why. Oh my goodness. None of the guys I knew at that age would have even thought of considering something like that. Then again maybe I am a dinosaur.

Our friends are having a nap now, and I am resting in the cool of the apartment after four hours standing in the sun at Placa Catalunya waiting. The girls, the man and the dog are off in the hills.

Good thing I brought a book.