Greetings from Barcelona

We (Melinda and I) have been in Barcelona for a week, now... the first few days sightseeing and latterly at The Learning Conference at the University of Barcelona.

We've seen a bunch of good stuff... The Sagrada Familia, the Picasso Museum, The Catalan Museum, The Joan Miro Gallery, The Barcelona City Museum, Park Guell, Mount Tibidabo (and the amusements thereon), as well as a number of other nifty spots.

The conference is going well, as well. It is a "learning" conference, and this definition seems to be wide open, so there are many different, interesting presentations in a number of different streams. As well as learning good stuff, we have managed to make a few friends, including Salah, who is from Bahrain and is currently finishing his doctorate in England. There are people here from all over the world, and it is particularly valuable to hear that the problems we face as educators (students, administration, politics, etc.) are universal, and this serves to make our work in Prince George seem a little less isolated. As well, we are picking up all kinds of good ideas.

On the idea of meeting people from all over, we met two charming young guys from Finland while heading up to Mount Tibidabo, yesterday. Antii and Simo were spending their last day in Barcelona -- Antii because he had to go back to Helsinki to report for his compulsory military service, and Simo because he was going to Malta for language school -- and they deigned to spend the afternoon with us oldsters. We enjoyed the delights of Tibidabo, the view, the churchtower, a flight on Air Tibidabo ( a ride that appears to date from 1928), and just wandering and looking. After our stop on the mount, we went back into Barcelona for dinner at Casa Alfonso, a dandy place for tapas. It was fun hanging out with the gents... they are thoughtful and interesting characters. One particularly funny moment: Melinda was explaining that her interst in Finland included the Moomin books and Antii exclaimed that these were (and perhaps still are) his favourite books, without any sense of self-consciousness about childishness... I hope he keeps his head down while he is out there learning to be a soldier. Finland is in good hands, if these two are any indication of the next generation coming to maturity there.

Well, time to sign off... considering that the one person who regularly might read this is sitting at the computer terminal next to me, this might be a fruitless exercise...