Hola. Hay muy caler!!!
Translation: Man, it´s hot here. Bliss descended as I stepped off the plane. I was chatting with a clear-eyed ex-Yahoo! exec (go figure) who´d moved here to find himself. He spoke with serenity and calm, looking me directly in the eye, smiling. He wandered off… and I got the train to la Plaza de Catalunya with no mishaps, wandered down to La Rambla, my favourite street from last time I was here, armed with a list of pensiones.
The first one I see is the one I´d idly noted earlier on the list: Hotel Toledana. Given the whole Toledo-obsession, I had to at least check it out. And of course, it just happens to have free Internet access this week because it´s the 90th birthday of the hostel. It´s a little more expensive than I´d hoped, but I get the room all to myself, I´m on the fourth floor overlooking La Rambla, and given that net access at Heathrow was 6 pounds for an hour, the extra couple of euros will probably pay for itself shortly.
There are people playing pan pipes on the street below. I have no idea who I will be at the end of this journey, but the journey´s half the point, right? Thanks all for your well-wishes.
I´m going to go explore and find some food now I think. I´ll work out how to change the language settings on LJ later… (all the instructions are currently in Finnish from the tourist who was on here before me…)