June is Bustin' out All Over!

 (With apologies to Rodgers & Hammerstein) 

What the heck? It's already summer!  

The month of June started off with the Democrats Abroad "Yes. We. Vote" Scavenger Hunt, which I helped organize. We created it as a short (~2km) walk around the oldest part of the city, where the resistance to Franco and the Spanish Civil War was both overt and covert, and very active. We aligned it with resistance to the Orange Menace in the States. The teams looked for banned books at the Anarchist Bookstore; danced the Cotton-Eyed-Joe at Plaza Universitat; redacted a quote from tRump to make it truthful; and looked for Americans on the streets to remind them to register to vote. We all learned a lot about Spanish history, and then we had lunch at the rooftop restaurant at El Corte Ingles. 

We were a little worried about the crowds that week, because Pope Leo came to town on June 9-10-11 to  bless the new cross that was placed on top of Sagrada Familia, and commemorate 100 years since the death of Antoni Gaudi. Since my office is right next to the Cathedral, and the Pope was staying in the Episcopal Palace just on the other side of it, my usual walk to work was rerouted to avoid the crowds and the heavy security. We actually caught a glimpse of the Pope when he came to town. He waved at us as his motorcade went by!  

A few days later, John and I were off to the UK. We hung out with mom and dad in London for a few days, spent a chilly, rainy day in Cardiff, and caught up with our best friends from the US, who happened to be in London at the same time! The only thing I would change would be taking a later flight to London... whew, 5am is an early alarm clock. 

Friday in Cardiff, we went to Tredegar House, which was once owned by the richest family in the country. We had lunch in their little restaurant, and toured the house and grounds. Not the best weather, but a fun little side trip. I got a kick out of this really old vacuum (the boxy one on the left, which looks like it uses a manual bellows cramp), and seeing the wall of bells - one for every room - to alert the 'downstairs' staff when someone 'upstairs' needed something. Very Downton Abbey. 

We took the train back to London. On the train, we were sitting with a young American guy who is studying Machine Learning at Oxford, and is off to NYU for his PhD in the fall. Thankfully, it was sunny and warm back in town, so we stopped for a pint at a pub near Paddington with Matt and Alli. They went from being our Austin buddies who we saw every weekend (and our pandemic "pod") to people we only see once a year if we're lucky... but we still pick up where we left off and it feels like home. It was completely not planned - they happened to be in London for the weekend too! We definitely made the most of it. 

Saturday I tagged along with mom and dad to the market at Portobello Road, which I have to say has gone way too mainstream. It used to be old-timey dealers with antiques and tchotchkes, like a proper flea market. Now it's all souvenirs, crappy jewelry, and thrifty clothing. Yes, ok, "Notting Hill" also had something to do with it (as the Travel Bookshop proudly reminds everyone), but it just doesn't feel the same. We had a lovely brunch at the Brasserie on the corner -- delicious avocado toast! -- and then we took the bus back to Earls Court. The bus, you say? Some of the tube stations/lines were closed for construction works over the weekend, so the bus was our only option. Then mom and I went back to Kensington high street to do a bit of shopping. [I've always wanted to say that... we went shopping in the high street!]  I got a cute little denim jacket from Hobbs, and then we went to M&S to see if we could find "safari pants." We've been told that we have to wear light colors, khaki, etc. on safari in August, no jeans or black pants. We found a couple of pairs of pants, and then we moved on to Boots so I could buy some essentials that I haven't been able to find in Spain. (Whew, my suitcase suddenly got a lot heavier!) 

For dinner, we introduced Matt & Alli and some of our local friends to Noor Jahan, which our family has been coming to since at least 1999. SO GOOD. I made sure I kept to mostly gluten free food the rest of the day, so I could enjoy some naan with dinner. Priorities! 

Sunday, mom made reservations at an organic pub for Sunday roast, at 1:30pm. Why so early? We learned the hard way in previous years that if you don't get there early for the roast, they run out! This was a new pub for us, and it was really nice (if a bit loud). John had the lamb roast, complete with veggies, potatoes, and Yorkshire pudding (see pic). I went with the shepherd's pie, after some watermelon gazpacho. Deeelish. And the stone fruit and rhubarb crumble for dessert. Nobody was hungry for a while after that. 

But instead of nap time, we went off to find our friends again, this time down by Tower Bridge. In one of those typical mapping errors, the bus dropped us off and we were level with London Bridge, but we needed to be on the road below it. We walked around past the Monument and were on our way to the waterfront. We sat and chatted for a while, and then decided to be real tourists and walk around the Tower of London and across Tower Bridge, because John wanted to have a look at the HMS Belfast. [So much of the time when we're in London, we're doing non-touristy things, the same way we do in DC. Sometimes it's nice to be reminded of where you are and how amazing it is.]  

Monday morning we were off to Kings Cross to get the train north to Durham for the Durham HPC Days conference. Both John and I had keynote speaking slots, as we did in 2023, but a few things have changed since then. :)  John's talk (and really, our invitation to the event) was based on a conversation he had with Alan at Christmas, when we were visiting his family in York. John talked about the lack of innovation in chip design since the 1980s. Mine was a comparison of industry-academia collaboration efforts in the US vs in Spain, and how different they are (or not).  [Hmmm... why didn't I blog about the trip in 2023? Sigh.]

In Durham, we did a lot of revisiting - same hotel, same lovely Persian restaurant, the Market Pub, Tesco's... It all felt very familiar. At the Persian place we had mocktails - I had a "Cosmic Girl" (aka a Cosmo without the vodka) and John had a virgin Mojito. At the Market Pub the last night, we had burgers while watching some World Cup footie -- what else do you do in a pub? --  and more alcohol-free beverages (including the Berries & Cherries Old Mout Cider that I had last time). 

But one night John's German colleague suggested we go for Thai - apparently he and his wife go to Thailand on vacation for a few weeks every year, and even speak a little of the language. I had rice noodles and an interesting drink - coconut juice with butterfly pea and a maraschino cherry. It looked cool, but it didn't taste very interesting.  

Every evening, we could hear the university rowing teams practicing in the river below our hotel window. What a workout! 

 We made it back to Barcelona without too much hassle. John remembered to mention that we're residents when we were being hustled into the passport lines, so we went through a long empty space and were the only ones there! By the time we got home on the subway, it was midnight. Phew! 
 

See all the June photos here.