Miscellaneous Pictures and Stories and Quirks

After our initial visit at Chartres, we broke for a much-needed lunch and warm-up. (It was really cold outside, and inside the cathedral we still needed gloves and hats.) So Mom and I went to a pizzeria/salon du the. I had a delightful fizzy lemony beverage by the onomatopoeiay name of Pshitt. This made us giggle. Oh, but then. While walking around the old town of Chartres before getting the train home, we bought me this little vanilla Yule log.
On the train ride home, we were discussing what to do the rest of the evening. I was talking about something and dinner: "...and then for you we'll have a nice crepe [rhymes with PEP not PAPE]; a sit-down crepe. Oh, that sounds like something else..."

At which Mom and I burst into giggles like the ten-year-old American schoolgirls that lurk inside us all.

That night, writing in our journals back at the hotel, Mom asked me how to spell the name of the Pshitt. And then she wrote down about the log, and the crepecrap, and we had a fit of laughter for a solid five minutes.

I like comparing American cinema when I'm overseas. The Narnia posters were very pretty, so I took a Spanish picture. The French posters were even more fierce, and I loved looking at them every time they appeared (which is often; the Metro stations are like giant advertising stations. Each has six or seven HUGE posters on each side of the platform. There are less than ten ads you'll see at any one time, total, among all the stations.).

This one, though, is from a bus stop thing. You can see it better than the one I took in the metro (which is wider too).

At El Corte Ingles, I "shopped" on the nine floors, mostly just quickly strolling through. But I took a few minutes to look at the jacket/coat selections on the 4th floor, and I found this cute, cheap green corduroy coat. It had a hood and toggles and was cozy comfy. I didn't buy it, though.

I brought Mom back later that night. She really liked the coat.

In fact, she liked it so much, she bought one for herself.

Look at our size difference. Heh. She's like a mini next to me.

I have several strange photo habits. One is taking pictures out of moving vehicles: cars, busses, trains, planes. Another is taking pictures of sunrises and sunsets. I am always thrilled to get to combine those hobbies, like you saw with the sunrise pictures from the Barcelona flight.

Another thing I like to take pictures of is giant ice cream. Here's one of my favorites, from the summer in 2000.

(sorry for the double; I couldn't erase it without erasing them all for some reason.)

My first giant ice cream in Spain! Yummy gelato with whip cream on top!

This ice cream is a chain around Barcelona. I think this giant cone is chocolate chip or something.
I am nonchalantly drinking the orange drink I bought for dinner at the Pizza Hut on Via Laeitana.

Imagine my excitement when, while partaking of a morning coffee and orange juice, this giant mug of hot chocolate!
(There was actually giant ice cream in the shop too, but there were people in the way.)

And then, at the buffet restaurant near the Sagrada Familia, giant fruits and vegetables!

And giant chicken!! There was even a giant fish in the next window!