Redwood trees

Font de San Joaquim

If you know what I know, then we were all wrong. You see I thought sequoia semprevirens only existed along the coast of northern California, however yesterday as I was hiking through the woods in Vallromanes with Alicia, and we went searching for natural “fonts” springs. First we came across the one named for San Joaquim, and a little later the one named for Santa Anna; and that’s when Alicia pointed out the two redwoods that she had mentioned to me earlier, so I was expecting at the most a 50 year old, yet these two beauties are well over 200 years old, which come to think of now, it had to have been soemone in Gaspar de Portola’s crew, maybe even Fray Crespi who accompanied Fray Junipero Serra and was the guy with the green thumb amongst the crew those days, in 1776. So if you think about it, this is all part of Bay Area history too. Cool huh?

Now, a moment that we’ve all been waiting for, (no Albert, not that one, not yet anyway), when we got back from our walk, Victor arrived and took me back to the big ol’ city, and this time he took me to my new home, yeay!. I finally got to open my bags and place things in a way I can find them. After a month of moving around, its nice to be able to put your feet up, and besides it gets a bit stressful trying to find the right place; it’s a bit more money than I was planning on spending right now (450 e/m), but I know if I can’t even feel rhe least bit happy where I am, I’ll be sabotaging any possibility of remaining here.

My Room

The Kitchen

The Balcony

Victor dropped me off and also a delicious artichoke omelette that Mari made, and I made accuantances with my new room mate Laura, a 28 yr old single mom, with a beautiful 5 yr old boy named Miquel; although he is currently visiting his grand parents in Italy.

The Living Room

After straightening out everything and having had some of the omelette, I took Wilbur out again to find the nearby park, and I found it, just two blocks away, and just as big as I remembered it, about the size of the San Rafael Ridge, so perfect, I’m in the city, but also feels like nature still.

Since this weekend is Caraval, I thought I’d go see the parade amongst the big crowds, so I took the metro to the Paralel, where they used to have all kinds of theatres in the old days, even a Studio 54 once, and there’s actually still the “El Molino” a Catalan version of Moulin Rouge, that has been here forever. And they had some entertainment, however the parade was a major disapontment as there were no floats, so while they had an extensive parade of people in costumes dancing, nobody could see anything because the crowds covered everything.