the great outdoors...

After doing my first bit of "real" travelling to Barcelona, I've decided that I like travelling to cities, but I think that I would still prefer to travel to remote destinations which have more nature than city to offer.

Interesting architecture intrigues me to a certain extent, but it cannot hold my attention like that of a perfectly orchestrated mountain. In Barcelona, my favourites part by far was seeing the mountains from Mountserrat and the Meditteranean Ocean from the Castle. I couldn't care less about actually seeing the castle or the monestary on the mountain. They hold their own with historical value, but they cannot compare to the natural landscapes.

And frankly, I see nothing wrong with this. I still would love to travel anywhere and everywhere, but for the landscapes more than the cities.

Another note on this thought: natural landscapes versus religious buildings. I can totally see why they would build a monestary on top of Mountserrat - the view alone is a tremendous spritual experience, but why do most of the tourists not see it this way? Many people mill around the outdoors giving the natural landscape a respectful glance, but do not feel the spiritual connection they are looking for until they actually enter the monestary, or, the main church hall (where silence is the rule) for that matter? Basically, what I'm getting at is why do religious buildings contain religion? Why can't spirituality be contained in the outdoors, in nature? Is religion supposed to be checked at the door? If one believes in a "god" I'm sure he is not merely contained within the walls of a building.

If one is truly spiritual/religious, it shouldn't matter if one is in a building or beholding a natural wonder. If anything, the latter should hold one's faith more, for that is such that a higher power has ultimately created.

barcelona...

So this weekend I set foot for the first time in continental europe. Or, more specifically, Barcelona!

It was a great trip, lots of sights, and lots of fun. I was especially glad, though, that we had people with us who spoke Spanish. While a lot of the people there could speak a little english, I was not fully prepared for how much english would not help me in another country.

Anywho, on to the sights!

Friday we saw a castle overlooking the Mediterrnean Ocean (Montjuic). The view was amazing - I couldn't help but imagine myself way back in history gazing over the ocean at boats etc.



The "main drag" in Barcelon had some amazing street performers:



And another view from that day of the ocean coastline from ground level:



Aparently under Barcelona is an ancient roman city (well, remains of it anyways). So of course we had to go see that! The remains were very interesting, but I really enjoyed this old painting:



The next day we went up to the monestary on Montserrat:





The next day was our last day, and so, a short day - but we still managed to fit in a bunch of Gaudi and an Arc de Triomf:







And possibly one of the coolest things we saw all trip: a human tower!

hmmm...

OK, I've managed this long without divulging too much into my confused religious beliefs. Until now.

Basically, I've started reading the Bible. I'm not sure why, I just thought it would be a good idea since so much of this world bases their faith/life on what is written in it.

So far I have read the book of Genesis, and the start of Exodus. And I just don't understand all of it (not content wise, I can obviously understand what is being written, but I don't understand all the hypocrisy and lack of continuity). I don't understand why people would base their blind faith on what is written in it...? There must be more information that I'm just not getting from what I have found there. The stories are haphazard and contain minimal information - how is that enough? It seems that people build the stories up to mythic proportions, so now that I am reading them they seem a lot less significant. What time period are these supposed to be set in? Etc etc etc.

Here are some of my main questions so far:

With Moses and the freeing of the Israelites: why does God harden the heart of the Pharaoh in order to "prove" himself to the people by inflicting plagues upon plagues, therefore harming/killing many Egyptians? Why is it OK for the Israelites to have slaves, but not the Egyptians?

Why does God feel such a need/desire to prove himself?

I feel I can answer this one with the fact that the Bible was written by males, but why does God continually promise men "children as abundant as the stars in the sky" when he wants them to do something?

Why does God favour some groups of people over others - weren't they all created in his image from the single entity of Adam?

Why would God care that males are circumcised or not?

Why is it OK for a man to have sex with a prostitute, especially one which turns out to be his daughter-in-law, but God kills a man who "pulls out" during sex?

Well, that's enough for now....more to come!

oops!

Well it seems that changing the layout of my blog has had some detrimental effects. Which leads me to an apology for not posting recently. I wanted to, but the blow to my self-confidence was a little much.

Basically, I have a statistic counter working on my blog, and was happy to notice I have a little bit of a steady following. And then all of a sudden no one was reading anyone. Ever. There hadn't been a single reader in over a week. This concerned me. I felt unloved. So basically this prevented me from blogging - why blog if no one's reading it?

But now I have realized the err of my ways, and I will consequently fix the problem.

So about New Years.

The Edinburgh Hogmanay Street Party was unfortunately cancelled here. I feel for all the tourists who flew in specifically for it. But it was still a good time at the party at my flat. Perhaps a little too much fun for some. Especially those who had to work the next day. Yes, that would be me.

Here's a photo of the aftermath carnage. Warning: it actually looked a LOT worse in real life - you can't see the full extent of the confetti in this photo.