This is a small section of the Agbar Tower that I took one night while in Barcelona. I wasn’t even supposed to be there but the flights got cancelled due to weather back home. The tour company picked up the tab and I was fortunate to have a few extra days. Something I love about Barcelona is that people are out at all hours of the day and night. This was taken after midnight on a Sunday. No matter where I went I found people out walking or just hanging out. The colorful Agbar Tower is an iconic landmark and we stayed next-door at the Diagonal Barcelona. You can see it to the right with the Barcelona sign. It’s a hip hotel with nice spaces to chill like a rooftop pool and bar that provided great views of the city. Being so close to the tower made it easy to get back to the hotel. Whenever I took a taxi back I could just say, take me to the Agbar Tower. I’d definitely stay here again on my next visit, because even with three extra days it’s not nearly enough time to take it all in.
Here we are pulling out of port in Barcelona being followed by a flock of gulls. It was amusing because they seemed to know the routine and followed the ship quite a way out. It was an excuse for me to get some funny photos. When it comes to animals I anthropomorphize them; I assign human traits to their expressions and actions. I think we’ve had it wrong all along. Perhaps I see the animals in a different way, like maybe there’s more them. I always try to show animals respect and never assume I know how intelligent they are or what they’re thinking. On the other hand I eat meat, so that’s something to reconcile. That’s my inconsistent sense of things and if you asked me to explain better I probably couldn’t. Nevertheless, I still think our co-inhabitants on this planet deserve more respect than we give them. And for that I am happy to feed the gulls.
This was taken from a water taxi as we passed a cruise ship leaving the port of Venice. I’ve been on several cruises and the port of Venice is the most scenic I’ve seen. This was not the ship I was on but if you look close you’ll see all the passengers lined up along the rail. They’re looking out at the city of Venice. I was on an even larger ship that left a few hours later and the scene must have looked similar. There were so many people standing on one side that the hull tilted towards the city. It was the most amazing feeling; the ships are so large it never occurred to me that the weight of the passengers could make it tilt. The procedure for docking a cruise ship in Venice involves being towed by two or more tugboats. The tugs are massive machines. There is one that pulls from the bow and one or more that guide the stern. Because they move so slow you have a perfect vantage of the city. I stood on the thirteenth deck and looked down upon the rooftops. It was one of the highlights of the cruise. In any case, this was just a random shot with an interesting perspective. It’s one thing to stand on the top deck and look out, and quite another to see it pass by from the water level.
