Facebook versus Blog

I know that there many of you who read this blog that are not friends with me on Facebook or who haven’t “liked” the Facebook site “Trailing Spouse Blog”, (which refers you right back to this blog), so I am going to catch you non-Facebook people up to date.

First, let me give a quick shout out to my new Favorite Couple and the United States Military.  Mr. Favorite Couple works with Mr. Big here in Switzerland.  Favorite Couple also reads this blog, hence, they are well aware that I need some bleach.  Well, yesterday, Monday, Mr. Big goes into the office and there, sitting on his desk, is a gallon bucket of Clorox.  Honest-to-God Clorox.  With a no-spill spout.  Like it just grew up out of his desktop by magic.

After some astute detective work, Mr. Big works out that Mr. Favorite Couple was visiting his brother-in-law at his (the brother’s) US military base in Germany this past weekend.  Favorite Couple went on a frenzied shopping spree at the base PX on their family visit.  Um, sorry, Bro, it’s nice to see you an’ all, but can we go to the grocery store now?

Running giddily through the aisles, Favorite Couple were tossing things in their basket willy-nilly like kids in a candy store.  US PX’s are like Wal-Marts.  They have everything.  Favorite Couple were salivating over the Kraft Mac N Cheese, the Domino brown sugar (both light and dark!), the Lucky Charms, the Oscar Meyer wieners, the Armour bacon, the individually wrapped Kraft singles.  Lawd, it boggles the mind.  They loaded up the van, floor to ceiling, sent the 2.2 kids home on a plane and drove home to Switzerland.

Oh, wait, no, that is what I would have done.  My children would have been immediately displaced by cases of Quaker Instant Grits and Swanson’s Chicken Broth.  Favorite Couple actually let their kids ride home (i.e. take up valuable space) in the van.  Favorite Couple are much nicer than I.  But, they did bequeath me one gallon of treasured bleach and, for that, I am forever in their debt.

Let’s return to Facebook.  Last weekend, Mr. Big and I went to Barcelona.  We have been to Spain many, many times, but never Barcelona.  This is a very popular tourist spot so I’m sure many of you have been there.  I will try to link here the picture album on FB so you can see the pix, which were fabulous.  I really don’t know how to do this, so I will probably have to enlist the help of my sister and, hopefully, she will be able to figure out this link stuff.   Barcelona is a large, large city (4 million people!) on the Mediterranean with really good shopping and stunning architecture by a man named Antoni Gaudi.  Everywhere you turn is another Kodak moment.  But, it is full of tourists and all that that entails, so beware.

We stayed at a very nice hotel, the ME Barcelona (which stands for the hotel chain, Melia) http://www.me-barcelona.com/.  It was nice.  No complaints.  It certainly wasn’t jaw-dropping, but, remember, this was a work-related trip, so I was just glad it was not attached to the airport, which is where Mr. Big usually stays on work-related trips.

It’s about 15 minutes outside the city center, but only two minutes from the Metro, so, it was cool.  As long as I have public transport, I am good.  While we were there we did all of the typical touristy things like walking up and down La Rambla (an ultra-tacky street filled with African vendors and “painted” mimes), La Saguarda Familia church which you should not miss, Gaudi’s Parc  Guell which was just breathtaking (and healthy, because it’s a lot of walking), and the marina/seaport.

Let’s talk about the marina.  Most tourists walk down to the marina because there is an aquarium, restaurants, and, let’s face it, the Mediterranean Sea, a mall WHICH IS OPEN ON SUNDAYS, etc.  Us, no.  We walked down to the marina because Mr. Big thought he spied, from MANY, MANY blocks away, a really big yacht.  OK.  I don’t know squat about yachts.  To me, they are just really big boats.  As a matter of fact, I really didn’t know that Mr. Big knew anything about yachts until last weekend.  Y’know, you can be married to someone for 25 years and still not know the little things that are swirling around inside their crazy heads.

Anyway, we walk down to the marina and we get a half-bottle of wine and two glasses and go outside on the terrace so that, you guessed it, Mr. Big can sit and stare at this stupid boat.  I’m not even looking at the boat, mind you, I’m looking out over the city and admiring the view and soaking up the sun.  Meanwhile, Mr. Big whips out his Blackberry and is Googling on THE LIST OF THE BIGGEST YACHTS IN THE WORLD, this particular yacht.  Ten nanoseconds later, he knows everything there is to know about this boat.  Do I care?  No.  I do not.  Does he care?  Well, apparently so.

This is the 44th biggest yacht in the world, previously owned by some Russian Mafia dude and now owned by some Indian guy.  Go ahead, Google it.  It is called the Anastasia.  Apparently, me, being just a dumb Trailing Spouse, I was not aware that the top 200 yachts built in the world are ranked by size and all this information is available to the general public and that SOME PEOPLE actually care about it. Y’all, he was fascinated by this stupid boat.  He even called Domestic Son and Small Son right there from the marina to, I don’t know, I guess, enlighten them that he was basking in the shadow of this yacht.  Of course, Domestic Son answered his phone like a good boy and yammered on with his dad about this tremendous boat and Small Son’s phone went right to voice mail, which is par for the course.

Anastasia

Reluctantly, we left the marina when the sun went down and it got cold without spying a single soul on this boat.  It was locked up tighter than a drum.  But, truthfully?  I don’t think Mr. Big cared.  He just wanted to stare at the boat.  Weird, I tell you.  Weird.  I did ask him, as we were walking back to the Metro stop, if Tiger Woods had a big yacht.  Mr. Big looked at me like I had just stripped naked on the street.  “Honey.  Tiger Wood’s yacht is one-tenth the size of that boat.  Tiger Woods’ yacht could fit inside one of the restrooms of that yacht.”

I said, well maybe that is why Tiger can only pick up hookers.  His yacht is tiny.  Mr. Big said, “Girl, you know the only difference between men and boys. . .”

UPDATE, CHALET GOO GAW:  We have another showing this coming Saturday.  We have specified that we must be able to see ALL rooms, all the way around the entire building, and that Madame will not be in attendance.  We’ll see how this goes.  I’m not holding my breath.