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24 july 2012, y viva espania

My first exposure to spain was probably the song, a british phenomenon of my early childhood; and it then bounded around asterix and never being able to work out why rain should fall on a plane. I have only actually ever been there once, a short weekend in barcelona, when I was working in a building with students and never even got out to see the place. Fifteen years on, I'm finally going back, on our family summer holiday, and so as well as looming large in my thoughts on europe - will it be the straw that breaks the euro's back - it is also now in the forefront of my personal life, as we check out beaches, museums and restaurants. Though I've still a week and a half to go, my mind is already slipping into holiday: a fortnight based in the catalan capital, with a little excursion in the middle, to perpignan in france, and to andorra in the middle, a tiny principality nestled in the pyranees. I thought that was one of the only two sets of euro coins (of nineteen) I don't actually have, but it turns out to be monaco and the vatican. Oh well; can't wait.