Menorca!

We have been here since Sunday and it has been great! It is sunny everyday, and usually hot which is perfect for swimming, and we are mostly outside the whole day. Gemma has two sisters, and they each have two kids and a husband, so with the six adults, six kids, the grandparents, myself and another american friend staying with one of the sisters we are like a huge sicilian family aboard their little yatch boat out on the mediterranean. Its great out of the five days we have been we have been out on the boat for four of them leaving at 11 and coming back around 5,6 or 7. We have lunch after the kids on the top deck, of three, and go swimming on and off all day lon gin the ocean. Yesterday we took the little motor boat out to tour a cave, and we took some coffee on the beach, and did a little snorkeling. The views have been spectacular...I will post pics soon I promise I just have to work out some connections issues, plus being outside means little time on the computer...i love it! We are eating so well too, the other day I had the most amazing paella and of course vine and cava is great too!

All Aboard!

So we orginially we all planning on taking a thirty minute flight to the island of Menorca, me , Gemma, and the girls Claudia and Monica, but the girls said they wanted to take the boat with dad, who usually has to take the boat because he brings the car and all the stuff for two weeks which is inside. The boat takes 8 hours.....

But I know we will have fun, I guess when gemma was booking the ticket for me, she could only get a big room, so I am excited, plus the views are supposed to be great. After meeting both of their parents and sisters and cousins and friends from all over, they all say I am going to love Menorca (the Island just north of Mallorca). La pequeña Monica said that she wanted to stay with me in my room...she is so cute, but still devious at the same time.

Today relaxed, danced to high school musical and jonas brothers, I painted their nails (red like mine) and made bracelets for Claudia to sell with her cousin (like a lemonade stand but with bracelets)...very girly things!

Hasta luego me voy a la isla!

The week before MENORCA!!

This Saturday we are all going to Menorca, the island just just north of Mallorca in the Mediterranean. The family goes every summer and they basically go to the beach everyday and eat good food. Sounds like a nice new routine! Though our routine here in Tiana, right near barcelona, has been great too! The girls go to camp in the morning at 9 with their mom or dad and I sleep in, then I get up around 10 sometimes 11 (since I was still getting used to the time change (but not anymore even though I still sleep late)) then i either hang out in the house and read or write to you or swim or I go into barcelona on the train or walk along the beach as I did today, then I meet the girl at their club where they are at camp until 5 and we get picked up by either their mom or dad (the mom works in marketing and the dad as a financial advisor so they are both very well educated) and then we come home and eat a snack or I swim with them or play a game in the play room (today I played uno with Claudia which was very fun while Moni made me a bracelet), or we watch a little Disney channel but from 5 to dinner around 8:00 or 8:30 its our play time the dinner is usually lentils and fruit or squid or tuna and veggies like we had tonight. Then the girls take their camomile tea that their dad makes for them on the sofa watching Disney Channel again. I usually sit with them and translate some things into english...then either Monica reads to me or her mom.

Today Felipe´s parents came overfor dinner, they are from Girona, the costa brava, they talk so much and are such sweet people. Felipe and Gemma taught me the phrase ¨tiene mucho rollo¨ meaning one talks a lot sometimes in a bad way...funny, they were talking abuot the dad! or someone with buen rollo has good humor or is cool. I´m loving learning the idiosyncracies and phrases of the area!!

My First Great Weekend

After Harry Potter on Saturday, on Sunday we started the day out right...making a chocolate cake in the morning. It was a little bit of a disaster with the girls dropping sugar and both wanting to mix everything and trying to convert different measurements since they use different ones than in the US, but it was fun. We went swimming in their pool while the girls impatiently waited and every fiveminutes for thirty five minutes claudia asked me "pero cuanto minutos mas irene" how much longer (they call me irene because its much easier to say then devon). It finally turned out okay and the family ended up liking it. After lunch we played a while in their play room then took a little tour of the town Tiana...its very old and beautiful. We went to the club of the town where there is pool and a restraunt in this beautiful old building. We ran into Gemma´s cousin and their family and then her sister, she grew up in Barcelona so her family is everywhere. After swimming, we walked back to her parent´s house which is very close to their and they have a pool as well, so there the girls went swimming with their cousins, at the third pool of the day. So our little walking tour of the swimming pools was fun and at each place I met more of the family. Apparently everyone is excited to meet me too because Mark, the girl´s cousin who is 9 or so kept askign for a playdate with Claudia because he wanted to meet me...same with two of Claudia´s best boy friends. These Spanish kids are seriously so cute!

I still have to put up pictures but I don´t have wireless on my computer where my pictures are so I will try to do it soon.

Swimming and Harry Potter

On the first day I was too tired to go swimming with the girls so I said I would´t go but they made me promise to go the day after I arrived, on Thursday. I slept in late and decided to go into Barcelona to walk around a little and get to know the city better, since I had only spent about three days in the city a couple of years ago. It was great I took the train in and less than 25minutes later I was there at Plaza Catalunya which is right in the center of town near the gothic neighborhood which is where all the action is. After a little while I came back to meet Charo, the lovely cleaning lady, to pick up the girls from camp. They were so excited and all their friends knew who I was and they all called out my name when I arrived. So then right when we got to the house we went swimming. I helped put them to bed after dinner, we eat around 830 or 9 here and Felipe cooks really well. I have already had amazing lentils, fish, squid, salad....gotta love that mediteranean diet.

On Friday I went into Barcelona again and took the tourist bus aroudn the city and saw everything from Mont Juic to the olympic stadium and where FCB plays soccer to the Sagrada Familia. I had lunch at a favorite spot of mine from when I visited Barce last, and it is the only place the city where you can get bagels (because they are not very common in Spain) and i had a bagel sandwich a sat in the sun at the park near the store and read a newspaper...ideal. Then I came home and played with the girls (Moni and I made a pizza of dirt in the yard) and another amazing dinner and Felipe and Gemma went out to meet friends nearby so it was myfirst night of sitting and beign with the girls alone...they are a peice of cake. Besides the usual misunderstanding between english and spanish the listen to me very well.

Today, Saturday, I woke up at 11ish, since I am still jet a little, well actually I was up for two hours during the night reading since I couldn´t fall back asleep. Also, I forgot, it was really cute, the day before I gave the girls some coins from the US and Claudia said that she is going to use the coins when she comes to visit me. I thought that was adorable because she was so sincere, and at ten she knows what she does and does not want to do. Her english too is great, pretty much comparable to my spanish. Anyways, today I woke up late but we played and had lunch, noodles with tuna, and fresh organic fruit like tomatoes and peaches, and then went to se HARRY POTTER!!! Claudia, Gemma, and I went to see it and Felipe and Monica went to see Ice Age 3 in 3d. I loved Harry Potter and we saw in the original version in english which was great for Claudia to improve her english and of course I was happy. A fun family outing....

Stay tuned for more adventures tomorrow!

Barcelona Day 3

I arrived on Wednesday morning after an hour flight from Kansas to Chicago, then an 8 hour flight to Paris after a three hour layover, then i transferred airports from Charles De Gaulle to Orly and was stuck in traffic for an hour (with a cute frenchman as my driver ;) ) and then took an hour flight to Barcelona and arrived almost 24 hours later with the time change. But Gemma, the mom of the family, set everything up for me and it was super easy.

Gemma picked me up and we drove through Barcelona to her town, Tiana which is 15 kilometers outside the city, and we got to know eachother better.Instantly, I could tell that she was very nice. She took me home and while I upacked in my newly renovated room (they are still working on some contruction around the house) which is actually Monica´s but she was more than happy to give it up to me. Their house is beautiful, they have a view of the ocean and are located up on a hill with huge windows to see the view.

After the girls came home from camp (9-5 until next week) I met them, Claudia who is 10, and Monica who is 7, and they were shy at first but then warmed up to me after playing soccer and swimming. I was too tired after the flight to swim but they made me promise to do it the day after. Gemma gave me a tour of the house and made me feel right at home. She was telling me about her time studying abroad at Berkeley and how much she loves SF. We talked about that for a while, in spanglish. She likes practicing english and I need to with Spanish. She has such an amazing perspective about her kid´s education. They are in a private trilingual school just outside Barcelona learning in classes taught in Spanish, Catalan, and English. THey more or less speak Catalan at home but still use Spanish daily. It is very similar to spanish but still sounds completely different so Gemma has to keep reminding the girls to speak in Spanish when they talk so I can understand.

Felipe came home from work and is extremely nice as well, making sure I know everything about the house and am good with all the food they have. He is the cook in the family and cooks very well. He made dinner the first night of cod fish and a tomato plate with another white fish, mushroms and zuchinni which was all very good...I figured that I should eat fish while I am here since we are in Spain and by the water, how could I not, but I still don´t eat meat (but most people here don´t consider ham meat so it is on everything but the family knows I don´t eat it). Little Monica got worried that the leg of ham kept out in the kitchen would bother me...she is very compassionate. Felipe cooks all organic food which is amazing and whichmakes me very happy.

After dinner the girls were dancing and showin me their moves...I will have to put up the video when I can get internet on my computer. By the end of the night when we were watching a little Disney Channel, they were all over me, on my lap and holdingmy hand, it was very cute,they are definitely not shy anymore and I totally adore them. Claudia´s english is very good and she can explain things well with few errors and Monica gets a little overpowered by her sister but can still say some complex things to me. So it works well to speak in Spanish with Gemma and Felipe and English with the girls.

I could not have asked for more, Gemma is so accomodating, I am already all set up to live here for the next two months, I have a phone, train passes, a home and everthing!
I already know I am going to want to stay longer.