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.
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