Life On Land

Hola From Barcelona!

As I write this I am sitting in the gorgeous home of Kelley’s au pair family in the beautiful coastal village of Llavaneres, Espana.

I arrived yesterday morning after a nine hour flight from Atlanta to Barcelona , a 45 minute train trip from Barcelona to Llavaneres, a quick bus ride from the train station to the town center and a ten minute (uphill) walk to the house. Quite a journey but I have already met some amazing people and had a few funny encounters. 

Free wine on the plane? Yes please, I will take two.

I flew with a few UGA swimmers who are competing in the Mare Nostrum meet this weekend so it was nice to have them as my buddies for the flight. A good thing they were there too because being the organized genius that I am I managed to leave all directions Kelley had e-mailed me for taking the train from the airport to her town in my house at Athens. One of the guys saved the day and I was able to give her a call from his phone and have her talk me through what I needed to do.

The challenges were not over yet though. Once I got to the train station the kiosks to buy a ticket did not accept any of my credit cards. I had no euros on me because Kelley had told me it would be easiest to just buy it with a card so I would not have cash to be stolen with me.

So as I stare at the ticket kiosk, frustrated and lost, a worker from the station comes up to ask if I need help. We try my cards again and none of them work still. But I think I must have just looked so downtrodden and disillusioned with my first experience in Barcelona that she did the most amazing thing. She takes out a train ticket and just give it to me and tells me to use it! I could not believe it – this woman was an angel. I had nothing to give her in return I told her, and she said no, it is a gift. So my bad experience in Barcelona turned into a positive one and now my duty will be to “pay it forward” and pass on the good karma!

On the train to Barcelona from the airport I chatted with Thomas, a young Delta employee from Cincinati getting his pilot’s license. He decided on a whim the day before our flight left to come to Barcelona and was planning on renting a bike and cycling his way though Barcelona sampling all the food there was to be had. It sounded like the perfect adventure to me and made me briefly consider a career in Delta on another airline to subsidize all my travel. 

Today, my second day in Spain, Kelley and Ricard (the 2-year-old Kelley watches) took me to Mataro, the city next to Llavaneres. Kelley suggested seeing Mataro before Barcelona since it is bigger than Llavaneres but much smaller than “The City”. We shopped around for about an hour and ate churros before heading back to her town. Everything in Spain closes down from 1:30 p.m. to about 5 p.m. for the large lunch that is traditional in this area. Kelley said it takes some getting used to because if you sleep in until 10:30 a.m. (like I did this morning) then you have to hustle to even get anywhere to see it all before it closes down.

Kelley and Ricard having some fun at the playground.

Kelley has the weekends off of work so we plan on visiting some of her friends in the city. My excitement to see more of the city and the area grows every time she talks about it so I will surely have great stories when I next get to post.

Ciao for now!

**I will add pics to this post soon…my computer is not getting the internet at Kelley’s house.**

Update: Pics added…enjoy!