Recap

Here's a recap of what I've done so far...

We spent a Sunday in Aigua Blava which is part of the Costa Brava... Paul's grandparents have a house there and his parents were building a house there as well but because of the recession in Spain the construction has stopped...

Costa Brava is gorgeous... high mountains with the sea right at their feet..

We spent some time at the pool and then went to Tamariu for lunch... wonderful seafood... little clam-like shells and deep-fried minnows... and paella! It was all delicious... and i had a wonderful Sangria. Then Paul spent some time in the ocean... I got him to jump off one of the rocks... not too far into the ocean... then we headed home and Paul spent more time in the pool and also went swimming at La Roca with his uncle Ramon... a nice little cove with a place for sunbathing and swimming.

Paul went to camp for a weekend so Alexia and I got time to relax... We spent one evening on a 3.5 hour bike ride through Barcelona.. I stopped and had a mojito and had a fun time whipping a bachelor out with his bachelor party... we also stopped and got gelato and rode through some of the oldest parts of town before getting to the beach....

This is one of the oldest streets in Barcelona... founded in 1148... it has the Picasso museum on it and it can only be reached by bike or walking of course... all of these old streets are too small for cars to pass through... very very very cool.

On May 30th I participated in EL CORTE INGLÉS... an 11K race... which is about 6.8 miles. Paul's dad, Ignacio, is an avid runner and participates in all kinds of races all the time. Paul's sister, Alexia, is 15 and had never run in one before so I convinced her to join me... It started at 930am and had over 58,000 participants... it's one of the largest races in the world and is THE largest in Europe.

We ran some of the way and walked some of the way... at times it was so crowded that it was hard to make our way through the people... Icnathio was in the front because he had priority since he ran in so many other races... We finished just under 2 hours... an hour more than Icnathio. It was hard... our legs were ready to be done long before we actually finished... but it was so rewarding to cross that finish line... One of the best parts was that we got to run through the 1992 Olympic Stadium... very very cool