Now that I don’t have internet I have a lot more time on my hands, which means that I can do other things like blog or read a book – Instead of the usual facebook, email and TV shows, Cougar Town (sigh* you will be missed).
The reason for the no internet is because we moved. You would think that it would be nice not having to be bothered by the outside world but when you are having banking problems and I am not able to contact the bank back home cause Skype don’t like the internet connection in a café, it can be stressful. It is nicer though to be close to so many of our friends that live in old town, and not having to walk for a half hour just to get to the markets – those are the plus.
Now being a cyclist the one thing that you always have besides a bike is your computer. So to get our daily fix of the other world outside of Girona, we have been spending a lot of time at cafe’s and lots of money of coffee and food out.
When you go on a trip for any amount of time, personally I like to have a budget set out for myself. So that I am not spending a crazy amount of money on shoes… cause it happens. But this trip has come with quite a few surprises. Firstly my computer hard drive died, so I had to get a new one. They are not cheap here either. And now my computer programs are all in Spanish, like Microsoft Word (and every word I write is misspelled), and it likes to talk in Spanish sometimes telling me there has been an update.
Then my bike broke and needed a new part to order and it has been over two weeks now and the part still isn’t in, so I have been renting a bike. The joys of Spain, nothing moves fast, they close when they want, take holidays when they want and if they really don’t feel like working they won’t.
The funniest thing here that I have see is that one morning we woke up to a dusting of snow. We decide that we would go for a walk into the old town before going on our ride so that snow could melt. For the life of us we had the hardest time figuring out why there were so many kids out of the street and why most of the shops weren’t open. Then we got it, it was a snow day, an inch of snow closed down all the schools in Girona. That would never happen in Canada, and not in the lease in Saskatchewan, people back home would not even put one winter clothes. Here everyone is in parkas and mitts and hats and boots like it was -25c outside instead of +4c. People still wear boots and jackets and scarves outside when the temp is still 16c outside. I know that a good 20% of Saskatchewan would be wearing shorts and t-shirts in that weather.
The riding here has been amazing, it is always so beautiful where ever you have to go, and mostly you are either going up or you are going down – there isn’t much in-between. It is kinda crazy to think that I have already been here 7 weeks, seems like I just got here some days though where others feel like I have been here forever. About a month more and the spainish lifestyle is going to be over.
I went to watch one of the soccer (football) games here in a local Irish pub. I guess it was the place to be to watch the game because it was packed, people standing or sitting on the floor cause there was no more room to sit in chairs. The game was Madrid vs. Barcelona, and you really don’t know how bad the Catalan people hate Madrid till you watch one of those games. I had the best time I think I ever had watching a sport on TV, the cheers and the songs that the people were singing in the bar were so hilarious. When Barcelona miss a goal or where scored on the people in the bar acted like a puppy got run over, their life was crushed for that moment.
Other than this, I don’t have any exciting news to tell, my life is pretty routine here. I may be living in Spain, but my life is not so different if I were to be in Saskatoon.
See ya Saskatoon in a few weeks.
Cheers
JG
