Bonjorno Italia

It's been a while since the last post, so I hope you will bear with me for a long one.

December 6th and 8th form a quirky set of holidays in Spain. The 6th is the day the Constitution was ratified after the fall of Franco, and the 8th is the Immaculate conception. 90% of Spaniards take the 7th off to form a "puente" or "bridge" between holidays. When they happen to fall on a Tues and Thurs, like 2011, many people take the whole week off to form an aquaducto. That's how J and I found ourselves deciding to visit Naples and Rome. 130€ later we were set to go on Ryan Air. Side note:we still cant believe that for ~65€ a piece we can get to Rome during a major Catholic holiday...

We were fortunate enough to overlap with my 2nd parents, Mike & Donna Koeppel, in Naples. Unfortunately, David had to go to a training excercise (can you believe the Navy actually wants him to work?!?!), so we only got to see him for a day.

We heard all the warnings about the pickpockets in Naples, even from Spaniards. That seemed odd to us, given that BCN is just as bad (as J can attest to from her first day here!). We were also warned about the traffic, the mob, and the trash problems. The cant miss recommendations of Naples are the pizza, the ruins of Pompeii, and the Amalfi coast, so it's not all gloomy.

Our first impression of Naples is that the city and streets are not our favorite. In an earlier post, I talked about Athens being dirty. The difference between Athens and Naples is that Athens felt like it was decaying, and turning back into dirt, Naples was dirty in a different way. Small piles of trash littered every alley, building corner, etc, while graffiti on top of graffiti on top of more graffiti turned the city into a bit of an eyesore.

Every single thing you hear about driving in Naples is true. J and I were grateful that our hosts have adapted into local maniacs behind the wheel, they both navigated through incredibly convoluted routes, and through traffic that appeared certain to cause imminent death. What you dont hear about is the challenge of being a pedestrian in Naples. People dont stop for you if you are waiting at a crosswalk, and good luck finding a signal. My best strategy? Take a deep breath, cross your fingers, close your eyes, and take that first step. I was never pummeled, and I didnt have to deal with the fear of seeing a car come barreling at me, only to stop at the last second. However, once the locals are out from behind the wheel, they are some of the friendliest and most helpful people we have met. This includes one memorable little old lady who walked us all the way to the train station, even though she didnt speak a word of English, and our Italian was limited to "grazie" and "estacione".

For us, the best parts of the Naples landscape was outside the actual city. 3 specific places we enjoyed were Erculano (also buried by the Vesuvius eruption, smaller, but better preserved), the Amalfi Coast, and J's favorite, the American grocery store on the Naval Base!

The biggest takeaway for J and me at Erculano was that this civilization was not primitive, the people just trying to survive, but people that valued art, decoration, and other luxuries. Many of the residences has art on the walls, fountains in the courtyard, and the floors were incredibly intricate with thousands of small tiles, patterned in various colors, and placed very evenly throughout the whole floor. Someone took the time to collect all the rocks, sift and sort them, and then place them carefully in the floor. It just really struck us how many luxuries the people of the town actually had.

The mudslide that closed the road to the Amalfi Coast ended up being a real blessing. We were undeterred by the police saying something in Italian to the effect of "Not this way pal", not when we had our trusty friend GPS with us. Small, numberless windy roady on the map? Let's do it! Fortunately, this route led through forests and into panoramic views of Mt Vesuvius, the ocean, the neighbouring valley, and of course, the Amalfi coast. In my mind, it was just as stunning as the landscape of Oia in Greece, but it somehow felt a little more real (perhaps the small farms dug into the side of the hills helped). I can understand why nightly rates during peak season have priced the lowly mortals like J and I out.

My new hobby is comparing the experiences of Linhaa in Hong Kong (such as cooking solely with a toaster oven, huge language barriers, but having huge varieties of delicious Asian foods), David and Ali's experience in Naples (95% of restaurants are Italian, trying to get pets calm and happy, and knowing you are leaving in a few years) with ours in Spain. It turns out David and Ali have been cheating in finding American comforts, as they are shipped by the Navy. J's ears instantly perked at the proposal of a guest pass, and the grocery store landed on the agenda. What, you ask, were our high priority items that we just cant get anywhere else? Peanut Butter (naturally), Nature'sValley granola bars, Maraschino cherries (for some reason they are just plain bad here), candy canes!, graham crackers and marshmallows (how can I have s'more if I havent had any yet...), Cherry Coke, and deodorant. $75 later, and a promise by Ali that we could borrow an extra suitcase to fit our unexpected presents later, J was a very happy camper.

Special mention has to go to the food in Naples. The fresh pasta's were delicious, but the wood fired pizza was absolutely fantastic. The crust, the fresh buffalo mozzarella, I dont know how David and Ali stay so skinny! The other local delicacy is sfogliatelle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sfogliatelle Layers of awesome filled with deliciousness, it rivaled the pizza as our favorite food of the trip.

Rome makes me sad I am not more religious. The pure grandeur of the cathedrals, and above all the Vatican was overwhelming. I can see why so many people come to this place searching for God. I did not know that I was a fan of Raphael, but both J and I were amazed by his frescoes. The Sistine chapel was every bit as amazing as it seems, covered floor to ceiling in Michelango masterpieces. On the flip side, I am conflicted when I think about how poor many of the peasants and worshippers have been throughout the ages, while the Vatican has spent a large fortune in aesthetic pursuit of art and architecture. I cant deny the success of creating an ethereal house of worship, but I cant help but think they could have used the money to help people better...

Rome truly spans the ages, starting with the Coliseum, and the Empire of Nero. I came away surprisingly disappointed, I guess maybe I expected too much, I wanted to feel the gladiators, but the outside is so much more iconic than anything inside. Then we work our way to the Pantheon, built is ~200 AD, it is the largest non reinforced dome in the world! You could put a sphere 43.2 m in diameter in the building and it would fill up the entire church to within centimetres. It is 1800 years old, and STILL one of the most incredible architectural feats in human history... wow...

Following that, it moves into the middle ages and the rise of the Vatican and church, and all the way to Martini branded skyscrapers and fashionable shopping of today. The other structures that stood out were the fountains. Even though it is a big touristy schtick, Trevi fountain was worth every second of the visit. It was fun to "stumble" across other fountains and plazas, including Villa Borghese.

While we had some good food, Rome was a bit of a letdown compared to Naples. Perhaps we weren't in the right district, or perhaps Naples just set the bar too high. We have developed a benchmark to determine the level of culture... unique things on the McDonalds menu. Italy gave us olives, stuffed with meat, then breaded and fried, fried shrimp, and my fave, pistachio McFlurry. They're the finest delicacies we have seen yet!

Both J and I left Italy with the same concludion, the city of Naples does not pass the "Could I live here?" test (despite the food), but Rome does. All in all, it was a very good week

My favorite holiday

As the end of November approached, I became more and more concerned about the best holiday of the year (ie: Thanksgiving).  Would we be able to find turkey? Cranberries?  And since we were inviting guests...a dinner table?  A couple weeks before T-Day, we started our mission to find the supplies.

Turkey: As is the case with many other things, the ovens are smaller here than in the US.  In fact, 3 of my baking pans are sitting in storage until I move out of, well, Europe.  So before leaving, I took note that the turkey could measure 42cm x 38cm x 24cm max.  And off I went!  Sadly, our normal meat market didn't carry whole turkeys.  I knew of a few other carnisserías so I still had hope.  As I walked by a meat market, I saw some whole chickens so I thought I'd give it a shot.  I asked if they carried whole turkeys and the butcher nodded and motioned to point them out.  Turned out that what I thought were chickens were turkeys!  They were only ~5.5kgs!  [Alright, it would've been a pretty big chicken but I don't think I've ever seen a turkey smaller than 16lbs (7.26kg)].  So I ordered one for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and I was all set.  Didn't even have to ask her to measure it for me.  Smooth.  

Although it was a European sized turkey, I didn't have a container big enough to brine the turkey.  So I wrapped the tail end in paper towels and hoped that capillary action would take care of it.

Dinner table: We found the dinner table relatively easily.  The table normally seats 4 but extends to fit 8 so it was perfect; however, we didn't like any of the chairs in the store.  We went to a few stores in search for chairs but ultimately decided to get a set from Ikea.  The ones we wanted were not in stock the first day we went, nor were they there when the website said they would arrive. On the bright side, we did indulge get some of those delicious swedish meatballs with lingonberry jam (seriously, don't skip on the jam...it totally makes the meatballs).  Yum.  On the 3rd try, they were finally there so we were able to get the chairs the weekend before T-Day.

Cranberries: This was, by far, the hardest thing to find.  Grocery stores, numerous produce markets, even the nicest market rumored to have everything didn't carry them.  Cranberry sauce, in my opinion, is the keystone to the dinner.  Combining the salty turkey and gravy with the sweet and tangy red sauce is my definition of heaven.  Thanksgiving without cranberries is like Ikea meatballs without lingonberries...depressing and without purpose.  We went to a store that specializes in foreign products and they were getting a case of the canned stuff a few days before Thanksgiving.  Canned cranberry sauce...I suppose it's better than having nothing, but yuck.  So I planned to get a can and jazz it up.  As the days went by, their shipment kept getting delayed and maybe they would get it Thanksgiving day.  Seriously?!?!  I'm feeding 5 Spaniards their first Thanksgiving dinner ever and you want me to wait until the last minute get the most essential component?!?!  I resumed my search and thought up a few backup plans.  After asking around, I eventually ended up at a Bio/organicky store that might have them.  Didn't see any in the produce or canned section...asked a clerk and he said that maybe they had some in the back of the store.  SUCCESS!!!!  Frozen cranberries!!!  I was clearly ecstatic.  (I know it was clear because the clerk was startled and then asked me if I needed them for something medicinal.)

Since we had decided to invite some of our coworkers, this meant we also had to clean the house.  The time finally came to complete the long standing list of chores, one of which was organizing and dusting the bookshelves.  So I pulled off all of my (cook)books to clean off the counter and that made me wonder...

Is it bad if your collection of cookbooks and recipes is almost as tall as you?

Onto the food!  I was doing the turkey, cornbread stuffing, green beans, cranberry sauce, rolls, biscuits, and pecan pies.  Jeff was taking care of the mashed potatoes.  Prepped the cornbread for the stuffing and the green beans ahead of time but, since I was taking Thursday off (cause Thanksgiving isn't a holiday in Spain, ya know), I planned to do the majority of work during the day.  Food prep was pretty much on schedule throughout the day.  The only thing that was running behind schedule was...the guests.  I forgot to account for the traditional Spanish tardiness...but with a few changes, everything was back on track.  

The turkey was ready around when the guests arrived.  They were quite excited to see a whole turkey in the oven.  

And then began the Thanksgiving traditions!

Sitting at the table with friends

Lots of food

Final products: cornbread stuffing, rolls (turned out so cute!!!), buttermilk drop biscuits, turkey, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes (2 ways...way to go Jeff!), cranberry sauce, 2 pecan pies (with and without chocolate)

And, of course, no Thanksgiving would be complete without...

Hand Turkeys!!!

Happy Thanksgiving =)

The Digs

It's been a while since I posted, and it's been even longer since I was supposed to send out pictures of J and my apartment, so I figured I would finally get around to it. First you will have to sit through a 7 month old story of finding an apartment (because, you know... scrolling down to the pictures just wont work online).

As part of my relocation package, I received 2 months of temporary housing, and HP helped ship all our stuff from San Diego to Spain. That meant that I really didnt want to move in anywhere until a few months after I arrived. Apartments here are not really listed until they are empty and ready to be rented, so it gives a small window of having no furniture to put into an apartment and having no place to put the furniture that arrives where I was hoping to find our place to live.

We had 3 main requirements: 1) a nice enough kitchen that J could do all her cooking 2) a good amount of natural light, living in the dark just seems depressing and 3) within 10 minutes of a train station that would take us to work. Of course it also had to be big enough for us not to trip over each other, and hopefully have a place to put all of my things, but we were pretty negotiable other than those 3 things... little did I know just how tough that would be!

The typical stereotype in Europe is small apartments, with small rooms, and small appliances. I can safely vouch that that is generally true. I would rather say that apartments here try to fit too many people in, and have too many walls. Over the course of a month, I saw probably 40 apartments in person, and hundreds more online. Some general themes were very apparent. At least in Spain, there are some hideous floor tiling. Carpet is non-existent, but some of the tiles were more like casino floor patterns. There are too many rooms. They put 3 small bedrooms, instead of 2 medium ones. Kitchens are in their own 10 ft x 10 ft rooms. You might have 2 bathrooms, but one of those bathrooms is so small the toilet is right underneath the shower. We were ready for some culture shock, but the general quality of apartments was startlingly bad. There seemed to be 2 types of apartments, the low cost places that I might have considered when I lived in college, and "luxury" apartments that had pretty hefty price tags, even by our California adjusted standards.

2 Weeks into the search, I found it, the "Princess place". 1 block away from the train, in a pretty hopping neighborhood with bookstore/cafe next door, facing east, and a relatively big kitchen, though modestly decorated. Of course, I wanted to check with J, but I was pretty excited for it. Got the confirmation that she was excited by the pictures I sent, and I called the rental people to say we wanted it. Bad news, another rental agency had put down the deposit that morning, so even as I was fawning over it, it was not meant to be. No matter, there was an apartment the week before that did not get good morning light, but got great afternoon light, and was a decent compromise... ok, we'll take that. Not to be, apparently that place had been reserved the day before as well.

3 weeks into the search I found a place that I really liked as well. The kitchen was small, but there were no walls, so we could expand the kitchen as far as we wanted, it had a nice storage area for all my camping/Scuba equipment. It was a little pricier than we had hoped for, but I starting to get a little worried about finding a good place, so I put down a "non-refundable" deposit of half a month's rent. Imagine my surprise when my rental contact calls me the morning of the lease signing and tells me not to sign anything, that I am backing out. She explains that apparently this company has a very sketchy lease, where I would have to sign for 3 years minimum (compared to a normal 1 year minimum lease), and they wont budge on that, but they would give me my money back. I agree with this idea, 3 years is a long time to commit to an apartment. Happy to get my money back, I still faced the small problem of not having a place to live. To add to the fun, J would be moving to BCN in about a week and a half, and I was leaving for a business trip to the US in a week, so I needed an apartment and fast.

4 weeks in, the rental contact Claire (a very cool french girl that really put in a lot of work to help set up visits to places that I found, and did a lot of research to find other places) and I were starting to wonder about our options. There was 1 nagging place, it had a really old looking kitchen, but it was gigantic by Spanish standards (roughly 1200 sq ft compared to the 700-800 that most places were), and the price was in range. Pessimistically, I decided to give it a shot. I walked in, and in the entryway, you can see pretty much the whole apartment. A loft above (similar to the loft in my parents house where I grew up), windows on both sides to let in light, and a kitchen that has a countertop separating it from the rest, so it felt very connected. The floors were scuffed, and it was obvious the place was going to need some elbow grease to fix up, but another person came to view the apartment right after me, so I knew I had to act fast, and put down a deposit.

The Beginning: Acting fast has its downsides. Turns out, the lights in the bathroom didnt work, the light in the hallway was burnt out, the hot water heater that controlled the kitchen was broken (but apparently there is a 2nd hot water heater in the bathroom, so fortunately I could wash dishes and shower in there). Also, a few lights in the kitchen were burnt out, and worst of all, the oven did not get above 200... Farenheit. We found that little doozy out trying to make bread, cooking for 3 hrs, then trying to finish on the stove. Thus began the battle of the oven. After multiple calls to the landlord, and broken spanish trying to understand what was happening, they finally came to fix the oven. Turns out they were able to get the oven to go from 200 F to 500 F, but pretty much nothing in between, so 2nd round of bread ended up burnt on the outside, raw on the inside... not pretty. In the end, we were able to convince them to replace the oven completely, and from that day on, we have been very happy with the apartment.

The tour: Family room/Dining Room/Loft. This is where most of our time is spent, a huge open space with vaulted ceilings that we've separated a bit by the couches. The rug in the photo is a place holder for the dining room table we plan to buy, any day now :) You can see that our plants sit out in the middle of the room, where they get better sunlight during the day. There is basil and mint there, hoping to add more.

Dining Room/Kitchen: We eat most of our meals at the barstools on the kitchen counter, pending said dining room table. There was no space for the fridge inside the kitchen, so we went the easy route, and put it outside! It has worked surprisingly well.

Other notes, coat rack that took 2 months to find, and super sweet storage space up the ladder on the far right, where we store all the things we dont need often, like luggage, camping gear, boxes, etc. Very underrated part of the apartment...

A very important part of any good apartment:

We found a bulk liquor store where we have bought things like habanero rum, blood orange and lime liquor, tiramisu and vanilla, as well as others... very good find, to go along with our wines.

The Bedroom: An obscenely large space for how much time we spend, we actually have plenty of closet/dresser space, a welcome surprise. It is nice waking up to sunlight, and having a big vaulted ceiling above your head, very open feeling. Well done whoever found the apartment :)

One downside is that we have a washer dryer combo, which, unfortunately, leaves clothes pretty wrinkly, so you can see the pile of my clothes ready to be ironed...

And finally, the bathroom. No European bathroom would be complete without a bidet!!! Other than that, a pretty normal bathroom.

One odd note: We have looked for and been unable to find the $2.99 clear plastic liners. Opaque liners for 10 euros, yeah, but a few euro clear liner... doesn't exist. Weird.

To those that made it this far, hope you enjoyed the tour of the apartment, we have plenty of space for visitors, so come on by. I dont know know how me managed to find a place that is such a nice space, is on the top floor of our building (so no noisy neighbors), and is only 10 minute walk from the center of town. Next on my list of topics... the neighborhood. Hopefully it will be sooner than 2 months from now :P

Birthday

In Spain, it's traditional to bring treats into the office around your birthday.  I like to bake; but I don't like getting fat...which means that I usually bake something, try a little, and then give the rest away.  In the US, people just took their treat and went on their merry way.  In Spain, however, bringing in treats means that I'm fielding questions about whether it's my birthday, why I decided to make something, etc. etc.  (You'd think that people wouldn't really care when random treats come along, geez.)

At last, my birthday has come around so I finally get to bring in treats without following it with a huge explanation...it even fell on a Sunday so I could bake ALL weekend!  I was super excited so I started looking at recipes about 3 weeks in advance.  I eventually landed on 4 things...

Gameplan:

Cookie Crusted Profiteroles w/ Vanilla Creme Filling: Saturday: make dough for profiteroles and cookies, form and freeze.  Sunday: make 1st stage of filling.  Monday morning before work: bake profiteroles.  Finish and bottle filling.  Fill pastries in office.
Croissants: Sunday: make dough and freeze.  Monday morning: final rise and bake
Chocolate Cookies w/ White Chocolate Chips: make and bake Saturday
Apple Walnut Mini-Muffins: make and bake on Sunday

I really wanted to make the profiteroles and croissants...but I had to have the cookies and muffins as a backup in case the first 2 didn't pan out.  There was a lot to do so took Friday off for grocery shopping. =)

As I began the prep work, I thought that perhaps I was a bit too ambitious...

 Too late now!  Full speed ahead!!!

Saturday went pretty much to plan.  Making and piping out the profiterole dough was something I had done before...just now I topped them with a cute little butter cookie hat!  (I'll have to think of something to do with the extra cookie dough seeing as how I had to make 4x the quantity required.)  Vanilla filling didn't get made...it was really hot so I lost motivation and put it off until Sunday.  Cookies came out pretty well though...one down, 3 to go!

Thankfully, Sunday was a bit cooler due to the overcast skies and rain.  Much better weather to stand near the oven and bake.  Making the croissant dough was really labor intensive (which was, of course, part of the appeal) but it was made more difficult by Barcelona's summer heat.  The butter got soft very quickly and I was making frequent trips to the freezer.  (In case you didn't know, croissant dough requires a significant amount of butter to be folded and layered into a base dough.  How else do you think you get the layers?)  But I eventually got it done and froze everything for Monday.  Made the vanilla filling and was pretty pleased with it.  Muffins came out fine.  2 down...2 to go!

Monday morning, I woke up at 5 to finish the profiteroles [bake] and croissants [final rise and bake].  Why couldn't I bake them a day or two beforehand?  Don't be naive...neither would have never withstood the humidity of Barcelona for that long!  Had to be done the day of.

Profiteroles baked up beautifully from frozen!  They were adorable with their little cookie covering! =)  Mini croissants turned out pretty well too.  As everything was cooling, I folded whipped cream (none of that canned stuff) into the filling from Sunday, bottled everything up, and packed up to go to work.

Clockwise from bottom: profiteroles, muffins, croissants, cookies.  Treats went over pretty well!  I had a 2 hour meeting before lunch so I filled the tray before I left...and it was empty when I got back! =)  The croissants were very popular.  People were hesitant to get a profiterole until I labeled them.  Overall, the profiteroles were my favorite and they were so easy to bake from frozen.  The cookie crust helped the top stay nice and crunchy and it contrasted really well with the creamy filling inside.  I'm temped to make some and keep them on hand...but then that would take another couple hours out of my day.

And here goes a special shout out to my mule!

Now, what am I going to bring in for American Thanksgiving?...

Costa Brava

I havent updated the blog in a while, mostly because I am lazy, but I suppose a little bit because J and I have been getting out a lot more.

For those unfamiliar with Spanish geography (I know, American geography classes are always top notch, and everyone knows all about Spain), Barcelon

a sits j

ust south of the Costa Brava region. Think winding, rocky coastlines, super blue water and plenty of sun. I´ve now taken 4 separate trips up there...

July 9th: Diving in Llafranc.

There is a Scuba group at HP that organizes a few dives (2 that I have seen this year). Many of the people on this dive had not been out since their open water certifications, but there were also a handful of people that were more experienced. Luckily, I was paired with them, and we got to drop in first. We attached to the mooring ball (a floating ball attached to the bottom, these are better than dropping an anchor that scrapes across the bottom of the sea floor), and after getting in I could see the bottom 50 feet down. Compared to the ~15 foot limit in San Diego, this was quite nice. I should also mention that the water is significantly

warmer, so there's a double bonus. The dive was around an underwater mountain, so we got to continuously spiral around the mountain from the bottom all the way up, seeing several types of fish (including a catfish looking thing), and even a few sea stars and coral. The culture shock of the day was first learning how much weight to carry, since I am new to the Meditteranean salt water. First comes translating my question into Spanish, followed by translating back into words I understand better, only, the answer is in kilograms, soooo translate kilograms to the pounds of weights that are part of my gear. Then I attach my tank, and they ask how much pressure I have. My computer reads in psi, they want the response in Bar (200 Bar = 3000 psi more or less). Ok, got it... except when underwater, they have different signals for things too, so first I have to do the underwater math to figure out how many Bar my gauge is reading, then remember how to tell my buddy that. It all worked out well, but i

t was definitely harder than I thought it would be. Very pretty dive though.

July 30th: Blanes

Deciding I liked the views in Costa Brava, and did not get to spend that much time just at the beach, I decided to hop a train up the coast. For a mere 5 euros each way, you can take the train 70 kms, and see the whole coastline there in 1.5 hrs. It doesnt go all the way up to the prettiest area, but it's cheap, easy, and there are still some nice beaches. I chose Blanes for a few reasons. There was a botanical gardens there (that, unfortunately, I wouldnt recommend unless you are a huge plant enthusiast, mostly mediterranean type low shrubs, or

generic looking plants, not much blooming colors), as well as it being the start of Cami del Ronda, which is a series of trails that fishermen and smugglers used in olden days. So after visiting the gardens and a castle, I set off on a hike. Trail markers in Spain are actually quite good, but you have to know what you are looking for. The symbols are painted on rocks, or lampposts or various things on the side, so you have to be vigilant to see the signs, but also to understand them. My trail was a red and white equal sign, not to be confused with a red and white X. At any rate, I wandered through streets, trails, and even some parking lots along this trail. I discovered many little hidden beaches, that, to my eyes, had no associated towns or commercial spaces.

This is a good time to mention that every beach in Spain appears to be topless optional, and fortunately for all the guys reading, there are quite a few attra

ctive Europeans that are not bashful. What I discovered on this journey however, was that the further up the coast I went, and into the smaller and more secluded beaches, the more people I saw completely nude. It seemed like a relative mix, with up to ~50% tanning au natural. I didnt think my excuse of taking pictures of the "coastline" would work, so no photos to attach, sorry. It was quite enjoyable having a mixture of hiking and beach-going, definitely something I think I want to try again.

August 5th-7th: Begur

August is apparently a month for vacation. Government shuts do

wn, and almost nobody is left in the office, except the few schmucks that stick around to keep things alive. That was J and me... we figure the whole country is on vacation, why would we want to do the same, and go to the same places to be in a packed area. We'll save it and go throughout the year. However, one colleague has a vacation home in Begur, and invited J and I up for the weekend. We caught a 2 hr bus up there, then they picked us up at the station. It is definitely apparent to me that the further north you go, there is more dramatic coastlines, everything just seems a little prettier and little cleaner. The vacation home they have is gorgeous, our room overlooked a small harbor, as well as following the coast all the way north past Islas Medes (where the best diving in Costa Brava is supposed to be) and all the way to the French border. We did the traditional Spanish vacation activities, go to the beach to relax and snorkel, and eat. I really enjoyed snorkeling here. The beaches are not the typical sand beac

hes, they drop off into small reefs and rocky bottoms after just 10-15 feet, full of fish, and coral, and aquatic plants, it is very cool.

We ate jamon and olives, and shrimp, we had a few rice dishes (variations of paella), salads with fresh figs and goat cheese and various grilled meats, to name a few. We also went to a "Medieval Restoration" city, basically, they recreated what the city would have looked like in 1400, and people live there, sometimes for just part of the year, sometimes year round. There are many restaurants and touristy places as well, but I am told that in the winter, all the streets are deserted, and it can be quite beautiful. This is the best, most mediavally picture I was able to get.

August 14th: St Pol de Mar

This post would be much cooler if I had brought my underwater casings. This time we did not take the train as far north, stopping based on a recommendation from a colleague. The beaches further north were more impressive, but the highlight of this trip by far was seeing several barrel jellyfish at a cleaning station, with other little fishes eating the parasites off the bell and tentacles. Here is a stock photo I found that looks very similar to both jelly and environment. Jellyfish are some of my favorites to watch, and these ones slowly meandered away from me, rather than trying to attack of threaten, so I got to sit and watch them for a long time.

Costa Brava has a lot to offer inland as well, we have some trips planned for later this year, but for now, the beaches are not too shabby :D

-J

Greece

J and I were invited to Kira and Greg Jarmer's wedding in Santorini, Greece. This is one of my favorite parts of living abroad, that taking a week to go to Greece is not that big a deal. When we told people at work that we were going to Santorini, everyone gave the same response "ooohhhh, que bonito!".

The plan: Arrive in Athens, spend 1.5 days in Athens, then fly to Santorini. Spend ~4 days on Santorini, then go back to Athens for 3.5 more days.

The flight to Athens was a rather uneventful 2 hrs. There are 2 discount airlines here, RyanAir and Vueling. Think Southwest, but without the customer service or comfort. The seat did not have enough legroom, and if you want any drinks (including coke), you have to pay. However, if you know what you are getting into, it is a good deal. The

first thing we did after getting to our hotel was to look for food, we were starving! What better food to start with than gyros and french fries!!

One thing to note about Spain... The French fries in Barcelona are bad, I mean limp mush bad. Yet somehow people continue to tolerate it. So we were very excited to see that Greeks know how to do fries. They also know how to do gyros!

First impressions about Greece... it is very dirty. There is graffiti everywhere, often times the sidewalks are cracked and grungy. It is hard to explain completely, but both J and I agreed that it felt old and dirty.

The next day we went to the major attraction of Athens, the Acropolis and the Parthenon. It is a very very old set of structures. It is interesting to think about the fact that a few thousand years ago Socrates and Plato and Aristotle wandered some of these same roads and stood in the same spots. But then... you see that the Parthenon i sunder construction, and that the symbolic Caryatids (the first known time that artistic sculpture and support architecture were combined, which was very interesting) are replicas, with the real ones in the museum and under restoration. The beauty for me is in seeing these things and marveling at the fact that they lasted for 2000 years, not that there are fragments of them left, and a plaster replica sitting out there. Sidebar: There was a brit by the name Lord "sticky fingers" Elgin that apparently came in to Athens and stole tons and tons of marble sculptures. Many of these are on display today in London. The Greek government has asked for them back, but the response has always been "There is not an appropriate place to display them, so, for now, we'll just keep them here in London". Well, now the Acropolis museum has blank spaces with nametags ready for them , but I guess London still wont give them back.

Because I am a fool, and the price was better, we booked a 5:30 am flight from Athens. Off we went for the airport at 3 am. We were on the same flight as some of the other people from the wedding, including Sharmeen (or, as I like to call her, Sharmesean Cheese) and her boyfriend, Dan. There was no real plan for the day, until 5 pm, but we arrived on Santorini at 6:15 am... so you see the problem.

The hotel we booked was a little down the road from the main part of town, a little cottage with a nice view of the beach and neighboring island, and the hotel owner was very cool. A slow rhythmic voice matched his demeanor, everything about him screamed "you're in Greece... relax...". No sooner were we getting various recommendations when Dan and Sharmeen pull up on an ATV and convinced us to rent one for the day with them. "It will be 3 euros more than taking a bus to the planned activities" Sharmeen says, so... away we go. On the island of Santorini, it seemed like there were buses, motorcyles, ATVs and a few rental cars, and that's it. AWESOME! It was so much fun driving around the whole island. We went from the northern corner, all the way to the southern corner, seeing beautiful hillsides, the famous caldera, a white sand beach, a red sand beach, and a black sand beach. We drove up to Ancient Thira, and while it was closed, we did decide to do some random yoga poses.

We also went to see a beautiful sunset at a local winery.

The island and the views are very pretty. That is absolute fact. The thing that got to J and I was that there is about 10:1 tourist:locals population. So everything is manufactured for tourism. It feels a bit fake. Fun to do once, nice and relaxing mostly, but not our travel style.

Headed back to Athens:

Here's the part of the trip where I made a grave mistake planning the trip. I thought "Athens, one of the oldest cities in the world, there should be tons of things to see and do there, we'll definitely want more time". Turns out, Athens is good for ~2 days of exploration, then people go to the countryside or the islands. Well, we already had hotel booked, so we stayed in Athens. We still cant figure out why, but everything in Greece was DIFFICULT. We had a hard time with the trains, we had a hard time getting to our hotels, getting around, finding any information online, wireless internet in all 3 of our hotels was a pain, etc.

We mostly spent the time wandering through the city, going to cafes and reading, as well as enjoying a new favorite discovery, natural fruit juices, whole fruit blended with a bit of ice. Not a normal juice, not a smoothie. Quite delicious and refreshing, banana was my favorite, though peach and apple were pretty good too. We found some more good gyros and greek salads, and for the first time maybe ever, really enjoyed baclava, and it's improved counterpart, kataifi (rather than being sheets of phylo it is more like spaghetti sized strips that give it a nice texture).

I also managed to get a day of diving in, about 30 miles south of Athens. The water there is so much clearer than San Diego, and it had really nice underwater canyons and rock walls.

The attached pictures are of some silverfish and a star. The dives were very nice and pleasant, I definitely enjoy the med.

Many of you will notice that I did not mention the protests in Athens. There was violence the day before we left Barcelona, and violence the day after we returned, but everything seemed quite peaceful during the times we were there. Maybe my perspective is skewed from the "indignados" here in Spain, but it seemed very similar. I heard they ratified a new government, but they are still inching closer to default.

On the list of European countries to visit, I am glad we went, saw Athens, ate some gyros, went to the islands, but I dont have a huge desire to go back soon. There are so many other places to see and things to do, a place needs to be pretty spectacular to get me to go back.

Routines

A typical Saturday in Barcelona.  Language exchange, cleaning, grocery store to pick up a few things...

Taste test yogurts for another experiment (planned for July, stay tuned)

Pick out raisins and bananas from the granola we bought for all that yogurt.

And, of course, study spanish.