Willow and Juanjo's SplashBlot

People always talk about how one of the great things about San Francisco is how close to nature you are. In less than 20 minutes you can be at the beach, state parks, wetlands, or mountains. Turns out people love Barcelona for that reason too, and one of the nicest places is Montserrat, a monastery and natural park.

We drove there, but you can also take a train. Both leave you at the base of the mountain, where we took a hanging yellow cable car up to the monastery complex and start of the hiking trails.

The monastery is old, but visited often and now has other buildings around it, including a couple stores and restaurants. Judging by the number of buses that can fit in the parking lot, it gets busy. But we were there on a cold afternoon in January, and saw only a few families and young hikers.

After visiting the Montserrat Virgin (which makes this place one of Spain’s most popular pilgrimage destinations), we went for a bit of hiking up behind the monastery. The sun was already behind the mountain when we got there, and as the shadows got longer, the temperature dropped. This made for amazing silhouette pictures, but it also made us really glad we both had hats, scarves and gloves!

We plan to go back another day, getting there early so we can hear a boy’s choir sing at mass, and then take a longer hike into the mountains. Can’t wait!

On our last visit to Toledo Juanjo’s dad planted these parsley plants for me, and packed them up in the car for the trip back to Barcelona. When I first cooked with them I was worried they wouldn’t make it because they were drying out, but then I clipped and watered them, and put them back on the balcony. And they are flourishing, giving us delicious fresh parsley with anything we cook. It’s especially great because we eat at home a lot more here than we did back in San Francisco. (No yummy burritos around the corner )

I’ve been talking for a long time about how I want a kitchen garden with herbs and this is a nice start, even if it is temporary and only two plants!

One of the things I’d been looking forward to about this year was taking small weekend trips. Until now, we’ve mainly spent the weekends working though, or have done family trips to Toledo. But yesterday we finally took a meandering trip just the two of us, up the coast of Barcelona to the Costa Brava and a small medieval town called Pals. Mostly driving and stopping and looking around, the point was to explore the coastline north of us. I used to do a lot of this when I was younger and first learned to drive, taking a day to explore the area around my home.

What did we find? That there are stretches of the Mediterranean north of here, especially closer to Barcelona, that are completely taken over with tall, cheap vacation apartment buildings. Nice beaches, but almost no charm in the towns. But then as we got further north, and the road got windier, there were more open spaces of nature and coastline. I usually get carsick on these kinds of roads, so I drove, but unexpectedly, Juanjo got completely carsick! That put a damper on things, but I drove as slowly as I could, pulling over to let cars pass, and we stopped often. The day was partly cloudy, with spots of warm sun, but it was definitely winter, and we didn’t see many people out. Most of these places come alive in the summer when everyone is on vacation, but are ghost towns the rest of the year. The coastline reminded me a lot of California in parts, especially Central and Southern California.

We finally reached our destination in time for a late lunch. Juanjo was feeling so sick though that he rested a little, and we wandered the town of Pals before eating our sandwiches in a park. Pals is up on a hill, not on the coast but near it, with an old bell tower, church, and winding Medieval streets. Very picturesque old town center.

Hopefully we will take more excursions like this in future weekends. It’s a good way to not work all weekend, and get to know the area around Barcelona. Maybe a southern coastal route next time?

I missed my family a ton on Christmas this year but luckily a little bit of my family came to visit us here in Barcelona! My beloved niece Mealani and her family friend Melanie came and spent 10 days with us. May arrived recovering from the stomach flu but we all packed up in the car the same afternoon and drove to Toledo for New Years. Juanjo called his family from the road to tell them we were on our way (we’d planned to stay in Barcelona), and we had the traditional New Year’s Eve dinner and grapes with the family. It was really special for the girls to see New Years with family, a tradition that is completely different than New Year’s in the US. Then after dinner we took out the girls for the night, and stayed out ’til 5am, an early night by Spaniard New Years’ standards but more than enough with our jet-lagged girls!

On New Year’s day, after waking up just in time for the family lunch, we took the girls to Madrid for the evening. We wandered around, took pictures of the Holiday lights, and saw a movie. Both fell asleep on the way home!

The next day we went to Valencia for one night. Juanjo and I had been wondering how much longer the trip would be from Toledo to Barcelona if we took the coastal route (instead of the usual Zaragoza route). According to GoogleMaps, it takes the same amount of time. So we thought it would be fun to go back along the coast and spend a night in Spain’s third largest city, Valencia. We walked around there, enjoyed wandering through the old town, eating chocolate and churros on the main square, and meeting Fulbright friends for a drink. The next morning: breakfast at a cafe on the beach (including delicious Valencia oranges, which got us strange looks because Spaniards usually eat oranges for dessert after lunch or dinner), and a quick visit to the Ciudad de Artes y Ciencias, designed by Santiago Calatrava, Spain’s most famous architect today.

Sunday after New Year’s we drove back to Barcelona, where we stayed for the rest of the week. It was really fun for me to show the girls around Barcelona! We made a list of places to see and things to do (the Gaudi architecture, Ramblas, the port, the Cathedral, beach, Montjuic, after-christmas shopping…) and set about checking things off the next day. We walked a LOT, always the best way to see a city. We also cooked dinners at home with Juanjo, and watched quite a few “Lie to Me” episodes.

All in all I loved being an aunt for the time they were here, hosting both of them, showing them new places, and revisiting old ones (it was fun for both of them to be back in Toledo). I loved talking with them about college, high school, family, and life. I got a much-needed break from my work while they were here, and really enjoyed their company. Thanks for coming to visit us girls!

With visitors, 2 trips to Toledo, and getting back to work it has taken me a while to post about this year’s holidays. But I’ve been wanting to, because they were great, and because we took a lot of pictures. I missed my family and friends back home a lot, and was feeling it especially on Christmas eve. So Juanjo and I took a walk through Toledo, taking pictures of the Christmas lights (really pretty this year!) and looking for hot chocolate. We ran into one of his old teachers who took this picture of us.

I really started feeling the spirit of Christmas with the family. As is tradition, we had dinner with family (as well as the priest Don Juan, a friend of the family), then went to midnight mass in the Cathedral (the main altar, where we took pictures at our wedding). It was a beautiful mass, I especially loved the boys choir singing Christmas carols. Then the next day, on Christmas, we had lunch with family again, and some family friends. The food was delicious and beautifully prepared as always (Thank You Marisa!), and the fire in the fireplace made everything feel cozy and homey (Thank You Tino!).

A post soon with a New Year’s wrapup, and some pictures from Mealani and Melanie’s visit.