Monday, December 10, 2007

En ten days

To both of my fans, sorry that I suck so bad at blogging. Now you know how my mom feels about phone calls. In fact, now you know how everyone I know feels about phone calls. But I guess you already knew this about me didn't you?

Tess and I just returned from a beautimus four day weekend road trip. We spent two nights in Paradores and two nights in a little town on the coast named Llefranc. A Parador is basically a hotel that is run by the Spanish government and is located in a former home of a noble, a palace, a castle or some other extremely huge and cool building. Typically, they are located in the middle of nowhere so as not to compete against local businesses and instead bring business into the rural parts of the country. In the pic below, the parador is the big building near the end of the bluff. We began the trip north of Barcelona in the Pyrenees, then made our way to the northeast corner of Spain to the coast called The Costa Brava. We then went south down the craggy, rocky coast as it twisted and turned and revealed small beaches all over the place. We stayed in a cute little town named Llefranc and spent two days relaxing, hiking and sleeping. Luckily I was able to break up the peaceful atmosphere by slamming my thumb in the door to the hotel. OWWWWWWCH!
The nice thing about the Costa Brava in December is that no one is around. This town typically has 15 hotels open during the summer months and the beach is packed. While we were there only two spots were open and one cost over $300/night. Guess where we didn't stay? However, the restaurants were packed during the normal Spanish hours. Want to know a big difference between Spain and everywhere else? Eating habits. We tried to go to lunch at 2pm but the place was packed, we returned at 4pm, still packed. We waited until a table finally opened up and as everyone knows, we ordered a bottle of wine. Why? Because everyone else in the entire place was drinking wine. But lunch is nothing compared to dinner, the day before we were starving at 7pm, sorry, nothing open yet. 8pm things are open but no self respecting Spaniard would possibly eat so early. We waited until 8:30 to be on the safe side, the crooked looks we received from the wait staff told us everything we needed to know. We were the first in the restaurant, two 80 year old women arrived after us. Embarrassing? Yes, but they were some spry grandma's let me tell you. Luckily for us we were early because the waitress told us we could have a table but we would have to leave by 10pm as the place was booked. Of course we didn't believe it, in this tinny little town, how could the restaurant be booked so late? Guess who was heading out of a jam packed restaurant at 10pm? People were showing up with their babies in strollers like it was 5pm. We left the Grandma's behind to enjoy the beginning of what would apparently be a long night and walked around the little town. No pasa nada...
Now more about the road trip...We were envied by all as we flew past in probably the coolest pimpmobile you've ever seen. In fact, there were so many girls drooling over our wheels, we had to stack them in the back. Pimping ain't easy, son. Did you hear that? VROOOOOOOOOOOOOMsmart!

Believe it or not, we fit inside this baby with two rolling bags you would take on a plane, a back pack, a cooler, a few bags of food, water and 47 drooling girls. Not bad, eh? Once inside it feels no different from a big car except that there is no back seat. The smart was quick and the gas mileage fantastic.

Now I'm finishing my last regular week of the first semester. Finals are next week then Tess and I are going to the Christmas Ball at IESE then we're off to Italy for Xmas and New Years. 17 days in total for the trip. I expect to eat 300 pizzas. That's all for now, sorry for the crappy writing.