Retrieving Things

When D. is on leave, I am too. I do still have some of the regular household duties like cooking, cleaning, and laundry, and even though some of those are more time consuming without a car and without TJoe's, I still have more time. My chores expand to fill the days, but when something needs to be done I have time to do it.

I visited many libraries to get books A. needed to follow the US curriculum. Occasionally I visited Barcelona to get specific ingredients and to get paperwork. It gave me an excuse to see new places and have mini adventures.

Toward the end of our time I got to go a little farther. As D. mentioned in his guest post I went to retrieve water bottles left behind. Maybe if it had been the US we would have left them (we left behind an entire box of water bottles), but these were two new ones and the only other two we had.

I happily volunteered to take the train to pick them up. I love being able to see the water out the window, but apparently some beachgoers are not as excited to have the trains rattling by and having to go over or under the tracks to get to the water. I think if they had to drive in LA traffic and deal with parking situation here they might be more tolerant.

Not many people out on a cloudy Monday morning.

It was a beautiful errand to run.

ta da!

The next pick up was not quite as easy, but was even more beautiful. I walked to the train station, took a train to Barcelona, took a metro to the bus station, took a bus to Tossa de Mar, and then took a taxi into the mountains where I met A.

a beautiful bus station (photo credit  - A.)

Lots of nice detail inside, too, but mostly covered my modern conveniences.

We started to reverse the trip, but instead of getting on a bus right away we walked to town and took a little dip.

View of the water

and the view from the water of the Castell de Tossa.

I will miss running errands in Catalonia!

A Few More Vacation Pictures

At 9:45pm it was a comfortable temperature to walk along the
beach toward the church (Iglesia de Sant Bartomeu i Santa Tecla). 

It was also a comfortable temperature in the morning.

Are these volcanic rocks? How about the one with the trail of
small holes? Maybe pholad boring? Learn something new everyday!

So many shell shards!

It must have been a great job to make the 50+ benches that line the beach path.

We did a bit of window shopping. I did not buy these shoes
with Dali on the toes and Einstein on the side.

"Country Home"
I took so many pictures of tiled house names.
We are still thinking about a name for our California house.

I like this house with the matching name tiles.

But now we are back in Sant Cugat. It is time to pack and find a good home for all the things we need to leave behind.

Night of Fire

Or Nit de Foc or Nit de Sant Joan. Yes, another holiday! It is a solstice celebration and a floating holiday. There are so many holidays that municipalities decide which ones to observe (meaning you have to check each year to find out which city has which days off).

One tradition is to eat Coca de Sant Joan, which was served at a party we went to.
A. didn't care for it so we skipped the cava and coca part of this holiday.

On the evening of 23 June we saw a lot of families with boxes
like these, a sampler of several types of firecrackers and fireworks.

We were told that it is mostly for kids, but with parents helping.

Lots of excited kids.

We also saw older kids with bigger fireworks, but these
are more expensive. I wonder if the ones we saw were set
off by individuals or maybe some hotel or organization paid for them.

What we didn't see were bonfires, which is a usual part of the tradition and are
along the beaches of Barcelona. We'll have to come back next year and try again.

The celebrations went late into the night, but somehow we were able to finally fall asleep.

Sitges

City symbols show up in so many places. 

Atop the sign at the train station.

On the maintenance cover

On the bus stop

Temporary metal barriers

Flag in the shopping area

City permit at construction site

Trash can

Sidewalk

Local police car (also a patch on the local police
uniform, but I didn't take a picture of that).

So many streets have tile street signs with the symbol, which are nice to see, but hard to use.
I especially like the signs with the old Spanish and the newer Catalan names.

This town also has many metal signs,
which are also nice and also not terribly functional.

Back to the beach

Even though the beach we took our friends to on Thursday was close to Barcelona and was a fine beach, it was filled with tourists, filled with people selling things to tourists, and had no waves. We went back to Badalona where there is a well-stocked grocery store and no tourists.

I love getting off the train and seeing the water!

There were only small waves this time, but we did not regret the decision to make the trip.  We finally found a spot without naked or semi-naked sunbathers but we were not able to find a spot without smokers.  Not shown - A. being the only one in the water and going all the way under multiple times.

A. went under in order to collect rocks.

I collected sea glass.

While waiting for the train I noticed each piece of concrete had a stamp.

I wonder what it means. I learned only a bit from Railway Tie Association.

If only it were cheap and easy to get to the Pacific Ocean from home!

New places

A day out and about.

A. had an away game and after dealing with the flooded garage he and D. caught a train to arrive in time to warmup. I headed off a bit later and passed many groups of kids with backpacks who seemed to be heading to the hills of Collserola.

The smallest ones were excited and definitely carrying a lot.

I arrived in Sarrià and saw the historic
Parròquia Sant Vicenç de Sarrià (St. Vincent Parish) in one direction 

and the modern sculpture in another.

A. (the yellow dot to the right) was not too busy, but parents enjoyed the action and the view.

On campus we had seen plants from our neighborhood, including an olive tree, jacaranda tree, magnolia tree, and bulbine. None of it compared to seeing the wisteria on this house!

We didn't buy any of these fancy donuts, but A.
enjoyed his first American-style donut in months.

We finally made it to Badalona, where a few people were in the water enjoying the waves.
Maybe it is often windy here since there are three windsurfing clubs
along this beach. It was cool and breezy and I was content to stay on land.

We saw the famous statue for the Anís del Mono, part of the industrial history of the city. 

From the train we could see the remains of the former thermal power plant.

 

At the end of the adventure we made our way home through Sant Cugat. Even here there are new things to see.

I will miss the inexpensive, easy-to-use, and comprehensive public transportation. I will miss the easy access to the beach.