B-log

What a day today was…

First off I thought I snoozed my alarm clock and it turns out I turned it off so my mom woke us up late…got up quickly, and what greeted me upstairs at the table (we eat outside on the balcony every meal) was a happy singing Alvaro (my bro in law), and a table spread bought by him comprised of: chocolate croissants- regular sized, and mini ones –chocolate, plain, and cream filled, ensaymadas (a really nice sweet light bread with powdered sugar—like the pinoy ensaymada but sans the cheese and salted egg) and a whole other plate full of goodies (all sweet). Wow. It was a good breakfast in the bad for you kind of way. We headed off as quickly as we could as it was going to be a long way. (An hour and a half long drive)

We were off to Figueres (pronounced fee-geh-ras) where the Dali Museum is. Dali was a weird sort; the facade of the museum (which itself is a converted theatre thus the name “teatro musee Dali”) was made up of giant eggs atop castle-like spires. I’ve been before, when I was here in the year 2000, its really a wonderful site, and the museum houses some wonderful artwork. What a strange and sort of mind Dali had. My favourite room is the Mae West Room which is a room which you enter from the side and you see a pink couch, a weird nose-like structure, and two paintings that look like eyes…. and then you climb up a flight of stairs and look through a reverse magnifying lens and the room becomes clear…its a representation of Mae West, the couch is her lips, the nose finally make sense and there is even a bunch of hair that frames this odd face. awesome. Since I had been here before it was interesting to see and note that some of the artwork had been moved around and the ones I wanted to see most were not there…a pity, but it was good all the same.

Then we were off to have lunch in a place called Empuriabrava, which is on the coast, and is described as the Venice of Spain for its canals. We got pretty lost on the way there, as we didn’t have a map, and finally two information centres later we found our way. What a cute little town this is! After a seafood lunch with a wonderful “gauffre” (Belgian waffle) dessert, complete with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and two dollops of strawberry topped whipped cream, we walked around and hired an electric boat (NO LICENCE NEEDED!!!) to tour the canals. I tried to drive the stupid thing but I couldn’t get it to go straight (hey, give me a Topper and I’ll be fine—wind over power anyday, baby!)…Everyone kept yelling and making me more nervous (and cracking jokes about my having “Sydney moments” driving on the other side of the street) so I handed the wheel over to Alvaro, who was able to do a much better job than me (or probably everyone else who was yelling for that matter who didn’t even want to give driving the boat a go….sigh. Oh well…I’m sure I could do it with less panicky passengers, and less traffic behind me…big ass boats on your tail aren’t any fun.

The houses on the canals were SO beautiful. I now know where I want to build or buy a summer house!! In Empuriabrava! I took a million photos of houses that I liked…they all had their own boat docks and their own equally impressive boats (ok, some were ugly boats…)
It was a really nice little place.

After that, we went to meet up with a friend of my sister’s named Didac, and his wife Belen. Didac is Chinese but born here, and his wife is 3 months
pregnant and is a Spanish girl. They have a beautiful house in Figueres with a very large movie screen and a projector…the have the works in audio, and to add to that, they have a massage couch!! I tried it and it
was very very (VERY) good. He is planning to build an indoor pool with his room right beside it separated by a wall of glass. He is very very smart and good with business (as Chinese people are) we met his mom too,
And she showed us the nice garden with apple trees, pear trees, peach trees, lemon trees, and various other flowering and fruiting plants…oh and a bunch of tomato shrubs (which have to go when Didac builds his pool–he lives in the flat next door to his parents and they share a nice BIG yard). He took us to dinner where the main fare is various “Jamones” and “Embutidos” which are hams and sausage like meats. The place was quaint little tavern, with stone floors and arched stone doorways, really nice but it would have been a vegetarian’s nightmare—there were hams hanging from the ceiling (good thing none of us are vegetarian). All we had was a plate of “Pan con tomate” (the Catalan way is to cut the tomato in half crosswise, and rub it on a piece of bread, then drizzle with olive oil) and a mixed plate of Jamon Iberico and other goodies (fuets, etc) the ham was absolutely smooth and melted in my mouth…it was soooo good, the best ham I’ve ever tasted…I’ve never eaten this much ham in my life. It was really yum yum.

I was able to practice my Spanish and realized that I am pretty good at expressing myself, it just takes me a while to find the right words, but I always manage to…oh, and another thing I noticed is that when I drink, the words are found quicker, and I am not as embarrassed to speak. (go the alcohol!)

I’m having fun here, and everyday it seems like I fall more into the pattern of the lifestyle, the waking up late because you slept late the night before, because, well you ate dinner late and couldn’t sleep right away for the heavy-ness in the belly…and you eat dinner late (10PM) because you eat lunch late (3PM) because you just had breakfast at 11…. because you woke up late.
A vicious vicious cycle…for this I can’t wait to get back into the Sydney schedule…up for work at 5:30, and home at 3:30…gym at 5, dinner at 7, bed by 10. (a bit square, but hey, it works for me)
Tomorrow I help Alvaro hopefully finish the wall he is building. Last week I helped him, and I must say, it is good to get dirty…it is good to sweat in the sun, it is good to carry cement, and hollow blocks (two at a time because dammit if Alvaro can, so can I—never mind that he is 6’4), it builds character, dare I say (especially for one so sheltered as myself).
So yes, we build a wall tomorrow…that is if my sister doesn’t start having contractions. I must say that when before I was pretty excited to get pregnant, now it seems a little scary and daunting. She is incredibly big (but just her belly–the rest of her is fine!) and the sudden thought of the pain of contractions and a head popping out of a little hole down there…its a little much. don’t get me wrong though, i still want a baby one day soon…its just really scary to think.

So ends this very long blog.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 23rd, 2006 at 11:45 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.