Protected: Brief Thoughts from Another Day

Petra — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:54:22 +0000

Protected: Left Without Roots

Petra — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:11:05 +0000

Protected: A Few of My Favorite Things

Petra — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:10:22 +0000

Ode to Nutella

Petra — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:38:26 +0000

I have rekindled my love of this sweet spread in the last few weeks, and boy, does it feel good. I realized that on my trip to Sweden Nutella was a staple of my diet, and I’ve brought it back in my daily food rotation. Last night after returning from a weekend trip to Talamanca I freaked out and ate my body weight in Nutella, peanut butter, and bread. I started to feel guilty about the amount of bread I was consuming, because really, all those carbs?? Come on now, let’s be civilized. That’s when I found myself at 2 am in my kitchen, barefoot eating Nutella straight out of the container from a spoon with a side of Special K. Much better.

Tossa de Mar, aka “Where I Want to Live.”

Petra — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:39:13 +0000

Today marks 4 days of being sans travel buddy, and it has been growing on me. Slowly. I have been doing things that I like, even though most make me uncomfortable during some portion of it. One of the things I have done is sign up for Catalan classes to learn some of the language spoken here in Catalonia. It is different, but similar to Spanish, so I am able to pick up bits here and there. I found a Catalan woman who gives private lessons for 13euro an hour (about $18) and she is incredibly sweet. The first thing she said when we met was, “Oh! I thought you would be older! And taller.” I guess I write emails like a more mature, tall person?

Anyway, we have met a few times, and during our first meeting she took me to the tourist office in Platja d’Aro to talk about more excursions I should go on. It should be mentioned, at least to give an idea of her personality, that during that same meeting she brought me to a book store, to a shop where she bought her daughter a skirt, offered to drive me to some volcanos to sightsee and invited me to her house to meet her family and her dog.

One of the places she suggested is yet another beach side village called Tossa de Mar. It is actually quite close to where I am staying, so my friend said he could drive me there on Thursday, hang out for a bit and then come back to get me after he did other things. We headed there in the afternoon, around 2, and started off at the beach (this is becoming a trend that I love.) After he left I explored the city which quickly became one of my most favorite places I have visited so far. There is a medieval town running along part of the coast line which was built in like the 12th century or long time ago. At some point the town was walled off and a castle was built inside the walls as well. What is really cool is that you can walk through the town and also along the wall, very high up, and it gives an amazing view of the Mediterranean Sea.

High up view of Tossa de Mar

Perfect!

Sightseeing alone from about 4 until 10pm was daunting and exciting. This was the first time on this trip where I was really comfortable in being by myself, wandering in a place I didn’t know. Here are some notes I took while having dinner:

“I am enjoying being alone. This is a new and very welcome development. The town is charming and quaint but also has a good energy to it. I found myself imagining what it would be like to live here, which is a first. You can actually rent an apartment WITHIN the original castle walls! Like, live in a place made out of stone from hundreds of years ago…so cool. Actually they are probably literally, SO COOL, with the stone and all. I walked all over the town, up into the ancient city area and even found the bus station. And yes, I navigated myself around using a MAP! Woot! Only got lost once and it wasn’t so bad.

Narrow street.

Another coastline view.

I have had a total of three successful interactions in Spanish. There was one slightly confusing one where I may have pointed an old woman and her granddaughter in the direction of the freeway instead of the bus station. She sounded like she understood as she walked off, but she may have just been trying to get away from me and my possibly faulty information. She is just one of a few people now who have stopped me on the street or in stores with questions. How much do I love the fact that they think I speak Spanish and have enough of an idea of what is going on to give them information? About as much as I love it when I speak to someone and they actually understand me.

Dinner time view.

I feel like a douche for writing these notes on my phone…I should have brought my handy notebook. I want people to somehow know I’m doing something worthwhile not just surfing the web while sitting at a cafe where I could be enjoying the beach instead of staring at a screen. Oh well. For all they know I am some important doctor who has to keep in touch with patients even on vacation. Paging Dr. Petra!

Update: A couple of Germans just walked by and I am 99% sure they said something along the lines of, ‘Oh yagh, zee IYEE-PHOAN! Har, Har, Har!!’ Or something like that. Putting zee iyee-phoan away now.”

After being shamed into putting my phone away I sat for a while long enjoying the view and the feeling of being content with just myself. Then I wandered around the town more, fell more in love with the city, made plans to come back and visit (or live?!?!?), and bought some delicious smelling soap from a tiny shop that was playing John Mayer.

Needless to say I slept well that night, happy and tired and wanting more.

When do I move in??

Dead bat. Sorry dude.

LOuVrE

Petra — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:59:53 +0000