November 21, 2007. My sister Annette arrived this morning from New York (a direct flight). We right away tried to cover some of the touristic sites (check out our photos of what we discovered). We took full advantage of public transportation and a warm, humid day. In the evening I went to David’s practice and talked to a 70-year-old grandfather, Jose, of one of the players. We talked politics, wine, etc… and I understood about half.
November 22, 2007. My sister ended up trying to go for coffee this morning, something I have weaned myself from having realized that notwithstanding the fact that coffee is plentiful, being used to a large cup of American coffee somewhat has spoiled me and the espresso just doesn’t do the trick; neither does cafe con leche. Anywho, she ran out and found some; I went to a Spanish lesson and off went Annette (after coffee!!) to a bunch of museums. She actually got in for free by being associated with art in New York, which was a nice savings.
I ended up at a lunch with Anne and 16 women and one other man. It was the “booster club” lunch for Benjamin Franklin International School, which the boys attend. I had a nice conversation or two. Everyone here with kids in the school is here to get the kids acclimated with life in a big foreign city — they will be ready for a lot after this and will learn more than just a language (we hope) from the experience.
November 23, 2007. My sister, Anne and myself went to the Picasso museum this morning and gave Annette a tour of the Borne area of Barcelona and the Ramblas, which is touristy but a must-see. It similar to Aspen Highlands, but has critical mass. It also has a lot of people who pose as human statutes. I also took some photos of our walking around. Then when Joshua came home, he brought a note about lice at school, lice-nice. 
Anywho, we’re cooking a Thanksgiving Day meal (a day late).
November 24, 2007. We all visited L’Ille, a shopping center a short walk from our place, that has a display put on by Switzerland to promote skiing. Everyone here talks about skiing, that’s for sure, but they seem to drive to the Pyrinees, if they go. The display was a sort of Mousetrap on a huge scale and the boys, predicably, were mesmerized. Annette then went off to Parc Guell and I went to get my race number for tomorrow morning by bike.
On the way out the elevator, some old lady decided to give me a hard time, as in “bikes have to go in the service elevator.” Both Annette and I looked at her like “up yours” so she thought we didn’t understand. We assured her we did. I am finding myself, at times, annoyed with things people do and have to stop and remember that it’s important to be tolerant and kind, not always easy but certainly worth it.
Annette came back with some great photos of Parc Guell and I returned with my race number, chip, etc…
November 25, 2007. I went to the 10K race this morning and unfortunately missed Kevin, who I was planning to run with. It was huge, or seemed so, and sort of disorganized. In any case, off we went at exactly 9:00 a.m. in cool conditions and I tried to hold back (this turned out to be easy since I couldn’t get through the crowds and ended up dodging and weaving just to keep a pace going). This was a super Catalan event; and there were a ton of very fast runners. Close to 400 people ran under 40 minutes, which is a fast 10K time.
I hit the half way at 21:07 and had planned to run in 42 minutes so picked it up a bit and made it exactly 42 minutes. I was pleased with a reverse split (faster second half) which isn’t my usual deal. There were no kilometer markings that I saw so pacing was a guess, plus the faster downhill was at the beginning when you couldn’t run fast. I expected the entire race to be uphill.
Annette and I went for coffee then she tried to complete her tour of Barcelona’s best architecture and museums. She’s taken a huge number of very good photos. She’s off tomorrow and we’ll miss her around.
November 26, 2007. Annette was off early, then I took the boys to their bus, then off to study Spanish. Then errands, errands, errands (haircut) and trying to fight off a cold that I seem to have (yesterday’s race didn’t help). Then David to Spanish practice and more feeling cold, with the cold and humidity, it’s a cold feeling — strangely, I’m the only one that wears a hat. Everyone else doesn’t want to mess up their hair, mine is now short so it doesn’t matter. I am really tempted to shave it or almost shave it. Here’s a photo of our local Starbucks — it has lots of boobage on the door “handles” that you have to “push”. 
November 27, 2007. We lunched today with Amy and Dan and compared plans for the upcoming week-end, which is long (four days). They are off the Paris; we are thinking we should go to France by car and see some castles and towns that are within a few hours driving.