January 17, 2008. Today was the last day of skiing with the group. We had a veterinarian here to inspect the property/ski resort for a group trip coming up in TWO YEARS. He was pretty nice and I skied with him for the day. We had powder that turned into cement by the end of the day, but it was skiable and fun. I’m very much done with skiing for a while (well, I guess, only three weeks and we’re off to Chamonix for ski week with the kids).
January 18, 2008. We took the bus from Andorra this morning, made it to Barcelona, and I actually managed to replace the two stolen passports in about an hour. I had emailed all back-up to the consulate, they got it and were able to do the entire job before their closing time. Then I let our incoming tour operator deal with the broken arm issue since it involved really understanding Spanish. I didn’t want to be the guy who gives the wrong dose since I misunderstood. I’m glad to be home, and worked hard, not fully enjoying the trip. I did learn a lot: don’t dismiss suggestions without making sure I can blame someone else for dismissing them.
January 19, 2008. My group stayed on the Ramblas and reported that they had a good time. They found plenty to whine about, as usual. The rooms were too small (welcome to Europe) and dirty (I guess that’s not good). They had a four hour tour of Barcelona which they said was really good and then I went over to their hotel and set about organizing people into groups for the rides to the airport. They all went at different times, so I organized a series of taxis and gave them cash. Then we had our farewell dinner. The woman with the broken arm joined us and seemed in good spirits despite having been operated on days ago. She was a trouper. Anywho, dinner was had, good-bye to all. It was a lot of hard work and looking back, a good learning experience for me (patience, listen, etc… stuff I loath to do) but I wouldn’t do it again. The resort was much too easy, the skiing marginal and the job, well, a job. I uploaded a bunch of photos here http://picasaweb.google.com/skidotcom/
January 20, 2008. We rented a car yesterday and drove about an hour out of town to a lunch with a bunch of people, mainly Americans but others too, that involved eating onion shoots followed by beans, butifara and more. Lots of fun and very Spanish — a four hour lunch from about 2:00 until almost 6:00. The event is a traditional Catalan “Calçotada”. Anywho, it was fun. Here are some photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/markannedavidjoshua/CatalanCalOtada
A few people have told me about 14 terrorists arrested in Barcelona, or something. I’m thinking that it’s hard to get news here, although I read the New York Times online. The only way I would probably hear about it, in fact, is if the 14 “terrorists” were a soccer team, since that’s about all that is reported. I’ll now try to find out more. Okay, I just found out that it’s not a soccer team but a team of Islamists who planned attacks here and in France.
January 21, 2008. Started my recovery today from the trip. I am finally feeling normal but fighting a cold. Time to start studying Spanish, bring David to soccer, ride buses around and walk fast.
January 22, 2008. The kid in the hallway cried a bunch today and what we realize is that at some point the lack of sleep gets to these kids. The parents never seem to pay attention to the kids, or to scold them for anything, but they appear to turn out fine except they all smoke. How can they help it? As we noted, lunching with Amy and Dan, it was only a few years ago that we cut it out in the US. Now it’s just something for people who are from the third world or a lower economic strata, it seems.
Something about the stock market today. Apparently it dropped somewhat. More money lost! Yikes, not a good thing.
January 23, 2008. This was the day of walking since I had to finally deal with the bank guarantee of six months of rent for our place (don’t ask). Anyway, this should have been done when we moved here or before (week one) but I’m getting around to it now (week 22). The bank made a mistake (week 12) which took until now to recognize and correct. This required a lot of walking on my part, picking up the document, going to and then appearing before a notary (here the notary function is very official, costs a lot and adds friction, time and cost to every legal transaction all mandated by the ley para empleo completo para personas que quiren llevar ropas limpias) and finally delivering the document to the managers.