A Weekend in Spain

 We journeyed to Roses, Spain along the Mediterranean for a three-day weekend. (That sounds so posh, doesn't it? Just running off to Spain for the weekend.)

A sunrise picture on my run

The trip started as a comedy of errors. We planned to leave around 8:45 a.m. Derrick, Earl and I have all had our vaccinations so we didn't need a Covid test to get back into France after the weekend. Kris, who turned 36 on Friday, hadn't had his vaccinations yet, so he needed a test. However, when he got to the lab at 8 a.m., the lab wasn't starting Covid tests until 9:30. We settled in our garden (we live near the lab) for coffee and tea, and some birthday chocolates for Kris. He  had been scheduled last minute to get his first Covid vaccine (which the British call a jab, and the French call a pique) between 9-9:30. Since the office is south of us, the schedule was perfect to get a Covid test then drive south for the vaccine and continue on to Spain. They considered driving down for the vaccine, then back to Quillan for the test. I contacted our always helpful doctor Cat Harrison and she said Kris could arrive later, so we didn't have to drive back and forth.

I went with Kris to get his Covid test. It's an awful birthday present and he dreaded it so much, but he only needed me to help him fill out his paperwork. Then we were off, stopping in Axat for his vaccine. He came out several minutes later with blood all over the arm of his shirt. None of us could figure out why he bled so much. 

But we put it behind us and drove toward Spain. It's only two hours away from our home in Quillan. We skirted past the big Pyrenees mountains that still have a smidgen of snow on them and crossed into Spain. No one stopped us or asked to see our Covid vaccine proof. 

Our first stop in Roses, along the Mediterranean, was for lunch. We had reservations for 1:30 and were a bit late once we parked and checked into the hotel. Derrick had surprised Kris with some old friends of his father's. Nicole and Dave used to have a place in Roses and Kris remembered vacations there with his father, who died this past year. So when we showed up for lunch, Dave and Nicole were waiting. 

The lunch was a harbinger of the weekend to come, because most of it was spent sitting at a table eating. 

My iPhone put together a video of my pictures, and you can see that food figures prominently. 

We probably spent six hours a day at meals - three hours at lunch, three hours at dinner. 

I did have a swim in the sea, and even though it was the end of June, the water was cold and took my breath when I first dived in. 

We had a brief swim in the pool as well. 

And one of the highlights for me was an early morning run along the shorefront to the jetty and then I returned to the hotel along the beach. 

On the Saturday of our visit, Spain allowed people to take off masks when they are outside. So that was nice, to be able to ramble along the streets without a mask. 

Friends Jo and Matthew traveled to Spain on Saturday and we went to dinner with them that evening before returning to the hotel for some music and dancing. We loved watching the older ladies dancing by themselves or in pairs to the DJ's music. 

We returned home via Cadaqués, which is a village along the Med that looks similar to Greek villages with whitewashed buildings and blue shutters. It's a very quaint place where we enjoyed another lunch, maybe only two hours. 

The bougainvillea growing on the buildings was amazing. 

Although officers were standing along the toll booths, they didn't stop our car and ask for our proof of vaccine. So Kris' covid test went unchecked. He was negative, anyway. 
Having breathed in plenty of sea air, we returned to Quillan. 

Wandering Around in My Head

Fall is creeping down from the mountains into town. Here are a few shots:

The leaves are changing in front of the church tower

Everyone knows you should paint your shutters to match the fall leaves on the tree. 

Yesterday at the Esperaza market, after enjoying coffee with Jim and Theresa, Earl and I meandered toward the parking lot. A youngish woman stopped in front of me tilted her head forward and said something about "lunettes," which means glasses. She was looking down, so I looked down, wondering if she had dropped a screw to the glasses on the street below. I started to help her search when she stopped me and pointed to the glasses propped on her head. The glasses had gotten tangled in her hair. For a minute, I stood in the middle of the market  helping her free the sunglasses from her hair. It's happened to me before, so I understood the need. Sunglasses freed, we moved on toward the car. "That was weird," Earl said. "Yeah." But maybe I have a pleasant, I can help you look on my face.

This morning, I woke up early thinking of the time change. The clocks get turned back next Saturday in Europe. They don't turn back until the following Saturday in the U.S. Why should I care? Well, my schedule for teaching at VIPKids is in Eastern Time, so although the time may say 6 a.m Eastern, which would be noon for me, now the time will be 11 a.m. for at least one week. 

My schedule is in US Eastern Time, so I'm always converting it in my head. 

For week days, it doesn't matter so much, but on Saturday and Sunday I usually teach a few classes from 7-9 a.m. I was trying to figure out if I had scheduled it at 7 a.m. or 6 a.m. Translating time from France to the U.S., which is 6 hours different, can be challenging, and then I throw in Chinese time, which is 6 hours before us. My mind cannot think linearly about this. I just about get it figured out when I'm thrown into confusion again. 

The past few weeks have been unseasonably cold and rainy here in Quillan, but this week, we're having more days in the 60s and 70s, (16-22 celcius) so I'm not missing the opportunity to get out and enjoy it. I had a bad reaction to seeing myself this morning in my running clothes. I didn't want to go running. I know it's ridiculous to feel like I'm too fat to go running. Shouldn't that be a reason to go running? So I took off my jacket, put on a long sweater and went for a walk in the mountains. It's beautiful there. 

Sometimes it isn't the mountains, it's the clouds between the mountains

More clouds filling in the gaps as I crested the top of this hill. 

I hope you're finding beauty wherever you are today, rainy or clear, warm or cold. 

Lockdown Eases

On Monday, the lockdown in France eased.
We were allowed to go out without an attestation, a paper that said where and why we were going somewhere. The reasons were limited -- fulfilling essential needs, like medical or grocery, exercising within 1 kilometer of our home, or helping others who couldn't go out.
We weren't even allowed to go to the grocery with other family members. Only one person per car.
As of Monday, we are allowed to travel, no papers required, within 100 kilometers of our home. That's quite a bit for us. It includes Carcassonne, Toulouse, the Mediterranean -- but the beaches are still closed.
Andorra and Spain are also in are 100 kilometer area, but the borders are still closed to both of those places.
We were so excited to venture out of our house and to take Grace and Jack to see some of the beautiful places near us.
Remember that they arrived on Friday before the lockdown happened on Tuesday. Since then, they've been sheltering in our house, taking occasional walks and stopping at the bakery sometimes.
We debated going to an old medieval town and showing them the market. It's about an hour away.
But the weather forecast had other plans.
The forecast has been rain for the entire week.
Monday afternoon, we went about 10 kilometers away to Rennes le Chateau. As you can see from the picture, the weather was ominous. 

On a sunny day, the view from here is beautiful.

Rennes le Chateau is one of those mysterious places that has to do with a priest and sudden influxes of money that allowed him to build this tower among other beautiful structures.
Our next day out was planned for Wednesday. Earl and I needed to pick up our visas. In France, they're called carte de  séjour or titre de  séjour. They give us permission to stay in the country for another year.
We had our appointment on February 25th and received a text that the cards were ready on the Friday before lockdown. Obviously, we hadn't been able to retrieve them.
Strategically planning when to arrive and how to avoid long lines, Earl and I drove to Carcassonne. Grace and Jack decided not to come along because rain was once again forecast for the entire day.
The map on our phones took us right through Carcassonne rather than around it because traffic was so light. We found a parking spot a block away from the prefecture. We waited maybe 5 minutes for the security guard to allow us in. Another 5 minutes and our cards were in our hands. By 8:59 a.m., we were back in the car.
But wait! I paid for parking until 10 a.m., I wanted to protest.
In years past, we would go with friends and celebrate our new visas with breakfast in an outdoor cafe. This year, no restaurants or bars are open.
Instead we visited a home improvement store for paint and a used furniture store where we found chairs for our kitchen table.

The living room in the background is in a state of flux because the drywall is going up this week. 

Throughout the quarantine, this is how our living room has looked. Metal supports on the ceiling and along the walls. 

In preparation for drywall

Our builder friend Kris put up the boards a week before quarantine ended. How did we convince him? We had a new kitten arriving and couldn't allow it to hide inside unfinished walls. 

Next came the mudding, or as the British call it, plastering, to cover the boards. 

Now the walls and ceilings are complete and we are waiting a week for them all to dry, because everything is humid as we apparently are going through a rainy season. Soon we'll be able to do a few mist coats and then to paint.

A week ago today, we picked up our new kitten, Louis Catorze -- that's a play on the name Louis Quatorze, the 14th. The Sun King.


Louis is an upstairs cat right now as we work on the downstairs, but he's mostly fine with that because the stairs are a challenge to him.
The rain is scheduled to dry up next week, so we're hoping for some adventures then.
Meanwhile, our market has still been happening every Wednesday and Saturday with fruits, vegetables, cheese, honey and plants, so we get to walk around and make eye contact over our masks. And I heard even the coffee truck has returned, so I'm super excited to see all the vendors that arrive Saturday morning.