My Easter gift for 2015 was having Chris here for 10 days! This time I was able to be completely free to be with him. I took a couple of days off of class and school was out the week of Easter. We had a great time together spending a lot of time with each other and with friends.
We started off the very first evening at our local wine bar (bodega) to welcome Chris. Many of our friends came to say hi, sip some wine and socialize. Later some of us went to our weekly Tuesday night dinner.
We did some very special trips this week. Our friend Oscar B. invited us to go south of Barcelona to the province of Tarragona, where the typical Catalonian Calçotada meal came from. It always
starts off with calçots, a type of mild green onion, which is larger than what we would see in the States. It is cooked over a wooden fire, so it is black on the outside but tender inside. After stripping away the outer leaves, you dip the calçot in romesco sauce, a nut and red pepper-based sauce also originating from Tarragona. After a healthy amount of calçots (I had about 15 or so), they then serve different types of sausages (butifarras), lamb chops and vegetables (artichokes and potatoes). We finished it off with typical crema catalana, which is similar, but not the same as creme brulee. We were stuffed. Besides the meal, we also went to some of the pueblos around the province which included a fascinating visit to the Monastery of Poblet, which is still an active monastery with Cistercian monks. In the town of Valls we got to see a prequel of Holy Week with a procession of Roman soldiers, penitents dressed in
navarenos (penitential robes) and
pasos (floats) carrying sculptures of Jesus, Mary and others.
On one of our days together, we visited
Montjuic, which is a broad shallow hill with a relatively flat top overlooking the harbor, to the southwest of the city center. The eastern side of the hill is almost a sheer cliff, giving it a commanding view over the city's harbor immediately below. We had lunch there and went to the top to visit the fortifications (Castillo de Montjuic) that dates back to the 17th century with 18th century additions with beautiful views of the city.
The following week my friend Jordi organized a tough but beautiful hike along the Costa Brava. Ten miles of rugged coastline from
Tossa de Mar to
Lloret de Mar. Some of the vistas were breathtaking with many small coves of beaches and rocks with the Mediterranean Sea crashing on their shores. It was a long and day, leaving the house at 8 am and not getting home until 9 pm that evening. But it was worth it!
Chris and I also spent time looking at what our summer will be like as well as the Fall. He will be back on June 29 and will spend the month of July here, taking Spanish classes in the morning 5 days a week for four weeks. I can see some improvements in his Spanish already and this will really push him forward in breaking through some of the barriers of communicating in another language.
We also figured out Chris's school schedule next year in Kiev, Ukraine and mapped out all the days and weeks that he will be off so that we can spend time together. It looks like we'll start our occasional rendezvous near the end of August, when Chris has his first full 3 day weekend. We're currently thinking of meeting up in Amsterdam.
All in all it was a fabulous visit. We will have to wait another 12 weeks before we are together again!
Here are some other photos of Chris' trip here.
