“You speak the Spanish of a Latin American..”

…is what Daila told me one day, as I bumbled through my distinctly non-catalunyan, non-spanish spanish.

So I will try harder to blend in.

Joder, tio!

I cannot believe I almost didn’t go to Spain. It turned out to be the most refreshing turn of events I had since my ACL reconstruction surgery in December, and it nearly didn’t happen because of how I went about executing the preparation for the trip.

Due to some communication mishaps, some poor last-minute decision making, followed by some even poorer luck, I arrived in Barcelona without having made contact with anyone I was meeting, with no extra money after buying passage a mere day before and furthermore without access to the funds in my stolen wallet that had been filched in Hollywood the night before leaving. I exited the airport and my fears were confirmed: The euro mobiles..er, cell phones, weren’t being answered and I was gonna have to sleep in the airport for a week before catching my return flight back. Alas, I only waited two hours. But it sure felt like a long time. And this is what I did:

The first thing I saw when I woke up.

Then we went here.

I got to check out a ton of rock and eat delicious food. Well, it was normal food but just tasted better over there. Oliana is a huge concentration of steep, long routes. Here’s the DG on the warm up:

And Daila lowering off her gigantic, overhung project, “Fish eyes, 8c,” which she later sent.

Going home.

Me at work: (photo by Jae Jung)

Molly, the cat from America who lives in Catalunya.

I returned refreshed, and ready to rock.

Our last night in beautiful Montserrat with Jae and Jordi:

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