Professor Sharon

We arrived last night from Figueres Spain to Nice France! It took about 7 hours total. We went Figueres to Montpellier, changed trains and then Montpellier to Nice. We had quite a moment when we went to track D and waited patiently only to have Rich observe that no-one else was on the platform. He dashed up the stairs to check in the station and discovered that it had changed to two platforms away. We are handy with these suitcases; but we sure flew up the elevator, across the station and down the other!

I’m in a small pasta place with wifi and may not be able to post any pictures as yet; but I hope to do that this week before we leave Nice on our river cruise.

Today has been quite a shock in terms of language though. After working so hard for 2 months to understand Spanish; we have to switch to French. That’s okay; since we taught ourselves the basic hello, thank you, etc.; it’s just that it was a shock to switch so quickly! But on the other hand, we are excited that what jumps to our mind quickly is the Spanish for many things! So we spent the day replying in Spanish, and then English!

But here we are at dinner – Pates’r Rus PastaBar at 4 ruelle de la Boucherie, Nice, and finally after the little French greeting, English comes to our minds! Very strange! Here in Nice, it’s actually not necessary to speak French as it seems all the restaurant and store folks speak English.

Already we are talking of home, knowing our adventure is treading toward the end. But we only spend a moment or two on it – still enjoying our break from the routine of life in the US! We are both spending time reflecting on our past life together (this summer marks 36 years together for us); and what we hope to achieve together and in terms of our family. We have one grandchild; and certainly hope for more – so we think about how to continue to make sure our children and grandchildren are always first in anything we do.

We really enjoy traveling – always have – and we enjoy most the time in one place to do the “back-door” thing.: find the local stores, the laundrymats, the fruit market, etc. (In fact, this afternoon we spent a hour or so doing our laundry in the old section of Nice!)

We are already talking about where in the world we might go for a month some summer soon and invite the children and grandchildren to come for a portion of it. And, of course, we are thinking it might be good to have it a Spanish speaking country!

Our best to everyone in the US!

A few pictures to whet your appetite for Barcelona. It is different in many ways from southern Spain – certainly more touristy, but more cosmopolitan and international as well.

First a couple of pictures of the beautiful narrow streets of the area we have been living in – Barri Gothic. Then a couple of pictures of Rich and I at the top of one of Gaudi’s buildings – his work is really amazing.

Then I had to put in a picture of one of the many faucets for water here in Barcelona – this one was occupied by a couple of pigeons having a mid-day bath.

The last one the interier of one of the lovely churches here.

Two weeks in Barcelona is quickly coming to an end – amazing! It’s been really challenging to get a posting up due to a lack of access to the Internet. Tonight we are for the second time having dinner at a great little restaurant called Gilda. They have great bar, food, and tapas. We ate here two nights ago; and I have kangaroo — yes, kangaroo!:)

Tonight I had duck – yummy!

Tomorrow we go on a day long wine tasting tour; and then on Saturday we leave via train for Figueres. We will spend May 3 to 11 making our way up the coast of Spain and lower France. We need to be in Nice by May 12. We have only reservations for a couple of days in Figueres — so it will be an interesting week ahead.