A visit to El Lleó marketplace in Girona.

"El Lleó marketplace is the city's centre of distribution for fresh quality produce. It houses a total of 60 stalls selling diverse products: meat, fish, fruit and vegetables, groceries… The market is a vital destination for many of the city's chefs who shop there for their restaurants, and is a daily meeting point for the citizens of Girona."

That's what we read online.  So we decided to give it a go.  It was pretty cool and so much to offer.  We decided to get some cheese (sheep) and also some calamari and chicken. The fish monger was really nice and we picked up some amazing, fresh calamari.  We both love calamari but we have never cooked it at home.  Time to try.  The chicken stand was crowded and I don't read catalan, but I figured it out. Ordered some chicken legs and drumsticks. They were sold out of a lot of stuff, I guess we got there a bit late (at 11:00 am). I was looking for fresh eggs, it seems that the supermarkets only sell eggs from the factory farms, which seem to be all over Spain.  I have no desire to eat those eggs and want ones that are organic and free-range, and by free-range I mean really free-range.  I couldn't find any, maybe I was there too late, or maybe it's not the place to find them.  My search continues.

We cooked up our calamari and it was fantastic.  Could be a once a week meal for us.  We are pretty boring with our food. Some type of protein (chicken, pork, fish) and veggies or a salad.  But this night we mixed it up and actually had some rice and lentils. It was a nice change and so easy, fast, fresh and inexpensive.

I'm getting to know the area, but I'm sure there are better places to get certain things.  I just need to ask around and get the inside scoop on where to shop.

Ikea again, but with Barcelona thrown in too.

As you might have read, last week we had to drive down to Barcelona and visit Ikea for our new couch, bed, mattress and miscellaneous stuff.  Well, we were putting our new bed together and realized that we needed 6 feet instead of the 4 that we bought.  Argh!  Why couldn't they tell us that? What that meant was, we needed to drive down to Barcelona again to visit Ikea to buy 2 more legs for the bed.  We decided that we'd make an adventure out of it.  We'd go to a different Ikea, closer to Barcelona.  Then we'd park the car near the metro and take it into the city for dinner.  The last time we were in Barcelona was 15 years ago.  Bruce's first trip to Europe.  It was our 1 month trip to Spain.  4 days in Barcelona and then 3.5 weeks on the island of Mallorca for climbing.

Bruce at IKEA

15 years ago we ate at an amazing restaurant called Les Quinze Nits, we decided it would be fun to go back.  Sounds like a good plan, yes?  Well, actually it wasn't.  Once we left Ikea we couldn't find public parking and we couldn't find the metro that we were told was across from Ikea.  So we drove around and around, not really knowing where we were or where we were going.  I had a tiny metro map and finally we saw a metro station, yay!  So now we needed to find parking. Parking that didn't close at 10 pm, as it was now 7 pm.  We found a great place to park, underground, that was open 24 hours.  It was a bit pricey, but we decided to go for it.

We easily found the metro station from the underground parking and off we went to the restaurant. We got off a bit early and wandered down Las Ramblas.  15 years ago it was very different.  There were no Starbucks, Urban Outfitters or other chain stores, I was a bit disappointed with all the changes, it didn't look at all like the Las Ramblas I was on 15 years ago.  But, things change, get over it.

Crazy Las Ramblas

We found the restaurant and easily got a table for 2.  And then we sat there, and sat there, and sat there.  Nobody came over, nothing.  It's not like we were hidden in a corner either.  15 minutes go by, nothing.  I said to Bruce "5 more minutes and that's it, I'm out of here".  5 minutes go by and still nothing.  We didn't have water, wine, menus, nothing.  So, we left.

Me outside of Les quintze nitz 

We walked around a bit and finally found a great restaurant where we settled in, had great service, and a great meal.  It wasn't the "same" place from 15 years back, but we had a great time.  Then we jumped on the metro again and headed back to the car.  1 hour later, we were home.  It was 12:30 am....way too late for me.

Toasting our new life

What did we learn?  Many things.  First, don't visit Las Ramblas - it's just tourists and pricey stores.    Second, we need to do some research and find the best neighborhoods in Barcelona, get off the tourist route.  Third, research the restaurant you're planning on going to, before you go to it....we found out that Les Quinze Nits was sold a while back, to a Chinese company that also has 10 other restaurants and many office buildings in Barcelona.  It's not the original owners and they don't care about customer service, just feeding the masses.

We need to visit Barcelona a few more times to get our bearings and to figure out the best areas to visit and some of the best (local) restaurants.  It's a beautiful city and I'm looking forward to getting to know her a bit better.

We should have stayed home and unpacked.

But...we've been packing, loading and unloading.  Driving to Spain, back to France and back to Spain. We are tired but when we arrived here in Catalunya, but it was sunny and warm, a big change from the cold and wet 2 weeks we had in France.  We decided to go climbing instead of unpacking. We needed to get outside and feel the rock.

We headed west past Olat to Santuari de Montgrony, where is an old monastary.  This is a fantastic place to climb, so many routes and so beautiful.  In France we were spoiled, there were 4 great climbing cliffs within 10-15 minutes of us, here we have to drive a bit further, but it's worth it.

K climbing hard

We met our friends K and H, they are from the states too, but live in France.  We met them last year here in Spain, climbing.  They are closer to us now, only 1.5 hours away.  And they know this area very well.  We had a great day of climbing and feeling the sun on our faces.  It was worth the break from unpacking.

Since we don't have family here, we'll probably go climbing on Christmas day.  We did that last year in France.  I think we were the only ones at the cliff.  We'll see how it is this year in Spain.

Back to "the office" one last time.

Hiking up to Amiel, one last time.

When we first moved to France back in 2008 we had stopped climbing.  If you've read this blog for a while you know that we stopped climbing and started road biking.  In fact, our first year here we road almost every day.  It was a great way to see the area, but sometimes it was so cold I couldn't feel my hands or feet.  I met Bruce climbing and we had climbed in some amazing places, but one day we decided to try something different, so we first started surfing, then I started doing triathlons and then we started road biking.  But when we came back to France in 2010 we looked around and realized there was so much amazing limestone just minutes from us, we had to start climbing again.

Nellie lounging at the cliff.

It was hard to get back on the horse.  I was afraid of falling, afraid of leading and we started out on the easiest climbs we could find.  But we were both hooked again, we put our bikes away and spent 3-4 days a week climbing on the most beautiful limestone.  That was 4 years ago, and we are still climbing as much as we can.  I'm not so much afraid of falling or leading anymore and I'm not doing the easiest climbs either.  In fact, this year I did my hardest route ever.  Not bad for 51.

When we first started climbing again, the perfect place for us was Amiel.  It's 10 minutes from our house and has great climbing.  Easy stuff to hard stuff and lots in the middle.  We'd call it "the office".  It's a 30 minutes hike up and you get the most beautiful view of a tiny village call Penne.  If it's during the week, it's usually just Bruce and I.

Looking down towards Penne.

The last 2 weeks we haven't seen the sun.  It's been cold, wet, gloomy and cloudy.  Nothing makes me more depressed.  But today it was sunny and perfect climbing temps.  Mid 40's and blue skies. It was a perfect day to go to Amiel and get one last day in at the office before moving to Spain.  I would have been sad to leave this area without saying goodbye to Amiel.

So today we hiked up and spent 4 hours climbing.  It was great.  I said goodbye to Amiel and told her I'd see her again one day (which I'm sure I will), I also thanked her for bringing me back to climbing.
She's been good to us and we'll miss her.  But I'm sure we'll be finding some new amazing places to climb in Spain.

And this was the sunset today from our yard.

Back to Catalunya

Old Town - Girona

We took a trip back down to Catalunya to look at some rental houses.  We saw a total of 5 houses. We loved two, liked two and didn't like the 5th.  Now the decision.

We had the dogs with us and decided to take them to the beach one afternoon.  Then we stopped in L'Escala for a great lunch of fresh seafood. We also went to visit a local climbing area, and they came along that day too.

Dashell loving the stream

Happy Dog

The Med.

Girona was having it's Les Fires de Sant Narcís Girona, a week-long festival.  The city was full of vendors, music, people and great food.  It was so much fun to have a city near that is so lively. Where we are now Toulouse is the closest lively city and it's over an hour away.  Girona is 15 minutes from all the houses we looked at.

Music everywhere

Girona

Placa de Independencia, Girona

Brebis Cheese

Walking over one of the bridges to old town Girona

Our next trip will be to the states.  We haven't been back in over a year, last time to Los Angeles to see Bruce's family.  This time it will be to Michigan to see my family and then to Chicago to apply for our Spanish Visa.  All that will be in the next post.  We've had 2 French long-stay Visas,  it will be interesting to see if Spanish is any different.