Happy Labor Day, dear friends!

As a last hurrah before school starts, and at the impetus to visit Duane's colleague, we rented a car for the weekend.

First we drove along the Costa Brava, the eastern coast of Spain. The winding mountain road allowed beautiful views of rugged cliffs above the Mediterranean Sea. Hoping to find a beach cove, we parked the car on the side of the highway and looked for a path down to the sea. However, this particular road down was cordoned off to all but "peotones." Thinking, by the look of things, this word must mean something like "patrons," we hopped back in the car and planned to look for another way down. Since there's no better way to learn vocabulary than through life experiences, just before we drove off we looked up the new word. How happy we were to learn the road was closed off to everyone but PEDESTRIANS! We quickly packed up the beach bags and set off on a walk.

What we found exceeded our expectations and created memories that will last a lifetime. Daniel said it like this, "This is my favorite beach I've been to in my WHOLE life." The beach was small and protected by large rock outcroppings. One could see schools of fish and rocks far below the surface of the crystal clear, green water. There were also rocks sticking up out of the water that one could climb on and jump off. What incredible fun and beauty!

On Monday we left the coast and headed to a small town called Berga to meet Duane's Spanish colleague from the University of Minnesota. She took us to an even smaller town in the Pyrenees, just south of France, for lunch (at which we ate wild pig meat, lamb's head, pig's feet, and blood sausages) and a hike to see the headwaters of the Llobregat River.



Traveling home we were caught in a mountain hailstorm. However, by 9:30pm we were safe and sound in Barcelona again, getting the kids ready for bed and for their first day of school.