The funny thing is when you are journaling publicly it forces you to ask the question, “how will this sound on my journal tomorrow?” As a result, it often leads to following the advice from the dean of the school, say YES to new opportunities.
So when we had an opportunity to do a walking tour in the morning with a guide near the Gothic Quarter (which I normally would never do) I said yes. It was for new parents at my kids school, so in addition to the tour its an opportunity to meet other people who just arrived in the country.
The tour itself was nice and easy as Kel and I spent half the time listening and the other half talking to parents. There was the mom that is german, but grew up in Barcelona, but just came back from living in Singapore for 5 years. Or the couple from Budapest who took a rented vespa to the tour and were carrying around their helmets throughout. Or the couple from the states who just arrived after living in the Ukraine for several years.
After the tour Kel was determined to go to Tapeo, one of the restaurant’s our virtual tour guy, David Rich, recommended as his favorite in the area. Kel and I were thinking about doing a big lunch with the group as we heard they did it last year, but we chickened out in asking everyone at the last moment.
Everyone seemed to be going off on their own and so we just figured okay it will be nice time for us alone. But as we were leaving one of the women decided to walk with us to meet her husband at a store near where were going.
Before you know it the 4 of us were out to lunch getting to know each other. When you meet a new couple it only takes a few minutes to know it if is going to be the right fit. You know what I mean?
Right away we hit it off. They were from Seattle, have a kid in my daughter’s class and could easily keep up with my sarcasm. Almost three hours later, a few drinks, and a lot of laughing, we had to get back to reality as it was soon time to pick up our kids and I had to meet the water guy at the apartment.
Let me just say Google Translate really works. The guy delivering the water did not speak any english. So I took out my phone, he spoke into it and just like magic it translated what he said to me. We are so close to the Star Trek ear piece that translates in real time.
After the kids got home and a few hours of relaxing, we decided to finally head to the Tibidabo amusement park to celebrate their first week of school. We were pushing it as we would not get there until 7ish and it closed at 9pm, but it is better to say YES vs having to journal we stayed home all night.
The views were spectacular from the top of the mountain. And the amusement park was much bigger than I anticipated. The family did the ferris wheel together. Jonah has been staring at it from our terrace since we got here and was so excited to finally be on it.
Afterwords, we split up and Josh and I went to the area with the big rides and everyone else stay on top to do smaller rides. Roller coaster, sea saw boat, flying swings, and bumper cars were all Josh and I could get in but it was enough for me.
The park closed at 9 and there was no taxis in sight. We took the one bus we saw that went directly Plaza Catalunya (which is where our tour started that morning) and being the last people on the bus our kids sat on the floor while we stood.
Exhaustion set in not just with our kids but others children on the bus as a few went to sleep on their parents laps and opened up a couple seats for our kids. As the bus was speeding down the curves of the mountain, I just could not stop smiling and thinking, I can’t believe we are living in Spain. Is this for real?
Sometimes luck is on your side, as soon as the bus dropped us off I saw an XL taxi, hopped right in and headed home.
We were all starving so I made whatever I could find. Eggs, heated up left over pasta, pizza, and a veggie burger.
That was the end of our day of saying YES…..