Festa Major de Gracia and Festa major de Tricia!

Last week, Tricia began an intensive spanish training course for students, spouses and partners from ESADE with little or no spanish exposure. It was a rough first few days (especially with the late nights and no sleep from Eve's teething). Things are starting to come along and Tricia has put in many hours studying. Mark has been the stay at home dad with Eve but has also been busy with a lot of homework-though the program hasn't even begun yet (preparing several drafts of resumes in spanish and english, career placement tests, learning style evaluations, etc.).

We've had fun getting to know some of the other students who have also arrived in Barcelona. Mary, the recruiter from ESADE, and her husband organized a social event for all of us to go on a walking tour of one of Barcelona's most famous festivals, the festa major de gracia. It was a lot of fun and actually a rare opportunity. The festival is in a very artistic part of town and as it only lasts serveral days, most tourists do not get the chance to see it. There were lots of decorations, music, firecrackers, human pyramids, and of course, the parade. In one of the pictures you can see the famous "giants" that the parade up and down the streets followed by many people in costume with firecrackers attached to their body that literally shoot out into the crowd.

One of the best parts was the amount of candy that was thrown out to the crowd during the parade. I have only ever seen this done in small town parades (Cardston) but the amount of candy here was much more impressive-bags and bags of candies... it was unbelievable. An even better part about the candy throwing was to watch the people go after it on the streets. In Cardston, usually only the young boys and girls go for the candy and anyone over 4 feet tall or over 12 years of age will get some nasty looks if they get involved. Here, little old ladies (who move very fast by the way) go after the candy as if it were the last few rations in the entire province of Catalunya! It was certainly a sight to see-the candy doesn't really taste very good either.

After walking around for a bit at the festival, all of the students went out to dinner. It was very nice.

A few nights later we celebrated the festa major de Tricia, her birthday! We went out for a nice italian dinner with some friends from the school and came back home for a delicious cake from a bakery on our block... mmmmm....

Other than that, Tricia continues to work hard with her spanish and Mark is enjoying his last few days before orientation week begins. Once again, thanks to everyone for the consistent emails. We love and appreciate you.

Love,

Mark, Tricia, and Eve!

Settling ourselves in Barcelona...

Well, our internet connection is still not a permanent one so that is why these posts have been delayed a little...
We settled into Barcelona about 2 weeks ago and are very glad to be in our apartment. Luckily for Mark, Tricia is pleased with our little, Ikea show-room of an apartment. It is clean with new outfittings all from Ikea. We are very well situated and within walking distance to some great tourist attractions (Plaza Catalunya, Font Montjuic, The Beaches and Port area too). The metro is literally steps from our door which will make it convenient for Mark to get to school. The apartment is in a very spanish part of town and everyone practices siesta which has been nice to have piece and quiet in the afternoons. Our apartment is right above an Audi dealership (I know that sounds strange) but it is very appealing because the dealership is very quiet and clean (not like living over a restaurant or bar where late night parties and mice abound). But enough about our great apartment...

We are really enjoying the time together as a family as we get to know Barcelona. We have had great weather for the most part and after settling in we have gone to the beach, the aquarium, had lunch at the port (a traditional Paella-because Tricia didn't believe me that you buy the heads of all your seafood), we have frequented Plaza Catalunya and Las Ramblas. Another day we went walking through the Gothic Quarters of Barcelona. Most of the pictures on this post are from there. As this is now tourist season, Barcelona is packed with people and we have decided to wait a few weeks before doing too much else in the tourist areas.

Pizza, Piazzas, and People!!! (Venice, Italy)

Italy is probably the only foreign country that you can visit, walk into an authentic restaurant, and not feel bad for just ordering pizza off of the menu. Venice was our next stop on the (long) adventure...

Mark loved Venice and not just because the main piazza is named after him... that is "piAzza" not "pizza". Ok, so the piazza is Piazza San Marcos and isn't really named after Mark but he still loved the scenery, shopping (amazing silk ties-cheap!) and delicious food. The canals in Venice are spectacular and there are gondolas everywhere. Venice is small enough that you can know your way around the maze of 24 inch streets, bridges and beaches in about 2 days. It also helps to get to know the city when you cannot find your hotel and end up walking around until 11:00 PM.

Most of this trip was simply about relaxing and walking around. That is the nice thing about Venice, we didn't feel rushed to see every tourist attraction in the little time that we had. There were a lot of people however, and on small streets weaving back and forth between the canals I am sure that we were not everyone's favourite tourists as we barged through with our big american stroller.

The port area was a lot of fun to walk around at night and enjoy a famous gelato or two, or three. Another repeated activity was to head to the Piazza San Marcos at night. The three main restaurants hired string quartets, wind ensembles and pianists to compete for audience attention outside in the square. We enjoyed the lively rivalry between bands and the spectacular classical music that was played.

One night we had a very romantic dinner on the banks of a canal with gondolas going by. An accordian player gave us a serenade and the weather was fantastic. It helped that our server gave us special attention as he tried to schedule a wedding date for his nephew Matthia and our little Eve!

Our last night we travelled to a nearby farming town, Treviso, and spent the night at a bed and breakfast at someone's villa. This allowed us to be closer to the airport as we had an early morning flight, it was a very pleasant experience as well. We are growing more and more tired of living out of suitcases though and looking forward to settling in. ***(We actually have already arrived in Barcelona and have been here a week but as we have limited internet access for the moment we are still updating our blog ex post) More pictures/updates to come...

Au Revoir Paris (Part III)

Our last full day in Paris was very busy. The weather was pristine and the crowds had started to dissipate with the end of the Tour de France. We went back to the Eiffel Tower and took the elevator right to the top. Mark wanted to pay the discounted fare which only allowed you to use the stairs to go up but Tricia and Eve eventually convinced him otherwise.

The view from the top was very spectacular. It is comparable in height to the CN tower in Toronto or the Empire State building in New York but what makes it really amazing is that you look out over Paris! This is a very beautiful city.

We also went to Le Louvre and the Museo d'orsay. We made it to the Arc de Triomphe just before sun set and then walked down the busy Champs Elysees. By the end of it all we were tired, sweaty and anxious to get to Barcelona and begin settling into our apartment. Living out of a suitcase is fun for a few days but when it runs close to a month it begins to get old.

We hope that everyone back home is doing well. Lot's of love to our family and friends. Thank you for all of the wonderful emails!

Mark, Tricia, and Eve!

Le Tour de France (Paris Part II)

Drugs, doping, and cheating were not enough to deter the three of us from taking in one of the world's most famous sporting events, The Tour de France! We headed out early around noon and were greeted by multitudes of people on the subways, streets and everywhere. Figuring that there would not be any room left by the finish area we found a fence to stand upon right on the Rue Rivoli (pretty good seats). This is right before the riders turn down the Champs Elysees. We were surprised to find out that we were able to find seats considering it was about 12:30PM and the race was about to start at around 1:00PM. We were even more surprised to learn that the riders entering Paris did not begin at 1:00PM but that the race began outside of Paris at 1:00PM and the first group of riders did not enter paris until just before 5:00PM. So as you can imagine, Eve grew tired of waiting around for the 5 hours with very little to do without giving up our seats.

In the end, we endured and had great seats to watch the riders come in. It was amazing and the energy of the crowd was incredible! Eve learned how to clap for the first time and we really enjoyed spending the day together even if it was about a 5 hour wait for about 20 minutes of racing. We ended the long day with a nice french dinner and then headed back to the hotel to prepare for the next day.