Sunday, August 2, 2009

Spain

Sorry for the delay posting this...I actually started writing it soon after we got back, but didn't manage to finish it up until now. Well, we are back from a wonderful 2 weeks in Spain. It was a great combination of relaxing, sight-seeing, and visiting with family. The first week was just the three of us, we visited the lovely northern city of San Sebastian. It is a coastal town with a lot of (Basque) culture, a great old-town, and it seems to be in one of the few regions of Spain, along with Galicia, with a really vibrant green landscape. It is pretty different to see lush green mountains rising up from the edge of each beach bay. We loved the atmosphere of the tapas bars, and thoroughly enjoyed our nightly ice cream and stroll after dinner. Amelia got her first taste of ice cream, as one night while we were trying to make our decisions I was surprised by the scooper handing me a tiny little baby cone of vanilla ice cream for Amelia. Everyone in the shop was entertained by her tentative first bite, followed quickly by her putting her entire mouth on the cone and getting it all over her face. I guess she is hooked.

We then spent a couple of days in Barcelona. With our hotel right on the lively Rambla, we were right in the middle of the action. And of course our little social butterfly Amelia wanted to take it all in, so she didn't want to go to sleep and miss any of the action, but we did get her to settle down eventually. While in Barcelona we toured the Picasso museum and a few of Gaudi's buildings, and spent a lot of our time wandering Las Ramblas and the Bari Gotic quarter.

To top it all off we had a week north of Barcelona on the Costa Brava in an 800 year old villa with Dan's family (16 of us including the babies). It was great to finally introduce Amelia to everyone and to get her together with her cousins Coco, Calvin, and Isabel. It was particularly fun to to see her with Coco, who is only 3.5 months older, and the two of them seemed to have their own language that none of us understood. The week was filled with amazing food, a trip to the Dali museum, watching the riders on the Tour de France zoom by, and relaxing on the terraces or pool of the villa or the nearby beaches.

Amelia was a pretty good traveller, with long drives on several days, it wasn't until the last day that she finally started complaining a little. So, a fifth country visited for our little girl, some great time with family, and now back to the daily routine in Portugal.