Another change

If you've looked at my blog in the last week, you'll notice that I've changed the layout again. I decided I didn't like the first change so I switched to another template. Although I don't plan to change it again in the immediate future, if you have any comments I would be glad to hear them.

Happy Birthday, Jen!

Today is my daughter's birthday and I just finished listening to a podcast of her talk this morning to the high school students at our home church in Denver on being a woman of God. It was wonderful and caused me to once again thank God for the work He is doing in her life and for the way He is using her to minister to others. To quote a friend of hers who kindly sent me an email after she heard her speak this morning, "not only was her content great, but she was organized and articulate, entertaining and frank. She held their attention and mine." I just wanted to say how proud I am of you, Jen, and how grateful I am that you are my daughter. Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!

Parking, Pedestrians & Stop Signs

For those of you interested in some of the differences here, this post has to do with a few of my pet peeves as they relate to traffic "rules" here in Spain.

Parking is a major problem, as much in smaller towns as it is in the large cities. This is due mostly to the fact that you either have to pay for parking in a large downtown lot or you have to find a place on the street, which is almost impossible. (We have one public parking lot here in L'Ametlla that's free, but it only has about 20 spaces and most of them are taken up by employees rather than customers!) Businesses generally don't have their own parking lots, except the larger grocery stores. So double parking here is the norm, rather than the exception. And the law allows it, as long as you can see your car from where you are. So you can imagine driving on narrow streets where several cars are double-parked. You either learn patience or go a little crazy. I'm trying to practice more of the former.

Pedestrians here take very seriously their right of way. They will step off the curb right in front of a car, which really does drive me crazy. Not long ago, an elderly woman here in town stepped right in front of my car. Fortunately I was going uphill and not very fast so I was able to stop, but she shook her finger at me like it was my fault. I'm afraid I didn't practice very much patience that time.

Stop signs - you'd think by their name that people would know what they are for. But Spaniards usually treat them like Yield signs and roll right on through. So if you are used to stopping at every stop sign, you'd better keep an eye on your rear view mirror to make sure you don't get rear ended. There have been more than a few times that I have rolled through a stop sign because I knew the car behind me wasn't going to stop.

Hope you enjoyed that little glimpse into life "in the fast lane."

Language goof-ups

Okay, one of the suggestions I received on how to improve my blog postings was to write about language goof-ups. This isn't really embarrassing, but it was a little humbling. When I was at the airport recently to pick up some of our visitors, we went to Pans & Company so they could grab a quick sandwich before we headed out to see the sights. I was trying to help--yeah, right. And I told the lady behind the counter that the order was "para ir" which would be like saying "to go" in the States. She said "What?" (only in Spanish) and I repeated myself. She asked me to repeat myself one more time and then the guy in the next line over said to her "para llevar" which means "to take." So I learned something new at the airport. Obviously I don't order fast food too much over here or I probably would have known that already. Oh well, live and learn, right?

More Guests

We had more visitors from the States this past week. We took them to see various places in Barcelona the day they arrived. This picture was taken at the castle on top of Montjuic.


The next day, some of us went to Montserrat. This photo was taken in front of the church that is part of the monastery there.


Then on the third day, we all drove down to Tarragona to see the sites there before we dropped them off at the airport at the end of the day. Here we are in front of the aqueduct just outside the city.
This aqueduct is not as impressive as the one in Segovia, but you can walk across it. I took this photo of everyone sitting on the top.
We even found a place that sells gelato (Italian ice cream) and enjoyed it while overlooking the Mediterranean. It was a lovely day.We enjoyed having them, but the time went by much too quickly. Our doors are open if you want to visit and we would be glad to show you around too!