natjtan 600 miles down the road, another country and 10 days later France already seem like a distance memory. If things aren’t currently or reality happening right now, what was last week can seem like a life time ago. Living in the moment, making the best out of every situation are our lives we know it. Balancing out a daily routine at the moment is proving to be tricky!
Placa Catalunya
In true Tanner/Airey style we moved ourselves. Time was short and it worked out cheaper to hire a van, pack the apartment up and go compared to removal quotes. The whole house loaded in a 20m3 truck. It was slightly embarrassing to see how much two humans and two cats have accumulated over time. A lot was from storage and you bet we’re having a big sort out unpacking! We spent day the previous loading the truck with help from two yacht day workers most of the house and storage. All that was left on moving day was the last minute house items and last clean that took longer than anticipated. We ended up leaving Antibes behind schedule to collect the keys the other end, which was actually a good thing as it took the pressure off the 600 miles! We stopped overnight at a pet friendly hotel in Girona, Hotel Costabella before setting off mid morning for the last hour drive to Barcelona.
View from my old kitchen window
The cats did great. D started singing whenever we went over 90 kmph and AJ just took it all in. D, I worked out was happy to have his box open and sit on my lap every now and then while Aj was content to stay in his box, eat turkey slices and mouth off at me every and then. Paul did all the driving and I was assigned the my usual role of toll b*tch. Paul must have secret alertness powers as the day after we unloaded the truck, he drove it back to France and the following day rode his motorbike down the Spain. I fell asleep 4 hours in.
Hotel Costabella, Girona
The unloading took about 7 hours of just us two, a lift (a lift!), peanut butter sandwiches and peanuts. 7 hours of deadlifts, squats, cleans, presses, rows, upright rows and bicep curls. Just what I train for! Knackered afterwards didn’t even start to described it! It took about 5 days until I started to feel normal and that’s with workouts and yoga! As soon as the loading was done, we popped down the road treating ourselves to a hot dinner of wok veggies and a much appreciated cerveza!
It’s surreal to be back. Somethings in the city have changed, others have remained same. Time works very different to France here. Unlike before when we lived here, we’re not in the city centre and have new surroundings to explore. It gets darker later which confuses me and places are open later, a lot later! Getting into the centre can take as long as it took to drive to Nice and we’re still in Barcelona! I’m working out which bike routes are the quickest in and out. For now it’s the sea path and I’m happy with that! One thing for sure is that I’m going to have legs of steel from cycling everywhere!
Cycle path into the centre
New running route along rio Besos
My Mum says never go back. I can see this now. It’s still great to be back and this time around we’re making sure we explore outside the city and more of Catalonia it’s self. I’d love to say that we’ve had time for beach siestas alias, the weather hasn’t been in our favour. We’ve been busy unpacking, furniture hunting (walking around Ikea is a workout in itself, albeit a boring one after half and hour and we spent 3 hours walking around. We left with just candles and a toilet brush!! Ha! We’ll order on line the rest.), finding running routes and waiting for internet installation. That wait was worth it: fibre optic, can do everything faster than you can snap your fingers!
Have a great weekend!