Trip to Costa Brava and Festival of San Juan - Catching Up

No one can critize us for posting insufficient prose over the last several weeks, but we have fielded complaints - surprise, surprise - about a dearth of photographs. In response, I am posting a couple of new galleries.

First, some photos from our trip to the vaunted Costa Brava, Spain's answer to the French Riviera. It consists of about 150 miles of seashore that begins north of Barcelona and extends to the French border. Having never been to the French Riviera (poor me), I am in a weak position to make comparisons. What I can say is that our experience a week or two ago, when we went for a long weekend, was nothing less than wonderful. We spent four days in a town called Roses quite near the French border, at a lovely hotel that happens to also be famous for catering to kids. It is gorgeous - perched on a hill with a steep series of steps down to the beach, it also has a lovely pool (and kiddie pool complete with bubble blowers!) overlooking the ocean. I am proud to report that the kids did a wonderful job dining in what can only be called a fine restaurant, entertaining themselves with coloring and toys while dads got to eat really fantastic food. Cory should also be called out for having asked for and completely devoured a plate of cannelloni filled with fish. And Addy gets kudos for having followed her brother into the adult pool, where they both floated aimlessly for hours in their floaties. They adore the water.

On our way back from Roses, we stopped in a town called Figueres, which has little to offer other than Dali's self-designed museum. He was, as you may know, completely nuts, and if you have any question, all you need to do is visit the museum. It offers rooms full of hollograms, a giant nose, eyes, and ears placed on the floor of a giant space, and of course the eaves of the building are topped with dozens of 10 foot high golden eggs. He was a genius to be sure, and this place was a work of his art like none other. We played "I spy" with the kids throughout our tour, and were thus allowed an entire hour before the clamoring for the exit became to loud to ignore.

The second gallery is a series of photos from San Juan day, the aftermath of which inspired my entry below about being glad to be in Barcelona. In a nutshell, Rob and I have very little idea what the holiday actually commemorates other than a local saint. What we do know is that it involves ENORMOUS quantities of fireworks flung by all, and all night long. That's right, little kids throwing real fire crackers in the street at 3am. Dangerous, but also exciting. We spent our evening - in which Rob explained to the kids that we would be "painting the town red" - at a local street festival that offered live music, a simple sit down dinner, and that trademark of San Juan day - a bonfire in the middle of the street. We later found out that the particular festival we had chosen was sponsored by the notoriously incompetent Catalonian separatist organization, La Esquerra. Militant politics or no, fun was had by all and we returned to our apartment after 11pm, Cory asleep on my shoulder and Addy asking why we weren't going to ANOTHER street party. Sleep was hard to come by that night - the fireworks were incredibly loud, and the city sounded like a war zone.