Scotlanicity: Friday, April 9 - Barcelona / Girona

Woke up really early this morning and checked out of our hostel to go to our final destination, Girona. When I agreed to go with Sandy to Spain, I had only one condition: 'I will not go with you unless we stay in Girona for one night.' She agreed. Girona is about an hour and a half's drive out of Barcelona, and is, more importantly, the American cycling capital of Europe. When Lance Armstrong rode for the U.S. Postal Team (a.k.a. 'Le Bleu Tren'), he and the team based their operations out of Girona. Now team Garmin-Slipstream with cyclists like Christian Vande Velde and Dave Zabriskie, as well as team manager Jonathan Vaughters make their home base Girona. I'm not a cycling geek at all.

In my note journal I wrote, simply 'Girona is perfect'. It's a very Mediterranean town, with all this amazing architecture. Siting on a river, it's perfect because it is not touristy, at all, and there are bicycles everywhere. I feel in love. Sandy and I walked up to the old town, but her knees wouldn't allow her to climb the castle, so I did it on my own and had an incredible view of Girona, the river, and looming in the distance, the Pyrenees ... the Spanish cycling proving ground. It's the most amazing place in Spain, in my opinion. There's really nothing to see, but that's what I love about it; you can decompress.

We had a lovely dinner, sitting on the Rambla with the smell of the river in the air, eating burgers at an Irish pub in the middle of Spain served by an obviously flamboyant Irishman. So many clashing cultures ... I love it. We walked around town after it took an extended siesta (siesta is serious business here) and we went into an art gallery to look at a painting I had seen earlier. We walked in and I pointed out to the lady in my semi-horrific Spanish / absolutely horrific Catalan the picture I wanted. She took it down and I knew I had to have it; it's done in what looks like pen and is really bare, but it's just a bunch of bicycles, one of my biggest passions in life. I spoke with her for a bit, as Sandy was speaking to a man who spoke English who was also in the shop. She asked why we were in Girona, and I told her I was a big cycling fan, to which she replied, 'Ahh! Lance Armstrong!' Her response was met with an emphatic, '¡SÍ!' We talked a bit about cycling, and she then proceeded to tell me that it was she who had done the picture I was now purchasing. Just an absolute gem of a woman.

Once I'd finished my purchase, the man whom Sandy had been talking to asked me for my opinion on a poem on one particular painting. I read it and said, 'Yeah this is really good.' After which he indicated that it was he who was the poet. He wanted to make sure the English made sense, and it did and was a well-written piece. When he asked where we were from, Sandy told him Philadelphia, and he said, 'I used to be a neuroscience Ph.D. student at UPenn.' Both our jaws kind of dropped and Sandy said, 'Umm, I'm sorry, but I'm a bit confused as to how you went from neuroscience Ph.D. student at UPenn, to poet in an art gallery in Girona.' He simply smiled and said, 'Sometimes things happen that make you change your entire direction and purpose in life.' Still don't know what that means, but it was certainly poetic.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and I couldn't wait for more.