WOW! So sorry I wasn't able to post anything. I got several emails asking if I was alright!!! We flew in yesterday morning and I didn't go to work until about 1:30 so I actually had to do some work and couldn't update my blog. It will never happen again!!!



Barcelona-Pyrenees

About the weekend though, I had a fantastic time! When we first arrived and walked out of the airport, we saw this amazing thing in the sky, it was yellow and round and radiated some sort of heat. I vaguely remember it from something I used to see in LA.... I even was able to take off my jacket and not shiver. It was wonderful!!! Carlos took us to his apartment first so he could re-pack for the weekend. We got some lovely sunset shots there. Since his wife and friends were still at work, he drove us up this hill to a bar that overlooked Barcelona. We each had a drink and stuffed olives and just enjoyed the view. Imagine sitting in a bar at Castaways and looking over Burbank..... except it's Barcelona. Lovely. These are the kind of memories where I am just sitting and soaking it in and savouring the moment (to quote my grandma..) mmmm.....

We then went back to the apartment and met up with Rosa, Carlos' wife. They drove off and we followed (you'll see the importance of this shortly....) We met up with his friends Jose and wife Judy (Jose used to work here at the RDCC so everyone knew him except me.) at a gas station and started our journey into the Pyrenees!! We were doing well with Carlos in front, us in the middle and Jose in the back then we came upon the first toll station (there were 4) Carlos drives up does some magic and drives off, we pull up to the machine and stare at. Mike (who was driving) tried pushing buttons but nothing wouls work. There wasn't anywhere to put our money!!! Since all of it was in Catalan (a type of Spanish spoken in Barcelona) we could not figure out what to do. Finally Jose jumped out of his car and stuck a credit card in the machine and the gate went up!! It was that easy!! By this time we had lost Carlos.... we drove really slow trying to get Jose to go in front of us but he kept staying behind us! We didn't know where to go, oh the horror!!! :) Finally Jose got it and drove in front of us, we then caught up with Carlos and they were side by side with us behind Carlos.... then Carlos went in a different direction of Jose!!! Ahhhh!!! What do we do, follow Carlos or Jose? We followed Carlos, he went the wrong way... we turned around and finally got on the right track. Sometime in the next hour or so I fell asleep and the next I knew we were at our hotel. But it couldn't be.... it was all brown... no snow? Where was the snow? Carlos assured me that it was on the mountains above...

As you can see in the pictures, he was right... absolutely beautiful!! The next day Carlos, Mike and Yasu went skiing. I chose to go off with Jose, Judy and Rosa. (Jose had hurt his leg playing bassketball and couln't ski, Judy felt sorry for him and Rosa doesn't ski.) We went to another country!



Andorra. Yeah, I had never heard of it either. It is either the world's smallest country or at least one of them. It sits in the mountains between France and Spain and only has 4 towns or so. It was only about 1 hour away from us and turned out to be lovely. The town we went to sits in the crevasse of two mountains and is almost claustrophobic. A street and a river run through with buildings on the sides and that is about it. The shopping was wonderful though. No sales tax! I bought 3 shirts, 1 dress, 1 pants, 1 necklace and earrings for about $175.

We all met up for lunch around 4, ate a huge meal then went to dinner again at 10 and ate another wonderful meal. I was so full, I hardly ate the next day. While we were out it started to snow a bit.... smile!!!



When I woke up in the morning, I looked out the window and all the brown was gone. Pure white... smile again....

Carlos, Yasu and Mike went skiing again and the rest of us went to the local lake and village. The pictures turned out really nice. The snow kept lightly drifting down all day from the mountains. It was nice because the sky above us was blue and the snow seemed to come from nowhere.

When we got back to Barcelona, Carlos took us to Segrada Familia (the famous Gaudi church you see in pictures) then up a mountain to look over the city.

It was a wonderful weekend.