first day

amazing
this place is amazing

we said an emotional farewell to family yesterday evening and stayed with our friend in bristol for the night before getting up at 5 this morn to catch the bus to briz airport. check in etc was very quick and we bumped into my friend, Jen's dad who was off on a ski holiday! Coincidental not only to bump into a friendly face at the airport but also that today is Jen's birthday! It was with great relief that Padre Orme received reminder of this fact from us :D ...happy birthday jen and hope you're having a good night!

so anyway, an hour and a half flight later and we were feeling the warm sun on our skin in Girona ...next = bus to barca with a few z's then taxi to meet the guys we met on couchsurfing.com. we learned a few basic catalan words from the driver who then warned us to keep our smaller bags in front of us as we walked. A short stroll down a typical veranda ridden alley and we were greeted by our new friends, mike and jacki.

We got to know each other a little before going out on our own for our first little bit of exploration which led to a lovely risotto lunch in a cute restaurant. we wondered down the coast to Parc de la Ciutadella - a park full of young fun-looking people doing all sorts of things - there were jugglers, sleepers, footballers, badminton players and 'budding magic ball performers'! walking around the small part of the city we did today it is clear that it is very much a young person's place that is very trendy, very relaxed and very expressive.

We met up with jacki and mike again whilst in the park then went back to the apartment to get some much needed sleep. i then woke to see cheltenham were still outside the relegation zone after today's games so that was good then had a lovely meal cooked by our hosts. -they are also putting up 2 italian girls at the mo and the four of them are lovely people. we chatted music after tea and realised we have some very similar tastes so i think we are going to get on very well :)

we're going to head into town later tonight (it's 10pm now) and i'm pondering on going to see barca v racing santander tomorrow night.

although it's very sad to leave our family and friends we definitely got a sense of inspiration and happiness on arriving here today!

bit of a 'dear diary' style blog today, i promise not to continue like that...i'll do my best to make it short n snappy from here ;) (i'll also try to start writing with capitals too!!)

love to all

xxx