Weekend Trip to Girona

Last weekend the roommates invited me to go to a small city north of Barcelona called Girona. We left Saturday early in the morning and I had my first (ever) experience riding a train. All of Spain has the nationalized railway system called RENFE which is an amazingly convenient means of travel. It took us longer than expected to get there, around two and a half hours, becuase we tooke the Cataluna Exprés which stopped at every tiny town along the way. Honestly we were maybe going around 60 km-h; we could actually see the cars passing us on the freeway. On the return trip we made sure to take the Rodalies Regional which went much faster and proabably went in excess of 100 km/h (just an estimate). Once we figured out how to purchase a ticket, only 6 euros each way, it was very easy and convenient.

Upon arrival we meandered out of the train station toward the Placa Catalunya (apparently every town has one). After wandering and snapping pictures for a while we made our way toward the edge of Girona. There we found a huge fortress wall that once surrounded the entire city and currently a large portion of it still stands. We were able to walk along it and through the courtyards.

Atop one of the rotunds at the fortress I felt one of the largest wind gusts of my life. Later we each received a phone call from Dr. Cesar Alegre, the Director of IES Barcelona, who informed us that we needed to stay away from the coastal areas due to the strong winds. The weather wasn't actually that bad...besides the category 2 hurricane winds. Luckily we were not in Barcelona to experience the unpleasant weather. Sunday morning we turned on the tv and what is the first thing we see on CNN+? High winds in Barcelona and 5 deaths even due to a soccer stadium roof collapse as a result of the weather. It wasn't too bad in Girona.

We had lunch at a local cafe ouside in the cobble-stone street. Most delicious pizza and espresso! I learned that if you order a coffee here you get espresso. If you want a regular coffee you have to ask for Café con Leche (with milk). But I'm easy I can handle a shot of espresso. There we met a Scotsman and and an Irishman who live in Girona and they recommended a place for dinner called El Bretton, a crepería (more on that later). We headed to the hotel after that by foot since we thought it was only about 2.5 km away. An hour later we decided it was actually about 4 km of an interesting walk. Most of the larger intersections are roundabouts here and when you get to one the sidewalk disappeared. Not to mention the fact that people drive like maniacs here it was an interesting walk.

Let's just say we took a cab each way after that since there were eight of us to split it with two cabs. So we headed to the Crepe restaurant around 9pm, and they informed us that it would be an hour wait...after seeing the crepes people were eating we decided to wait. So we headed down the street to and Irish pub and watched the first half of the FC Barcelona soccer game. To commemorate being at a pub I had a cider which was kind of like a sweet beer. I'd never heard of anything like it but it was delcious. Back to the crepe restaurant...they offered a wide variety of both sweet and savory crepes. I ordered one with potatoe, cheese, bacon, egg, and creme=amazing and definitely worth the wait!

On Sunday we went back into the city and visited the enormous Catedrál. Per chance it was during mass, but luckily that was in a secluded portion of the church. After that we hit the Café Café at the train station and headed back to Barca.

P.S. It was 68 degrees on Friday.