Our last couple days were bittersweet… sweet because of the wonderful time we were having with our friends, bitter because we knew it was drawing to a close, and that Alaska is too far from California… also sweet because of the amazing meals that we had together, but bitter because we were starting to feel like gluttons.
Thursday we woke up feeling happy to be in such a lovely, relaxing home… drank a lot of coffee and let the kids play while we slowly thought about our day. So far we had not been terribly impressed with the towns around Collioure, but thought we’d give it another try. We’d heard a lot about the towns of the Costa Brava in Northern Spain but couldn’t really find out much information that excited us, so we decided to just drive along the coastal route and check out the first town we saw over the border. We made it a lunch-time expedition. The drive was beautiful, all curvy roads and grape fields on the cliffs, with an occasional wine stand on a bluff. After about 30 minutes of driving we crossed the border into Spain (very anti-climactic) and descended down a steep hill into Port Bou, oddly quiet yet with a stunning view of the sea. The kids played in a park for a while and Vicky and I scoped out the food options (tapas, paella, sangria…. What we came to Spain for!). One of the waiters asked us if we were on holiday in Spain, and we told him that it was in fact France and he laughed saying that we had to come to Spain because France was closed (because of the strikes). Pretty much. A lovely meal of paella and seafood and Catalonian flan left us feeling bloated and happy so we headed home to contemplate our next meal. After a walk around Collioure and a stop at a park we were treated to a wonderful pasta meal by Vicky after which Sven had the brilliant idea to take everyone out for ice cream. Getting 4 kids in the car after dark (even if it is for ice cream) when they are tired and grumpy is definitely not the easiest task. And when the night is concluded with weepy Téa losing her favorite teddy bear somewhere in Collioure and all of us rushing around to find it, we are all bonded in the insanity of travels with kids. And when the faithful daddy finds the teddy bear we are all elated and can finally go to sleep. One of my favorite memories? Seeing Bella’s gigantic eyeballs as she is served ice cream in an orange piled high with whipped cream.
Friday we decided yet again that we needed to spend even more time not doing anything stressful, so we decided that a simple trip to the market the next town over was in order. 20 minutes of driving brought us to Perpignan, which is actually quite a big city and to what we thought was a traditional market, but ended up being a local Arabic low-income flea market, complete with batteries, bras, fruit and just about anything else you could imagine. On the way back home after we’d given up on that market we decided to swing by the traditional Catalonian craft center, which ended up being all boarded up and empty so we finally figured that fate had conspired against us to force us to just relax and we headed home. Along the way we were surprised to see a captivating strike (‘le grieve’) outside a high school: rubbish piled high up against the main school gate, students sitting, smoking, around a metal garbage can spewing flames and black smoke into the air. Apparently much of the trouble in France currently with the strikes is with the youth. Their teachers on strike leaves them without anything to do so they head out to, for example, flip cars and throw bottles at police. We haven’t seen much of the strike this time around, but this visual image will definitely stick with me, as the thought of this sort of thing happening in Kodiak is so far-fetched… striking teachers in Kodiak would lead to bonfires and sledding and probably a lot of TV watching.
Realizing that we were being by outside forced to relax, we headed back to Collioure to sit in the sun on the beach. Which is what we did for the next couple of hours. Téa and Bella built a great wall of China out of rocks, we all laid out on the beach and closed our eyes, and Téa ordered us all drinks with her lovely French (even at 6 it is much better than mine). A farewell meal of Sven’s always delicious steaks, another little girl bath bonanze and some major packing and we were done with out lovely week. Once the kids were out none of the adults wanted to go to bed as it felt so good to just sit around and visit…
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