Well, so here we are in Spain. When we touched down at Bilbao with yet another sixty kilos (and some) of crap we amassed in Dublin, Erik's mum and sister were there to welcome us. We drove home (well, Erik drove us home, but this time in his relatively new, gorgeous and huge Picasso!) We got home, unloaded all our stuff, had dinner and chilled out, as the next day we were all piling in the car to rack up some more ks on the road. This time from Mallabia (Erik's hometown) to Ourense, which is in Galicia, some 600k away. The reason? Erik's grandmother had her stomach removed (yes, removed, not operated on) due to a tumor. You never know how these things will turn out, so even though Erik only had one week of vacation time, we headed up for three days for him to get a chance to see her. I won't go into details of the trip, as 1) it's mostly a lot of waiting around in hospitals which is not really blog fodder and 2) this stuff is private and belongs to other people, so I feel I should respect that. I will mention though, one spectacular afternoon walk in the mountains, gorgeous food, and Yini, Erik's grandparents' dog, who is a lot of fun to play with, just like a little kid. We came back a couple of kilos heavier, but a little stressed out. Back to Mallabia by Wednesday, Alazne (Erik's sister) had a hot date so we burned rubber the 600k back to get here there on time!
From then on we had one day to chill out and hang out with Erik's mates. It was fiestas in Mallabia and on Thursday we went to see a pelotamano (handball) game. These crazy Basques have their own games, this one is a bit like sqash only you hit the ball with your hand instead of a raquet, and to add a bit of madness to the whole thing, the ball has a rock in it. Other popular Basque sports are lifting heavy rocks, and chopping wood. Even the kids have championships in it. After the match we had a go at some beers, and I had a go at Basque dancing. Erik has a video of it but I'm not posting it here, you'll have to bribe it out of me. I wasn' t the lightest on my feet by far but it was my first time! The live band played some Basque pop (weird) and we had a sing and a dance before the ritual stopover at the Mallabia bakery on the way home. Mmmm, fresh croissants.
Friday was packing, buying, sorting, shifting, messing, cleaning, folding, eating, moving, lifting, dropping, smashing, crying....well, not quite. But it was busy, and stressful. We didn't make it to the rock lifting but we did catch up for dinner with some mates of Erik, one of whom's wife was about to have a baby. Actually as I write I think they were going to induce the birth yesterday! So he's probably a proud daddy by now. Saturday we were in the car by 11:00 AM, amidst some tears (Erik's mum's) and sighs of relief (everyone else's) and on our way to Barcelona. Guess who drove?
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